Andrew Szeto
Andrew Szeto is a writer and activist from San Francisco. He works as a tenant organizer at San Francisco Tenants Union, and is a graduate student in ethnic studies at San Francisco State University.
Szeto has been focused on eviction and short-term-rental issues, and has characterized San Francisco's housing crisis as primarily caused by short-term rentals and "free market capitalism":
"City technocrats keep saying we have a housing crisis. But really we have an eviction crisis...and this is happening in large part because of AirBnb."
"I keep hearing talks about this affordability crisis. Let's rememebr that this is a crisis created by free-market capitalism."
[Szeto 2014].
Controversies
Szeto was co-author, with Toshio Meronek of a controversial May 10, 2017 article on Truthout, entitled "YIMBYs: The Alt-Right Darlings of the Real Estate Industry." The title of the article was subsequently retracted and the "Alt-Right" removed.
A follow-up article by Szeto and Meronek published as an op-ed in the San Francisco Examiner on May 21, stated:
"In the aftermath of our article’s publication, we have been the subjects of a mass doxing campaign — a common tact used by the alt-right against leftists. Our personal information has been shared widely over the internet, and our employers and publishers harassed, presumably to have us fired."
References
- Clark, Laura Foote. "Q&A with 'reporter' Toshio Meronek." Medium, May 15, 2017. https://medium.com/@laurafooteclark/q-a-with-reporter-toshio-meronek-7456527aef90.
- Fierce, Victoria. "The Progressive Disinformation Machine." Medium (draft), May 17, 2017. https://medium.com/@tdfischer_/7281184cac3f.
- Lee, Seung Y. "With development activists compared to the ‘alt-right,’ the housing crisis debate jumped the shark." San Francisco Examiner, May 15, 2017. http://www.sfexaminer.com/development-activists-compared-alt-right-housing-crisis-debate-jumped-shark/.
- Meronek, Toshio, and Andrew Szeto. "YIMBYs: The Alt-Right Darlings of the Real Estate Industry." Truthout Report, May 10, 2017. http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/40509-yimbys-the-alt-right-darlings-of-the-real-estate-industry. [note: article title later changed to remove "Alt-Right".
- Shaw, Randy. "Activists' False Anti-Housing Narratives." BeyondChron, May 16, 2017. http://www.beyondchron.org/anti-housing-activists-fake-narratives/.
- Szeto, Andrew, and Toshio Meronek."The problem with YIMBY." San Francisco Examiner, op-ed, May 21, 2017. http://www.sfexaminer.com/the-problem-with-yimby/.
- Szeto, Andrew [2014]. "Woe is me, without AirBnB." Youtube, from San Francisco Land Use and Economic Development Committee Hearing, September 15 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pn028_z6jPc.
- Sonja Trauss. "One of the authors of the Truthout clusterfuck wrote to me.." Medium, May 16, 2017. https://medium.com/@LocalPolitics/toshio-one-of-the-authors-of-the-truth-out-clusterfuck-wrote-to-me-at-4-10-pm-april-25th-the-day-dd63a11e86ad.