A network of SF housing nonprofits — TODCO, CCDC — and their political allies have killed hundreds of units, hidden finances behind 29 LLCs, and spent three-quarters of a billion dollars a year on homelessness while outcomes got worse. When SFMTA promised 465 affordable units at Potrero Yard, there was never funding to build them. The people running this system don't deliver housing — they control who gets it, block what they don't control, and convert the resulting scarcity into political power.
Read Top Post →SF’s homelessness budget swelled from $284M to over $750M in five years while unsheltered homelessness rose 22%. A civil grand jury found only 30–40% of people in city-funded programs end the year housed. The nonprofits consuming those dollars have built a political machine — supplying campaign volunteers, shaping ballot measures, and policing who counts as progressive — while a quarter of the city’s accidental overdose deaths now happen inside their buildings.
Aug 05, 2026 · 10 min
$1.63 billion flowed to 600+ nonprofit contractors last year — roughly 10% of SF’s budget — and 28% of those monitored failed to meet basic financial standards. Three weeks after a 248-page audit found $12M in unapproved spending at the SF Zoo, the Board unanimously approved an $8.5M bailout without asking a single question. The city has made nonprofits too essential to discipline: cut funding and services collapse, so the money keeps flowing regardless of performance.
Jun 01, 2026 · 8 min
SFMTA promised 465 affordable units atop Potrero Yard, then admitted there was never funding to build them. Community members spent eight years in working groups designing the housing. SFMTA cut 365 units; the Board of Supervisors called it a ‘tremendous policy failure’ — then voted 10-0 to approve anyway. The same system that blocks market-rate housing can’t deliver the subsidized housing it promises instead.
Apr 17, 2026 · 5 min
Malcolm Yeung controls 18 undisclosed LLCs tied to CCDC, earning $312K while the nonprofit loses $6.7M a year on $163M in assets. Auditors flagged ‘significant’ unreported revenue moving between entities and being eliminated from consolidated books. TODCO, the other anchor of this network, hasn’t built a home in 20 years — but its executives collect $777K in combined compensation while tenants live with rats and broken heat.
Mar 01, 2026 · 6 min
Two Providence Foundation employees allegedly stole $115,000 meant for the Oasis Family Shelter — approving invoices for painting and lock removal that never happened while the building rotted with rust and fungus. Dean Preston’s office had piloted the shelter as a COVID-era model, raising $100K in private funds and taking credit for launching a citywide program. The fraud charges landed on a nonprofit progressives had held up as proof their approach worked.
Jan 31, 2026 · 4 min
Robert Reich earned $385,529 teaching one class per semester — roughly $12,959 per hour — while blocking affordable housing near his Berkeley mansion. He’s now the public face of California’s proposed wealth tax, an unrealized-gains levy designed to seize startup founder supervoting shares. The pattern mirrors SF: use progressive language to accumulate power, block the housing that would help, then push policies that consolidate control.
Jan 27, 2026 · 4 min
Jane Kim blocked 495 units in a transit corridor after losing races for state Senate and mayor, then took a role at TODCO — the nonprofit that hasn’t built housing in two decades. Now she’s running for California Insurance Commissioner with plans to cap insurer profits and have the state become an insurer itself, at the exact moment State Farm and Allstate have stopped writing new California home policies. The playbook travels: block supply, blame the market, seek higher office.
Jan 23, 2026 · 3 min
