San Francisco's Largest Corporate Landlord Receives Federal COVID-19 Small Business Loan
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) -- The city's largest corporate landlord, Veritas Investments, admits it applied for and received a Paycheck Protection Program small business loan for $3.6 million.
In a statement, Veritas defended its loan: "With our revenues deeply impacted and a lack of access to capital, we furloughed significant portions of our staff and implemented salary cuts across the board ... The PPP loan enables us to save the jobs of front line employees and is critical to our business operations."
The company has fewer than 200 employees. The federal Paycheck Protection program or PPE is earmarked for small businesses, which it defines as companies with fewer than 500 workers.
"They did it fair and square but it's not right," said San Francisco Supervisor Aaron Peskin, who believes Veritas did not deserve the loan.
"Most tenants and landlords are working it out," Peskin added. "Everybody's in this together. But Veritas has done a number of things before and during covid-19 that really are not acceptable to this society."
In a series of reports, KPIX 5 has profiled dozens of tenants who are suing Veritas, accusing the company of harassing rent-controlled tenants with constant renovations. Other tenants said they have endured rent increases as Veritas passed along its mortgage debt.
"I think a lot of tenants would say it's shocking, but also not surprising given the history of Veritas in San Francisco," said Brad Hirn, an activist with the Housing Rights Committee.
Hirn said Veritas should give the money back or share it with other businesses, including Veritas tenants who applied but didn't receive PPP payments.
According to the Census Bureau, only 38% of American businesses that asked for the PPP received the federal aid. In California, it's lower: only 21.5%percent received requested PPP.
"Most tenants are actually paying rent," said Hirn. "They are making those hard choices. They're giving unemployment or stimulus checks to their landlords. So this notion that they are losing revenue, that they are suffering a hardship, that they are a small business is insulting to the actually small businesses."
Veritas said it will use the money to bring back furloughed workers.
"These are the maintenance people, building managers and our resident services team who work hard every day to make sure our residents sheltering in place continue to receive the high quality living experience they deserve," the statement said.
