The money pit
It's received tens of millions of dollars and the earnest attention of government and community groups. So why is Sixth Street still such a mess?

By Camper English

THE SIXTH STREET neighborhood hasn't changed much in recent years, unlike the rest of San Francisco.

It never had a dot-com heyday. One third of the street-level retail space on the first few blocks south of Market Street sits empty or boarded up. It's still dirty and dangerous, with drug dealers doing business in broad daylight, junkies running into traffic, homeless people sleeping in doorways, and the whole place smelling like a urinal.

The conditions inside many of the residential hotels that fill the neighborhood aren't so great either. Several aren't up to fire sprinkler code, and others aren't earthquake safe. Electrical wiring is so outdated that blown fuses and power outages are daily occurrences in many of the rooms.

But the continuing problems on Sixth Street aren't for lack of community and government effort. There's an active merchants' association in the area. There are tenants' rights organizations, religious associations, and services like physical and mental health care, day care, teen programs, senior citizens and veterans centers, and a needle-exchange program. The district attorney has a satellite office on the street to help fight crime. Residents groups meet regularly to advise the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency on community needs. And the SFRA has spent or committed $70 million over the past 10 years – with an additional $14 million committed in the 2003-04 budget – trying to turn this blighted area around.

Clearly, it hasn't worked yet. Just a casual glance shows Sixth Street is still broken, a reality confirmed by activists and officials, including William Carney, senior project manager of the SFRA's South of Market Earthquake Recovery Project's Redevelopment Plan, who told the Bay Guardian, "Along the Sixth Street corridor, there is significant blight remaining."

With all that time, money, and people power put into its improvement, the question is: Why?

Housing crisis

After the Loma Prieta earthquake destroyed 500 housing units in the neighborhood, the South of Market Earthquake Recovery Project's Redevelopment Plan was adopted by the city in 1990. The project area includes most of the blocks between Fifth and Seventh Streets from Market to Harrison, which are filled with single-room-occupancy hotel units populated by low-income tenants.

The SFRA's plan for redevelopment primarily focuses on improving housing conditions. One of the principal ways it does this is by purchasing SRO hotels and working with a developer (such as nonprofit agencies Mercy Housing and Tenants and Owners Development Corporation) to rebuild or renovate them. The SFRA then becomes the landlord, and the nonprofits manage the buildings.

Though these projects are expensive, there have been some stellar accomplishments in the area. The Rose Hotel's rehabilitation involved small changes that meant big things to residents, such as microwaves in the rooms, a space for community meetings, and laundry facilities. The new 154-room Bayanihan House (formerly the Delta Hotel) on Mission at Sixth Street should be occupied soon. It will hold the Bayanihan Community Center to serve the neighborhood's large Filipino American population. All told, SFRA projects completed or under development are slated to create or rehabilitate 1,143 affordable housing units.

But the problem with the SFRA approach, according to Sam Dodge, Central City SRO Collective program director, is that, "It's like winning the lottery. If you're the lucky person who moves into the Rose Hotel or the Delta Hotel, you're now the recipient of millions of dollars of government services that have been poured in there, but if you're one of the people who lives in [one of the other SROs in the area], it's like third-world conditions still."

Housing activist Randy Shaw, Tenderloin Housing Clinic director, released the policy paper "$80 Million and Counting: A Decade of Redevelopment Agency Failure on Sixth Street" in October 2002. It states, "The Agency's nearly exclusive reliance on land acquisition [for SRO hotels] has made neighborhood improvement and eliminating blight secondary."

Shaw argues that the SFRA ignores cheaper ways to fix up the neighborhood, such as giving loans to private hotel owners for improvements and being involved in "master leasing" programs, in which nonprofit groups lease SROs from private owners to run with the tenants' interests in mind. The THC leases the Seneca Hotel on Sixth Street in a master lease situation.

Since the THC report was released, the SFRA has implemented the SRO Loan Rehabilitation Program, in which $700,000 worth of forgivable and nonforgivable loans will be made available this year to privately owned SRO hotels for quality-of-life improvements (such as security and common rooms) and for code compliance (such as elevator upgrades and installing sprinkler systems) in buildings that have not yet been cited for noncompliance.

Award amounts are based on the number of tenants affected by the improvements and whether the landlord contributes matching funds for the project. This is designed to maximize the benefit to the residents and to reward hotel owners most involved. It's also an affordable way to impact a larger number of people.

