On Wednesday morning, as San Francisco crews towed RVs in the Bayview, Yerservi M. and his pregnant wife Katia S., stayed inside their home, terrified that stepping out would mean losing it. Officials eventually left, towing three unattended RV homes without permits instead. _Lee esta historia en español_ Hours later, the threat of a tow truck was replaced by a different city presence: investigators questioning the couple about a city worker with the Homeless Outreach Team (HOT) team who they say sold them a parking permit they desperately needed for $500 in cash. **Left:** Melissa Millsaps, an investigator for the San Francisco City Attorney’s Office, and Eric Karsseboom, an inspector with the District Attorney’s Office, speak with Yerservi M. about allegations that a Homeless Outreach Team worker sold him a Large Vehicle Refuge Permit in San Francisco on Dec. 17, 2025.**Right:** Melissa Millsaps, an investigator for the City Attorney’s Office, stands nearby as an RV is towed during two-hour parking enforcement in San Francisco on Dec. 17, 2025. Photos: Pablo Unzueta for El Tecolote/CatchLight Local After weeks of having their appeals for a Large Vehicle Refuge Permit denied, the couple said they felt they were running out of options. According to the couple, whose last names are withheld for privacy, a van emblazoned with “HOT” branding pulled up alongside their RV in the Bayview during the afternoon on Nov. 19. The outreach worker lowered the window, accepted an initial installment of $100 in cash and handed him a permit sticker — the only exemption from the city’s new two-hour RV parking rules and a permit that is supposed to be issued free of charge to qualifying households. The couple said the worker instructed Yerservi to place the sticker on the RV window at night and told them they would need to pay the remaining balance the following week. “The next morning, I woke up, and it was gone,” Katia said. “I regret not taking a photo of it.” Adhesive residue consistent with the size and shape of a Large Vehicle Refuge Permit sticker remains visible on the window of the couple’s RV. ### Become a member of El Tecolote: Meet the moment for immigrant, working-class Latinos Join Now! The couple told _El Tecolote_ about the alleged permit sale the following day, on Nov. 20. After the newsroom contacted the Department of Emergency Management, city officials said permits are not for sale and that the allegation would be taken seriously. _El Tecolote’s_ inquiry was quickly escalated to senior city officials. “When something like this happens, they need to pause their [program],” said Jennifer Friedenbach, executive director of the Coalition on Homelessness. “It just opens up the door for exploitation, and that’s exactly what happens.” Homeless Outreach Team officials work with RV residents during a permitting event on Toland Street in the Bayview neighborhood of San Francisco on Oct. 28, 2025. Beginning Nov. 1, a citywide policy limited large vehicles from parking on city streets for more than two hours, making them subject to ticketing or towing.. Photo: Pablo Unzueta for El Tecolote/CatchLight Local Friedenbach said her organization also received reports from other unpermitted RV residents in November alleging that a HOT outreach worker was offering to sell refuge permits. She notified HOT officials on Nov. 19 and was scheduled to discuss the allegations on Nov. 21 but did not hear back. “They just totally ghosted me,” she said, adding that she later filed a whistleblower complaint with the city. ## **A vulnerable community gets targeted for exploitation** Bob Kaufman’s unpermitted RV is towed during two-hour parking enforcement in San Francisco on Dec. 17, 2025. The same day, city investigators questioned RV residents about allegations that a Homeless Outreach Team worker was selling permits for cash. Photo: Pablo Unzueta for El Tecolote/CatchLight Local In text messages and a voice memo obtained by _El Tecolote_ , Yerservi communicated for weeks with the outreach worker in Spanish. The calls took place first on a city-issued phone, before moving over to the worker’s personal number, where Yerservi sent at least six messages in an attempt to get his money back. In one text on Nov. 24, Yerservi wrote, “You are really playing with the necessities of people.” The following day the outreach worker responded in a voice memo, saying he would return the money on his own and that “everything went bad.” He added that he did not know what had happened with “the other guy,” or if “he got in trouble.” It remains unclear who that individual is or whether they work for HOT. “He told me many times that he would give me my money back, but he always claimed that he was sick, or that his friend had the money,” Yerservi told _El Tecolote_. “He told me to stop calling him on his work phone, because they were investigating them.” On Nov. 26, the outreach worker replied: “Annoying brat, I didn’t go to work today.” Still without his money back, Yerservi sent two more messages on Dec. 2. At 1:01 p.m., the outreach worker responded with laughing and middle-finger emojis, marking what appears to be the last communication between the two. What appear to be the final text messages exchanged between Yerservi M. and an alleged Homeless Outreach Team worker, who used a personal phone number after instructing Yerservi to stop calling his work-issued phone. The couple described the worker as a man with a long beard and a medium build, who spoke with what they identified as a Cuban or Puerto Rican accent and wore a green “HOT” work jacket. When _El Tecolote_ asked