San Francisco — A $1.5 million San Francisco rental home on the market for more than 90 days has been seized under a new California law and given to a homeless drug addict named Bob.
Listed as a “spacious, open-concept turnkey home for the budget-minded,” the home went unoccupied for three months because it was really just a cardboard box “soaked in mud, alcohol, and possibly fecal matter and full of used syringes covered in old drugs and blood.”
The home was seized by the state under Senate Bill 1079, which “permits cities and counties to buy or take over a company’s residential property if it’s been vacant for at least 90 days.”
The law’s author, State Sen. Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley), said the transfer of the property from a faceless corporation to Bob is a “win-win.”
“There’s no justification for homes like this to be vacant,” Skinner said. “My new law gives local governments more tools to incentivize corporations to actually put people like Bob in great fixer-upper homes in great locations like this cardboard box.”
California Gov. Gavin Newsom agreed.
“This is what happens when we organize, when people come together to build the beloved community,” Newsom said.