Street level

Though some hotels have seen major improvements, on the ground level Sixth Street doesn't look tens of millions of dollars better. To make the street more inviting to businesses and pedestrians, the SFRA is contracting with the Department of Public Works to widen the sidewalks and install additional lighting. It has supported local employment agencies and funds a regular graffiti- and sidewalk-cleaning program.

The SFRA also has an economic development initiative to assist local businesses as part of its plan. Again, that is a small portion of the overall budget. According to the SFRA Web site, 33 loans have been approved amounting to $3,430,000.

The nonprofit economic development firm Urban Solutions is contracted by the SFRA to assist businesses in the loan application process. Urban Solutions is also partnered with the South of Market Business Association to encourage new business in the area and to work with existing merchants to reduce problems like crime and graffiti. The SMBA recently reported that a bookstore and a music store will soon be coming to the area.

But even with this strong business network, extremely low lease rates, and a choice of about 16 storefront spaces, it's not as if businesses are beating down the door to be on Sixth Street.

The nightlife venues on the street, on the other hand, are thriving. There are four bars or clubs on one block of Sixth, with four others nearby. These businesses are bringing in patrons from other areas and money to the neighborhood, but they are a cause of concern for community activists wary of gentrification.

The South of Market Project Area Committee is a group of local SRO residents, homeowners, business owners, and nonprofits organized to ensure that community needs are met as physical structures are built or renovated by the SFRA. Committee chair Antoinette Stadlman says the bars currently aren't a nuisance, but she hopes the area doesn't become filled with nightlife businesses. "If people can't afford to use the laundry here or go to restaurants here, that's what squeezes people out. That's what starts the process. We don't need that," she said.

According to the police, crime in the area hasn't changed much over the past few years. Sergeant Craig Tom at Southern Station said the crime levels on Sixth Street are "stagnant, the same as what's been going on." The district attorney's satellite office on the street shares space with the Department of Human Services and the THC to provide increased safety and service referrals. But this office is only open for a portion of the day. At other times drug deals take place directly outside it.

Problems and possibilities

The makeup of the housing and retail space in the neighborhood is a major factor in Sixth Street's stasis. With a city ordinance preventing the loss or conversion of any SRO units into lofts or other gentrifying housing, the housing stock is frozen in its current state.

This is good for low-income tenants who won't lose their homes, but not great for businesses. Residents in this area have barely enough money to pay rent. Some have a place to sleep but still eat free meals at nearby churches. They probably wouldn't benefit from an upscale shoe store, and the store wouldn't benefit from the neighborhood.

And though there are many long-term residents there – including immigrants, seniors, and a handful of artists – this is a transitional area. It's the part of town people go to when they get out of jail, when they lose their homes, or when they're sorting through drug problems or dealing with mental illness.

Stadlman also sees limitations with the SFRA's focus on housing. "Most of the real problems down here are people problems and behavior problems. You can paint the building and all of that, but they aren't set up to deal with social issues."

Since the population isn't going to change on Sixth Street, activists say the SFRA can improve the lives of more residents by increasing funds to the SRO Loan Rehabilitation Program and supporting master leasing projects. The effectiveness of the loan program will be evaluated next year before the agency sets aside additional funds. But SFRA officials maintain that funds are better spent acquiring property to ensure permanent affordable housing in those buildings, focusing attention more on the long-term goals than immediate improvements.

Sixth Street could also benefit from a few more businesses moving in – either because of official incentives or just serendipity – giving the area more life during the day. This would create momentum for an "eyes on the street" situation, in which tenants clean and police their sidewalk, and businesses deter crime and vagrancy just by being open.

In addition, the Tenderloin Housing Clinic has proposed a funded Adopt-a-Block program similar to one in the Tenderloin to combat crime and increase the quality of life. The program encourages businesses to get more involved in crime prevention by installing surveillance cameras and holding property owners responsible if they refuse to abate nuisances.

Right now every improvement made on Sixth Street seems like a small drop in a very big bucket. But in this neighborhood, a change as tiny as a microwave oven in a residence hotel room makes a big difference in the daily life of an individual. We can't simultaneously rebuild every hotel and supply free health care and give everyone jobs and address all the other problems the residents of this neighborhood deal with on a daily basis – not without fundamentally reordering the priorities and resources of the larger society.

But if we focus funding and attention on the smaller projects and take a few chances on new ideas, there is a greater potential to help more people in less time.