Rendon said he visited the Bridge about once a month and paid his clients' rent — gleaned from the city's general fund — to Mohammed Shaikh. When asked whether he was aware of the class- action lawsuit, Rendon initially said he had heard about it from clients living at the motel, but had encouraged them to focus instead on rebuilding their lives.
Rendon never thought to check on the motel's reputation with the Department of Building Inspection or the Department of Public Health. If he had, he would have discovered what a recent city lawsuit referred to as an egregious pattern of code violations and inhumane conditions.
Frank Gaglione
Thanks to a class-action lawsuit, Anita Fritz and Tommy the cat now live in a roach-free room.
Frank Gaglione
The floors of the Bridge Motel have been uneven since the Loma Prieta earthquake.
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Rendon said he knew the motel bathrooms weren't great, but found out about the rest of the health and safety issues only this year. "The moment I did was the moment we started pulling folks out," he said. (After his first interview, Rendon called back and changed his story, claiming he learned about the class-action lawsuit only after all his clients had been moved out of the motel.)
In addition to the code violations and infestations during the time NoVA clients resided in the motel, there was a near-constant police presence, according to the city's lawsuit. Violence and drug use were commonplace, and occasionally somebody would report, say, a sex offender illegally living in the building. One time, the cops were called because a man was wildly swinging a golf club and throwing glass bottles out of a second-story window. Another time, a woman had thrown drug needles over a fence into a yard where children play.
According to San Francisco Police Officer Marty Lalor, the Sheriff's Department wasn't the only government organization placing vulnerable and potentially dangerous people at the Bridge. He said that until early this year, the state was sending parolees to live there. (Brian Clay, a deputy regional parole administrator, denies this, and said there have been no placements at the Bridge in the past two years.)
Regardless, the criminal activity in and around the Bridge seemingly had little to do with the NoVA program, Lalor said. (Since the clients were removed from the motel in April, arrests have continued, and the police have received more than 90 calls from the building.)
A larger concern is that NoVA residents may have been set up for failure. Although the department would not provide the names of clients, an evaluation of the program from July 2008 demonstrates that about a quarter of the 290 total NoVA clients dropped the program. Of the 59 placed at the Bridge Motel, a little more than half dropped out. Two Bridge clients were suspended from the program, and a third died.
In April, an informative meeting with the police department convinced the Sheriff's Department that the conditions at the Bridge weren't conducive to a fresh start for their clients. "We decided that it was not particularly well-managed," Hirst said.
On June 11, Judge John E. Munter ordered the Patels and the Shaikhs to cough up a total of $1.35 million, of which each named plaintiff would receive $17,500. After the lawyers took their fees, the rest of the money would be divided among the class.
Since the settlement, tenants admit that things around the Bridge Motel have been better. Each day, several people clean the hallways and bathrooms, and a building department inspector said that nearly all of the code violations have been corrected.
There is still a bedbug problem, the back door still has no lock, and the building itself is still tilted and still smells like a charnel house. The cops are still called out there almost daily. On the same day the city attorney's office filed an injunction against the Bridge, a female tenant was arrested for attempting to hijack a car from the gas station down the street.
That was on Oct. 26, nearly three years after Fritz and her neighbors took on the motel. In addition to finally taking action and filing the injunction, the city attorney's office sent out a self-congratulatory press release: "Herrera Sues Bridge Motel for 'Egregious Pattern of Crime, Safety Code Violations.'"
By that point, of course, the conditions were livable. Show up now, and it's as if the place had been decent all along.
Although Fritz, Stewart, and Evans say they are satisfied with the changes and continue to stay at the Bridge, they all have plans. Evans says that when he gets his final check, he's going to Oakland to live with his family again.
Stewart told Fritz on a recent night that he expects to buy himself a motor home to travel the country. "I'm working my way to get out of here on the first of the year," he said.
"Me too, darling. Me too," she answered.
Sometimes Fritz can't believe that after all these years, she's still living at the motel, but she has her reasons. At first, she stayed because her man was here. After they split up and she got involved in the lawsuit, she began to feel a renewed sense of purpose and obligation to the people around her. The feeling, she says, is not so different from the passion she felt for her old job at the ad agency.
Fritz hopes that her work at the Bridge Motel will have a lasting effect, and that the management will continue to take care of the building.
