San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera and a coalition of tenant advocacy organizations filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Postal Service this week, claiming the agency's "discriminatory" mail practices for residents of single-room occupancy hotels violate constitutional guarantees, including equal protection and the right to privacy. 

The hotels are home to many low-income San Franciscans, including LGBTs.

"Inadequate and unequal mail delivery can cause devastating hardships on SRO residents, and our investigation has documented heartbreaking consequences of undelivered checks, medical notices, appointment information, personal letters, and official correspondence," Herrera said in a statement. "There is no basis in the law or in postal regulations for this discriminatory practice. "

The complaint was filed Tuesday, May 5, in U.S. District Court.

In January, the postal service in San Francisco stopped delivering mail individually to many SRO residents, potentially leaving people's mail open to being misdirected or stolen.

In 2006, the city enacted the Residential Hotel Mail Receptacle Ordinance, which requires SRO owners to make arrangements for installing mail receptacles for each unit.

But in a December 2008 letter to Vivian Day, then-acting director of the Department of Building Inspection, San Francisco Postmaster Noemi Luna wrote that postal regulations "provide that single point service is the appropriate mode of delivery for mail addressed to persons in 'hotels, schools, and similar places.'"

Under single point delivery, mail is delivered "in bulk to building management," which is then responsible for distribution, she wrote.

Luna also wrote that her agency had extended delivery to individualized receptacles at some SROs, "which under postal service regulations was inconsistent with our policies." Luna added that federal law "preempts the application of non-federal laws that frustrate or interfere with the operations of the postal service."

Citing "fiscal shortages," she wrote that the postal service would no longer deliver mail to individual receptacles in SROs, except at buildings that had been getting individual delivery for more than 90 days.

In a demand letter dated April 16 and sent to the U.S. Attorney's office, which was requested by an official in that office, Herrera had outlined the basis for the lawsuit and gave the postal service two weeks to bring its mail delivery policy at SROs in line with the policy for other residential apartment buildings.

"Forcing our poorest residents to bear the brunt of budget cutbacks is not only immoral – in this case, it's also illegal," said Herrera in a statement Tuesday.

James Wigdel, a spokesman for the U.S. Postal Service, said he couldn't provide comment on the lawsuit because it's a legal matter.

The Central City SRO Collaborative, the San Francisco Tenants Union, and the Housing Rights Committee of San Francisco are represented by the Tenderloin Housing Clinic as co-plaintiffs in the litigation, which also charges that the delivery policy changes violates the U.S. Postal Service's own regulations.

A copy of the civil complaint is available at www.sfgov.org/cityattorney.