the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing who the city-issued phone number belonged to, spokesperson Emily Cohen declined to comment. Records reviewed by _El Tecolote_ show the number was previously assigned to Rann Parker, who served as director of the Homeless Outreach Team in 2015. ## **How San Francisco is responding to oversight** City officials said the allegation is under investigation and did not dispute the authenticity of the messages reviewed by _El Tecolote_. “We take any allegation of misconduct extremely seriously,” Jackie Thornhill, communications manager for the Department of Emergency Management, wrote in an email. “The city took the appropriate action when notified, and the matter is being investigated. We remain committed to the integrity of this program and to ensuring it operates fairly, transparently, and in service of those it is intended to help.” Yet the city’s oversight of the program appears limited. Katia S., 30, who is nine months pregnant, looks out the window of her RV to see whether police have left during two-hour parking enforcement in San Francisco on Dec. 17, 2025. The couple said they do not have a permit and that a Homeless Outreach Team worker allegedly offered to sell them a Large Vehicle Refuge Permit for $500. Photo: Pablo Unzueta for El Tecolote/CatchLight Local In response to a public records request on Nov. 7 seeking any data the Mayor’s Office maintains to track the issuance of RV permits, the city issued four separate “no responsive records” determinations, indicating the office holds no such data. When asked why the office that initiated the program does not track permit issuance or enforcement outcomes, particularly in light of the allegations, a spokesperson for the Mayor declined to comment. For Katia and her husband, there is little time to wait. Without the permit, and having to deal with the city at their doorstep every week, the anxiety has set in. The 30-year-old is scheduled to give birth in less than two weeks, but is unsure if they will return with their RV still there. “Where am I going to go with my baby?” she said. Katia S., 30, holds Yerservi M.’s hand on her belly outside their RV in the Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhood of San Francisco on Nov. 7, 2025. The couple said they were repeatedly denied a Large Vehicle Refuge Permit in November. Photo by Pablo Unzueta for El Tecolote/CatchLight Local _Yesica Prado contributed investigative research to this story._

Mickey mouse city we‘re running here. (aleged) Homeless outreach team members selling fake RV permits to desperate people (using their #sfgov phones. Excellent reporting by #eltecolote

https://eltecolote.org/content/en/rv-permit-cash-scam/

All Ilsi wanted was her hard-earned tips. At a Subway in San Francisco’s Tenderloin, the 44-year-old worked 11-hour shifts, five days a week making sandwiches, ringing up orders and cleaning the floors. As the store’s only employee, she handled the workload of two or three people, all for $18.07 an hour. One day, a customer offered a $50 tip, but only if she was guaranteed to receive it. Ilsi said yes. But when she checked her paycheck, the money wasn’t there. _Lea esta historia en español._ “I had calculated that I had made around $400 in tips, but when my paycheck came, it only showed $180,” she said. “I thought maybe I had miscalculated. But then the next paycheck came, and it was the same.” Ilsi, who asked to be identified by her nickname for privacy, is a Guatemalan immigrant who arrived in San Francisco in 2018. With limited English and few job options, work at a Subway seemed like a blessing. “I was happy that I had a lot of hours,” Ilsi said. “But then I found out I had a right to receive overtime [pay].” Her fight for fair wages — and her courage under retaliation — helped spark an investigation into wage theft across seven Subway franchises in San Francisco, ultimately leading to a $1.7 million citation against her former bosses. Christopher Van Buren and Marta Gebreslasie were cited by the California Labor Commissioner’s office late last year. The married couple, who are simultaneously facing a court order to comply with labor laws, did not appeal the citation by Friday, locking in the amount. Ilsi is one of 81 current and former workers whom state investigators found were underpaid, denied overtime and paid sick leave and prevented from taking required meal and rest breaks between March 2021 and September 2024. “I never wanted to cause them problems,” Ilsi said. “But I want all workers to be well paid for their work, for their effort.” Ilsi wears her work uniform in front of her former Subway workplace in the Tenderloin neighborhood in San Francisco, Calif. on March 12, 2025. Photo: Erika Carlos ## An immigrant worker speaks up Wage theft is rampant in California, where rising inequality and soaring costs of living have made precarious jobs common. ### Be a wise owl. Subscribe to our newsletter! Sign up Every year, thousands of workers file claims, amounting to hundreds of millions in stolen wages. A recent Rutgers study found some 1.5 million low-wage workers in California were victims of minimum wage violations in 2023 — more than double the number a decade earlier. The most vulnerable workers — immigrants, non-English speakers and those with limited legal protections — are often the hardest hit. In this San Francisco case, it’s evident that Van Buren and Gebreslasie specifically targeted newly arrived, monolingual immigrants. “They wanted people who didn’t say anything, who didn’t talk about anything, who didn’t complain