Sam Green just wanted to get his wallet from his Tenderloin apartment Saturday night, almost a month after a fire displaced him and roughly 130 others.
What he found was devastation: $5,000 worth of stolen property, including his Apple Vision Pro, power tools, and cameras. Someone had ransacked the place so thoroughly that he couldn’t see the floor. A toilet had been soiled — one final indignity.
“The feeling you get when you return to your home, and you discover that you have been burglarized is bad enough,” Green said. “But that combines with the fact that we have been trying to do everything right, and this was our big fear.”
Green’s visit ended with six police officers pointing weapons at him — five sidearms and a shotgun — after a private security guard reported him for trespassing and falsely claimed he had a firearm. Green said he spent more than two hours in handcuffs before being cited and released.
The episode encapsulates a month of indignities suffered by residents of the six-story Beaux Arts building at 50 Golden Gate Ave. since a three-alarm blaze Dec. 12. Tenants say the property manager, Mosser Companies, has been largely unresponsive to hundreds of calls and emails while their belongings have been stolen from unsecured apartments.
The inadequate response began within hours of the blaze. As tenants huddled on two Muni buses parked nearby, a Mosser representative circulated a notebook asking them to list their unit numbers, valuables, and where those valuables were located, according to Hugh Leeman, who lived in a fourth-floor studio in the building for more than 20 years. The representative promised to retrieve tenants’ belongings, Leeman said, but an hour later apologized, saying it wouldn’t be possible. A second notebook went around. Another apology followed.
“Why did you need a second notebook?” Leeman said. “It implies that the first notebook was either insufficient or it’s no longer in your possession.”
In the weeks since, Leeman said, tenants have received geolocation alerts indicating that their stolen devices have been moved — some as far as the border with Mexico. A debit card was stolen and used fraudulently. Checks were taken from Leeman’s unit and cashed, he claimed. “Either the building is not secure, as they’ve said it is, or someone under their employ or contract is responsible,” he said.
Mosser Companies did not respond to requests for comment. In a Dec 19. email viewed by The Standard, the property manager agreed to return December’s rent to all displaced tenants. As of Wednesday, just 1 of 36 residents surveyed had received a check, according to Leeman and other tenants. Meanwhile, Mosser claims that city rules prevent tenants from accessing their apartments.
San Francisco Police Department Capt. Matt Sullivan said officers have been conducting regular patrols of the building and have received three burglary reports. He acknowledged the challenge of preventing break-ins when fire-damaged roofs and windows can be breached.
A Dec. 27 incident report filed by a San Francisco Fire Department commander and released Wednesday said the fire began in the living room of a sleeping tenant’s unit and was caused by “failure of equipment or heat source” involving rechargeable lithium-ion batteries. A battalion chief estimated the fire caused $2 million in structural damage and $1 million in damage to contents. The building’s smoke detectors, a combination system with plug-in battery backup, operated properly and alerted occupants, the report found. A wet-pipe sprinkler system was also activated, but the fire began outside the area protected by the sprinklers. It’s unclear when — or if — the building will be safe to occupy again.
In the days after the fire, Leeman said, Mosser offered to return security deposits — a move that would terminate leases and end tenants’ right to return.
The San Francisco-based real estate company at its peak in 2019 owned hundreds of low- to midsize apartment buildings across the West Coast. But since the pandemic, it has been in financial distress due to diminished revenues and loan payments coming due.
In 2024, The Standard reported that CEO Neveo Mosser was battling his adopted sister and nephews in court as they sought to have him forcibly removed from the company for alleged mismanagement. They claimed he had used their family trust’s properties, including the business, for personal benefit. In November, a judge ordered both sides to participate in mediation. Mosser cannot lend or move money from trust-owned properties to himself or certain entities without court approval.
On Monday, an eviction notice was filed against the company at its Jessie Street address. A lawyer representing Mosser Companies told The Standard the filing has been “amicably resolved” under confidential terms.
At a meeting Wednesday at City Hall between city officials and building tenants, Deputy City Attorney Hunter Sims said Mosser has been on the office’s radar “for decades.” He declined to reveal details but said, “It is a little bit of a pattern and practice that I’ve seen more recently.”
Gardenia Zuniga-Haro, a former building resident who has organized support for current residents, said many fear retaliation if they speak publicly. She said some tenants have moved to other Mosser properties with the understanding that the company would honor their below-market rent, then received notices demanding fees of up to $1,000.
The displacement has fallen hardest on vulnerable tenants: seniors, people with disabilities, and immigrants with limited English proficiency. During the meeting at City Hall, one woman broke down in tears as she described her fruitless attempts to secure housing for herself and her 92-year-old mother-in-law.
“You keep on saying you understand,” said the woman, who has moved to temporary housing far from her workplace. “We are treated worse than homeless people.”
A Human Services Agency representative working with displaced tenants defended the department’s response, saying her team of two has been working late into the night processing applications. She said the city’s Temporary Assistance for Displaced Persons program typically provides hotel stays of up to three weeks but has been sheltering tenants for five weeks now.
But some tenants remain ineligible for assistance because they have modest savings; the program cuts off anyone with $30,000 in assets. Supervisor Bilal Mahmood said he plans to introduce legislation to raise the threshold to $130,000, matching Medi-Cal eligibility standards. “This is about dignity and stability in moments of crisis,” Mahmood said in a statement. “No family displaced by fire should be left without shelter, support, or a clear path back to permanent housing.”
Mauricio Hernandez, chief of code enforcement for the Department of Building Inspection, confirmed that the building was downgraded Friday from a red tag to a yellow tag, which permits entry to five of the six floors. He said there are no city restrictions preventing Mosser from allowing tenants to retrieve their belongings. “That is a miscommunication that we are clearing up with the property owner,” Mahmood said.
Late Wednesday, the property manager sent an email to tenants stating that access to the building by appointment would begin this weekend.
If the Golden Gate building ever reopens, Green won’t be returning. As he works to recoup some of what was stolen from his apartment through insurance, he has made it his “mission” to make clear “how this stuff could have been so much easier if you just treated people with empathy.”
“Mosser will not get another dollar from me,” Green said. “Oftentimes, being kind is actually the most efficient way to resolve a situation. And nobody deserves this.”