Many of the landlords who were named in the report denied wrongdoing.
Walter Raineri, a lawyer who was listed as the landlord for an apartment in a luxury building at 219 Brannan St., denied turning away a prospective tenant with a Section 8 voucher before hanging up the phone on The Standard.
“I have no knowledge of any such situation and will have to wait until I am contacted by someone who believes otherwise,” he said. “And I have no comment otherwise.”
Damon Fanucchi, owner of the Rental Source property management firm, said his agents are trained to encourage tenants with Section 8 vouchers to apply for apartments.
Text messages show that one of his employees told a prospective tenant that the landlord of a Valencia Street building would not accept Section 8; Fanucchi told The Standard that was a mistake.
“We don’t have a stake in turning people away. We know all the rules and don’t discriminate,” Fanucchi said by phone. “I’m a little bit shocked, because we tell the agents how to handle these things. If that’s what the agent said, it wasn’t right.”
He said he has owned the Rental Source for 25 years, and the company has several tenants with Section 8 vouchers who live at other properties.
“I wouldn’t have been in this business for so long if I was doing something shady,” Fanucchi said.
Other brokers, like Sotheby’s International Realty, did not respond to requests for comment. One landlord named by the watchdog, Danielle Monrroy, said she wasn’t able to give a statement as she had brain surgery scheduled for Friday morning.
Read More: Undercover op busts San Francisco landlords, watchdog says