about anything,” Ilsi said. For Ilsi, the turning point came after a chance meeting with an organizer from Trabajadores Unidos Workers United (TUWU), a San Francisco-based immigrant worker center. When Ilsi asked about the missing tips, TUWU explained her rights. Together, Ilsi and TUWU visited another Subway location under the same ownership to talk to other workers about their paychecks. The pattern of underpayment was clear. “I wasn’t even looking into the overtime, or the breaks, or the lunch, or the other things they were doing wrong. I just wanted to know about the tips,” Ilsi said. “The very next day after I visited that store, my boss came and fired me.” TUWU and its partner Legal Aid at Work shared their findings with the Bureau of Field Enforcement, prompting investigators to inspect all seven Subway locations, interview staff, depose the owners and subpoena payroll records. Miriam Medellín Myers, an organizer with TUWU, intervened and arranged a mediation with San Francisco’s Office of Labor Standards Enforcement, forcing Ilsi’s employer to reinstate her. But it wouldn’t be her last time at City Hall. Last summer, the Labor Commissioner’s office issued a notice ordering Van Buren and Gebreslasie to halt labor violations. To draw attention to the case, TUWU led workers in a rally on the steps of City Hall, and soon after, the Board of Supervisors passed a nonbinding resolution urging the owners to pay their workers. Meanwhile, Subway’s real estate arm evicted the couple’s companies, Marvan Enterprises and Van Buren Enterprises, from two locations, with the third in process, court records show. In January, the Labor Commissioner’s office sought a court order to force the owners to comply with wage laws. Workers’ declarations reveal how the owners and a manager manipulated payroll records to suppress wages, an apparent violation of Subway’s franchise contract. ## Print isn’t dead for Latinos! Buy a subscription and get 25 issues/yr for you or a friend! Buy now “The owner-operators and store manager attempted to cover up the failure to pay overtime by manipulating the ADP point of service system by manually decreasing the hours worked, which was captured in the system,” the Labor Commissioner’s office told the court. In February, Van Buren, who did not respond to a request for comment, denied all allegations in a court filing. The case remains ongoing. Subway’s corporate office, for its part, is examining the San Francisco franchises. “We take these matters very seriously and are looking into the alleged claims,” a spokesperson for Subway said. “Our restaurants are independently owned and operated, and franchisees are required to follow federal, state and local laws.” ## Wage theft persists in fast-food industry Despite the citation and lawsuits, workers are still accusing Van Buren and Gebreslasie of underpayment. “We’ve continued to hear from workers that are still getting paid sub-minimum wages,” said Kim Ouillette, director of Legal Aid at Work’s wage protection program. “It’s just been really disappointing to see that the employer is still persisting with many of their unlawful practices.” Ouillette said her staff has observed a pattern of abuse at other Subway franchises. In 2023, a court ordered a North Bay Subway operator to pay $1 million in stolen wages. In Southern California, a Subway worker is currently suing for $54,000. “They try to cut costs and make profit is through labor violations,” Ouillette said. “We hope that this citation is enough to show this Subway [franchise] and all other fast food franchises in the Bay Area that if you do not pay minimum wage to all of your workers, there will be consequences.” For Medellín Myers and company at TUWU, the Subway case has been a logistically challenging: Workers speak four different languages, requiring multiple Spanish, Nepali and Burmese interpreters at every monthly gathering. “This case has been really amazing to see how people can organize despite linguistic barriers, and still support each other, even though they’re not from the same country,” she said. ## The long road to back pay Holding wage thieves accountable isn’t easy. Workers often wait years to recover stolen wages. Medellín Myers advises them it can take up to a decade to be fully repaid. Under state law, the Labor Commissioner’s process is supposed to take 135 days to have a hearing. Yet between 2017 and 2021, the average wait time was 505 days. To speed up the process, Legal Aid at Work and California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation have teamed up with State Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) on new legislation. Senate Bill 310, introduced in February would allow workers to sue their employers for penalties without waiting on state agencies. For Ilsi, it’s not just about money — it’s about justice. She now works at another Subway, where she gets meal and rest breaks covered by co-workers. Her paycheck adds up with tips and overtime. “I’m there because I’ve always liked customer service,” Ilsi said. “[My boss] is very exact in her payments.” But she knows the fight isn’t over. “I want them to pay,” Ilsi said. “Not just in money, but by stopping the exploitation of more workers.” _Erika Carlos contributed to this report._ **Correction:** _Ilsi was earning $18.07 per hour, not $18.67, when she discovered her former Subway employers were stealing her tips._

Several Subway sandwich locations in #SanFrancisco have been stealing workers’ tips and otherwise violating their rights. Via #eltecolote
https://eltecolote.org/content/en/sf-subway-wage-theft/