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The three gradually became one.
Anita left in 1993 to be near her grandchildren in Modesto.
Goldie died the following year.
Ora is the last of the sisters on Lincoln Way, but she's not alone. In fact, four generations of the family are currently housed there -- Ora, her daughter, her granddaughter, and her great-grandson all live in the two-flat building. "Aunt Goldie" would have approved of the arrangement, but not of the nightmare that has consumed the home on Lincoln Way.
Under what is known as the Community Housing Rehabilitation Program, the federal government provides money to cities for the repair of worn-out homes owned by senior citizens. In theory, the program provides loans and management expertise to elderly people who have difficulty accessing standard financing and overseeing the complexities of home refurbishment projects.
In San Francisco, the Mayor's Office of Housing is charged with administering this federal loan program. This office, in turn, contracts with nonprofit agencies that manage the rehab projects.
Each of those projects is supposed to last about six months, from beginning to end. Ora Nance Lewis' home rehabilitation has been under way for more than two years, and there is literally no telling when -- or if -- construction will ever end.
Lewis contacted the Mayor's Office of Housing in March 1994 to begin a process that she thought would fix her housing problems. Her loan request was assigned to the Housing Conservation and Development Corp. (HCDC), a nonprofit housing agency.
More than a year later, work on the house hadn't begun yet, even though the residence on Lincoln Way had been in bad condition to begin with, and was deteriorating rapidly.
Pacific Gas & Electric had issued warnings that the furnace was leaking gas and had to be replaced. The main floor of the house no longer had heat or running water. Lewis' family had been forced to configure a makeshift bedroom for her in the living room of the downstairs unit. There was a roof leak in the upstairs kitchen that, as bureaucrats puttered, grew to a hole large enough to let pigeons fly inside. The upstairs leaks let in water that caused a good portion of the downstairs kitchen ceiling to cave in, too.
In July 1995 -- a mere 16 months after Lewis first sought help -- the nonprofit HCDC suggested that the project might be speeded up if Lewis hired a private structural engineer to complete an inspection of the house. She did so, at a cost of $550. Things didn't speed up.
Two months later, the Lewises were told that a paperwork problem was holding up work on the house. Goldie had willed the home to Lewis and her daughter, Teryl Whitaker, who is next in the matriarchal lineage of the Nance clan. This ownership arrangement conflicted with the government's rules. So Whitaker's name was removed from the deed, leaving an aging Lewis as the sole owner of the property.
Even so, it wasn't until five months later that Lewis signed the final paperwork for her rehabilitation loan. And approval of the loan didn't exactly get the project hopping.
Lewis wrote Mayor Willie Brown twice asking for help. Her second plea, sent in April 1996, described the situation this way:
"If the repairs are not attended to soon, I believe I will have no choice but to sell the lot and find someplace else to live. The home would have to be demolished I'm sure, because I cannot afford the repairs on my fixed income."
A month later, Lewis received the following response from Addie Wallace, a rehabilitation manager for the HCDC.
"We hope that you were satisfied with the services our staff offered you. Our records show that you have an outstanding balance of $10 for the credit report. ... It has been our pleasure to serve you. Tell your friends about us."
Repair work on Lewis' house finally began in June 1996 -- 27 months after she applied for assistance. The problems, however, were far from over.
Because the housing rehab program that Lewis applied to involves public funds, government regulations dictate that construction work go to the "lowest responsible bidder."
Sun Construction Co., owned by Daniel Sun, offered the lowest bid to fix Lewis' home; it was $51,720. In fact, the Sun proposal was $13,000 lower than the next closest bid. The HCDC deemed the bid acceptable, passed along three references that Sun had provided, and left Lewis to make a decision. On the advice of staff from the HCDC and the Mayor's Office of Housing, Lewis agreed to hire Sun.
The contract between Sun and Lewis was signed Sept. 6, 1995. But for some unexplained reason, paperwork continued to crawl through various bureaucracies while Lewis' house fell down around her. Work didn't officially begin at the site until nine months later.
According to the contract, construction on Lewis' house was supposed to take no more than 60 days. More than 365 days later, it's still not finished. Daniel Sun refused to comment for this story, and repeated calls to his attorney were not returned.
But interviews of others involved with the project and a review of public records detail a litany of reasons for this absurdly lengthy delay in completion.
For one thing, although there were electrical, plumbing, and roofing subcontractors, Sun used just two of its own employees on the Lewis project. Independent contractors estimate that with a two-man crew, the work on the Lewis house would likely take six to eight months.
Also, it seems likely that Sun underbid the project. According to correspondence on the project, Sun wanted more money to complete the work almost as soon as its bid was accepted.
Sun argued that the house had deteriorated significantly, and costs had therefore increased, during the yearlong delay between its bid and the start of construction. But Sun was locked into the contract.
