The Guardian
· collected 2026-10-08 · by Robin Buller in San Francisco
To say that Maria Zamudio and her team have been busy lately would be a gross understatement.
asserted
Zamudio → say → ?
Every Monday at 9am, the phone lines at the downtown clinic of San Francisco’s Housing Rights Committee start ringing, and they keep ringing until closing at 5 pm.
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they → start → pm
In-person counseling appointments for renters facing eviction or landlord misconduct fill days in advance.
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appointments → face → advance
After every weekend, the staff of seven sits in their office and sifts through more than 150 voicemails.
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staff → sit → voicemails
The rental assistance hotline averages 200 calls a week.
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hotline → average → calls
“Our clinic is completely at capacity,” said Zamudio, the non-profit’s executive director.
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Zamudio → say → capacity
San Franciscans have long been squeezed by high rents.
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Franciscans → squeeze → rents
The pressure spikes during the city’s legendary boom periods and is worsened by its struggle to build enough affordable housing.
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pressure → spike → housing
Now, the AI industry – with its high salaries and the astronomical paydays it promises shareholders when firms go public – is pushing rents higher still.
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firms → promise → rents
Today, the average one-bedroom in the city by the Bay costs $4,400, a figure that is up more than 25% from last year and that is nearly three times the national average.
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that → cost → 4,400
The exuberant prices have meant that even people with six-figure salaries can have a hard time finding housing.
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people → mean → housing
And for the city’s most vulnerable groups, it has meant it’s simply increasingly hard just to survive.
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it → mean → groups
Roughly two-thirds of residents in San Francisco rent, and the city has stronger tenant protections than most US cities, including rent control on more than 160,000 of its more than 250,000 units.
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city → rent → units
But landlords looking to cash in on the boom are exploiting loopholes that leave tenants exposed to surprise rent hikes, condo conversions and mass evictions.
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that → look → hikes
Calculations by the San Francisco rent board show eviction notices are up 44% citywide compared to last year.
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notices → show → year
In September, the city’s mayor Daniel Lurie declared a “rent emergency”.
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mayor → declare → emergency
Pointing to soaring costs driven by the AI boom, he proposed funding for eviction legal aid, larger payments to displaced renters and caps on rent increases for newly vacant rent-controlled units.
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he → point → units
Critics say the measures address symptoms, not causes.
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measures → say → symptoms
“This is San Francisco on repeat,” said Quintin Mecke, executive director of the San Francisco Council of Community Housing Organizations, “We treat housing like a commodity rather than a home that people have a right to, and we don’t learn any lessons.
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we → say → lessons
The dynamic is especially pronounced in neighborhoods such as SoMa and Mission Bay, the industrial and waterfront neighborhoods which are home to the offices of AI giants such as Anthropic and OpenAI.
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which → pronounce → Anthropic
Anand Singh, of the hospitality and tourism union Unite Here, said he’s heard stories of tenants facing 40% rent hikes in recent months.
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he → say → months
“When margins are as slim as they are, an extra $100 per month is easily enough to stress test a person’s ability to live in the city,” Singh said.
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Singh → live → city
State law caps annual increases on some units, but newer buildings are exempt from limitations entirely.
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buildings → cap → limitations
Rent control, which applies to many buildings in the city built before 1979, is also meant to shield tenants from big shocks, but in boom times, it can perversely incentivize landlords to oust long-term tenants who pay below-market rent so they can relet the unit at market rate.
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they → apply → rate
A growing number of landlords are relying on legal pathways to do so, advocates say.
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advocates → grow → pathways
Under the Ellis Act, a property owner can evict every tenant in a building if they go out of the rental business, and thereafter sell the vacant property.
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they → evict → property
And with properties selling for as much as $1m over asking price to buyers working in AI, these evictions are popping up more and more.
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evictions → sell → AI
Some are predicated on turning long-term rental units into luxury condos to sell at a massive profit.
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Some → predicate → profit
On Powell Street in San Francisco’s North Beach neighborhood – just a mile and change from the Anthropic headquarters – the new owners of a seven-unit building occupied by the same tenants for decades are trying to combine the units into four larger, upscale condos.
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owners → occupy → condos
San Francisco also allows eviction for “just causes”, including nonpayment and lease violations.
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Francisco → allow → violations
Increasingly, landlords are designing circumstances that trap renters into missteps, such as by changing the way rent is collected from in-person to online platforms, organizers say.
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organizers → design → platforms
When a rent-controlled building in the Tenderloin changed hands after the original owners defaulted on their loan, for example, many residents were not told that they needed to re-route their monthly payments.
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they → control → payments
When those tenants paid the old landlord instead, they were issued nonpayment eviction notices en masse.
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they → pay → masse
Speculating on a big AI-fuelled payday, some landlords are growing increasingly brazen in their efforts to provoke this type of “self-eviction” by refusing to address infestations, repair broken appliances or collect trash, housing advocates said.
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advocates → speculate → trash
Others do what are colloquially known as “renovictions”: remodels that are loud, inconvenient, unnecessary and designed to annoy a resident so much that they leave.
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they → do → resident
Zamudio said her organization has seen a 23% increase in landlord disputes related to repairs over the past year.
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organization → say → year
Danny Sauter, a city supervisor whose district covers much of downtown, said that renters now feel uneasy when their landlords move to make improvements.
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landlords → cover → improvements
“All of a sudden their landlord is paying attention and wanting to fix something that has been broken for years,” he said.
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he → pay → years
“Folks are getting nervous.”
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Folks → get → ?
Predatory landlords are counting on certain tenants, especially those who are older or who speak limited English, to quietly move on.
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who → count → English
…and 70 more, not listed.
The Aporia
