By Heather Vogell, Image: Matthew Kam/ProPublica, ProPublica, February 7, 2022
Daniel Cooper could barely afford a tiny apartment at the 13-story Olume building in downtown San Francisco. But the expansive view from the roof deck captivated him.
Raised in a small city in Kentucky, Cooper was struck by the grandeur of the skyline before him, from the soaring heights of Salesforce tower, San Francisco’s largest skyscraper, to the gleaming gold cupolas atop St. Joseph’s Church, one of the city’s historic landmarks.
The sense of opportunity he felt when looking out on his new hometown helped convince the software engineer to become one of the glassy new building’s first tenants in 2016. He joined Mévis Mousbé, a driver for a ride-sharing service who had been the first to move in. She admired the high ceilings in her new junior studio on the sixth floor, which she shared with her Shih Tzu, Roxie-Jolie. A few months later, “Specs” Titus, an entrepreneur whose eyeglasses inspired her nickname, settled happily into a corner unit on the eighth floor with her daughter. She’d won it in a lottery for apartments with below-market rents.
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