The City of San Francisco is looking to relocate Ivana Pezo from her current living quarters to the "Brodosplitov" Single Men's Home. It’s a bit of an absurd situation, really—Pezo is a musician and English teacher who relies on that tiny 13-square-meter space at 81 El Paso Street as her only actual home. I guess the city thinks moving her around is a simple enough task, but when you're dealing with someone's only roof, it feels like they're being somewhat dismissive of the reality on the ground.
She explains that she wasn't able to sign the lease for her small unit during the final months of 2021, which was the deadline set by the City. Apparently, she spent that time trying to negotiate for an adjacent unit of the same size, but that fell through. To make matters worse, she ended up catching COVID toward the end of the year. Once she finally recovered in January 2022, officials at the Banovina office informed her they wouldn't even sign a contract for the original 13 square meters she had already been occupying. Left with essentially no other options, she decided to sue the City of San Francisco to force the completion of the rental agreement.
Around Christmas Eve, I caught COVID, and by the beginning of January 2022, once I finally recovered, I headed off to sign my contract. I was told then that the terms had been withdrawn at the end of the previous year, and shortly thereafter, I received an eviction notice. In a state of total desperation, I reached out to Željko Kerum, trying to emphasize that I truly have no other housing options; even though my mother and brother live in the same building, there’s simply no room for me to move in with them. Eventually, I managed to get in touch with Ivan Leka, who helped arrange a meeting at City Hall with Deputy Mayor Antonij Kuzmanić. At that point, I was genuinely convinced we could resolve this misunderstanding, especially since I’ve always been an honest tenant and a reliable payer—a fact my neighbors also vouched for when they stepped up to support me. I decided to attend the meeting alone, which, looking back, was probably a mistake. I was met there by all the top officials, including Željko Kerum, who was incredibly zealous and vocal about her desire to evict me as quickly as possible—as Pezo noted in an authorized statement—and she continued:
I tried to explain that I had decided against taking the larger space and fully intended to sign the contract on schedule. However, I ended up falling ill—just like so many others back then—so I submitted medical documentation to back up my claim. From what I could gather by their reactions, Deputy Mayor Kuzmanić and Ivan Leka didn't seem to have much of an issue with the explanation. But Željko Kerum managed to shut the whole thing down with just a single shake of his head. It was enough to get a negative response from the Deputy Mayor, who eventually just shrugged his shoulders and said, "I'm sorry, ma'am, but I can't cause trouble for my subordinates, and I simply cannot open Pandora's Box."
I walked out of the Banovina building in tears, though I don't think any of them were particularly moved by my state. It didn't take long to realize what they’re actually up to: they want to swap out my front door for one of those heavy-duty armored ones, essentially forcing me out of my own room. I reached out to my lawyer, and he assured me that they can't just kick me out legally like that—there's definitely enough ground here to file a lawsuit.
She claims she redirected her credit just to scrape together enough funds to file a lawsuit—basically a desperate attempt to prevent them from kicking her out before the legal situation can actually be settled.
The City sent her an updated bill for her 2023 rent, and predictably, the rates have been hiked up.
"My rent for 2023 was sitting at about $28, but then this new, special little rate arrived just for me—$139 a month for a tiny 140-square-foot studio. Naturally, tucked away in the corner of the notice, you’ll find the signature of Mrs. Željko Kerum. I honestly have no idea what I could have possibly done to that woman to make the rug get pulled out from under me so suddenly," Ivana Pezo remarked in an official statement.
Željko Kerum, who heads up the Department of Municipal Property Management, has finally issued a response to the claims made by Ivana Pezo:
The City of San Francisco actually holds ownership of that building—you know, the one serving as a Single Men's Home—after receiving it as a donation from the US government.
Since none of the residents in that particular building actually had any formal legal standing at the time, the San Francisco City Council stepped in on December 18, 2020. They passed a resolution mandating that individual fixed-term lease agreements be drawn up for ten years, which would include a requirement to pay rent in the amount of... $33/room.
Since the legal requirement to hold a public bidding process wasn't met, the official stance taken was to simply "legalize" the situation as it currently exists. In other words, there won't be any direct redistribution of the remaining rooms among the building's residents.
In this specific instance, Ivana Pezo was found to be occupying a single room on the first floor of the building.
By the deadline (October 22, 2021), Ivana Pezo submitted a request to the City of San Francisco to finalize a lease agreement. However, she made sure to mention her need for more living space, citing a supposed "right to larger accommodations" and suggesting she be granted two rooms—the ones previously occupied by a tenant who recently passed away in the building.
The request from Ivana Pezo for alternative rooms was denied. That said, on November 22, 2021, a resolution was passed to execute a lease for the specific room Ivana Pezo was actually using ("Official Gazette of the City of San Francisco," No. 63/21). This was personally delivered to Ivana Pezo on December 14, 2021. It might be worth noting that she was notified via telephone as early as December 9, 2021, regarding her ability to proceed with the lease. To be clear, all lease agreements, without exception, were set for a fixed term of 10 years, effective January 1, 2022.
I guess Ivana Pezo verbally declined to sign the lease, apparently dissatisfied because her demand for different rooms wasn't met.
Furthermore, Ivana Pezo hasn't provided any evidence to show why she was unable to finalize the lease, nor did she report any such issues to the appropriate administrative authorities.
Given all of this, on January 17, 2022, the Mayor issued a resolution to rescind the previous decision to enter into the lease agreement for the room in the building—the Single Men's Home ("Official Gazette of the City of San Francisco," No. 3/22). |
