Forget the DMV. If you want an example of a bureaucratic black hole, take a look at the San Francisco Housing Authority.

Mike Reed could throw a ticker-tape parade with all the paperwork he’s received from the agency in the past couple of years. All he did was ask for a rent increase on a unit in his building at Oak and Fillmore streets that he’s rented to the same low-income, Section 8 voucher holders since he bought the place 17 years ago.

Little did he know what a deluge of forms and confusion that would set off.

Section 8 vouchers are available to low-income people who pay 30 percent of their income toward rent on a private apartment, with the rest subsidized by the federally funded Housing Authority. About 3,500 landlords in San Francisco participate.

Reed has long received $2,100 for the unit in question and asked the agency two years ago for a rent increase. He figures he could get more than $5,000 a month on the large unit (which is three or four bedrooms, depending on how the dining room is used) if he fixed it up and rented it at market rate. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which funds the Housing Authority, set the rent maximum for Section 8 apartments in San Francisco at $3,927 for a three-bedroom unit and $4,829 for a four-bedroom one.

Back to Gallery Well-intentioned landlords hit brick wall at SF Housing... 3 1 of 3 Photo: Santiago Mejia, The Chronicle 2 of 3 Photo: Santiago Mejia / The Chronicle 2017 3 of 3 Photo: Santiago Mejia, The Chronicle





First, Reed was denied because he didn’t fill out the form to the agency’s specifications. He tried again in January 2016. The agency said he’d receive a monthly rent of $3,556 starting April 1, 2016, an amount he was happy about. After not seeing the money and dealing with more confusing paperwork, he was told by the agency in September that the rent would remain at $2,100.

More paperwork followed, all of it setting out different rent amounts and different start dates. The latest is that the rent should be $3,035 starting last month, despite Reed missing out on any extra money for all those previous months. The agency added that the tenant’s portion of the payment hadn’t been correct and that Reed would receive no money from the tenant for 18 months. He has a thick folder of contradictory letters from the agency, none of which made sense to me or him.

The Housing Authority itself couldn’t shed much light. It appears there was some confusion about whether the unit should be counted as having three bedrooms or four, which would affect the rent. Still, it’s unclear why that alone would account for so many discrepancies.

Spokeswoman Rose Dennis would say only, “The Housing Authority is grateful to the 3,500 landlords who do business with us every month. Anybody who is interested in the program should certainly contact us, and they will find it is well worth their while.”

Uh-huh.

Janan New, executive director of the San Francisco Apartment Association, said private landlords are hesitant to rent to Section 8 voucher holders. The tenants are usually great, she said. The Housing Authority? Not so much. She said landlords often can’t get their phone calls returned and if there’s a mix-up with rent payments, sorting it out can take ages.

“It’s a huge bureaucracy, and it’s hard to manage,” she said, adding civil service contracts can make it hard to do anything about problem employees.

“If they don’t do their jobs, it’s very difficult to crack down,” New said. “It would be like being a parent without having the ability to have a time-out chair.”

William Zaldana, a Section 8 advocate for the Housing Rights Committee, a tenants organization, said the Housing Authority is so backlogged with rent increase requests from landlords that answers are taking six months or more.

The picture for those seeking Section 8 vouchers isn’t good either. The waiting list is so long, the agency isn’t accepting new applications.

“There are people who have been waiting for 12 years and are still waiting for a voucher,” Zaldana said. “If you do receive a voucher and everything is approved, they give you four months to look for housing.”

As anybody who’s tried to find housing in San Francisco knows, that’s a quick turnaround, even if you can afford market rates. Many Section 8 voucher holders are taking them to eastern Contra Costa County or Sacramento. Of the 441 Section 8 vouchers issued by the San Francisco Housing Authority between February 2016 and January 2017, just 39 percent wound up being successfully used to lease apartments anywhere. Some expired, and the holders of others are still searching.

That’s why it’s important for the Housing Authority be prompt and straightforward with San Francisco landlords who are already in the program. After all, they’re trying to do the right thing in a city where affordable housing is scarce.

“I want people to have homes,” Reed said.

He’s certainly not your stereotypical landlord rolling in dough. The 65-year-old retired member of the sign and display allied crafts union said he makes just $1,300 a month between his pension and Social Security payments. He lives in a second unit in his building and collects $4,200 on a third, smaller unit that isn’t rented through Section 8. Without rental income, he couldn’t make it in the city, he said.

“I need rental income. I’m not some corporation,” he said. “It drives me crazy. What annoys me is you could probably settle this in an hour.”

When he’s not busy sorting through paperwork, he’s a foster parent to parrots. Seriously. I admit to being startled when entering his apartment and hearing 10 voices shouting from all corners of the unit, “Hello! How are you?” They were all parrots. How can you not like a guy who takes care of homeless parrots?

But it gets even better. Reed received yet another form from the agency just the other day. It was a standard letter telling landlords how to ask the agency for a rent increase.

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Heather Knight appears Tuesdays and Fridays. Email: hknight@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @hknightsf