by alicia schwartz

Ritzy condos, raw sewage

WHAT'S GOING ON when one of the richest cities in the world prioritizes market-rate condos over public housing, where some families have the best that money can buy while others live with raw sewage flowing freely along the streets?

A.C. Thompson's article on conditions in public housing ("A Place Called Despair," 10/19/05) marked a turning point in exposing the abhorrent conditions that tenants are forced to live in. From mold and mildew that sends young children with asthma to the emergency room, to puddles and streams of raw sewage, you'd think you were in a third world country instead of in Bayview-Hunters Point. Meanwhile, money is being leveraged to build market-rate condominiums on the hill. Conditions are so bad that although many tenants are wary of speaking up for fear of retaliation, several couldn't help but encourage others to get organized.

This gross disparity was highlighted at a hearing organized by tenants working with People Organized to Win Employment Rights (POWER) in November. Close to 100 tenants testified about deplorable living conditions.

San Francisco Housing Authority executive director Gregg Fortner stated at the hearing that a shortage of revenue due to cuts in the federal program known as HOPE VI forced the agency to find more "creative solutions" to maintaining more than 6,000 units of affordable housing for low- and very-low-income individuals and families. Those solutions include partnerships between the SFHA and nonprofit/private development teams to rebuild public housing in Bayview-Hunters Point with affordable and market-rate homes and condos. Their goal was to partner with these development teams, rebuild their structures as well as create new ones, then share profits with the SFHA.

While the SFHA waits for developers to take an interest in their properties, what happens to tenants? The SFHA maintains a waiting list of more than 20,000 names for far fewer than 6,000 available units. Using the rhetoric of a recent opinionist, David Zebker ("Supply and Demand," Letters, 11/16/05), that means there "isn't enough supply to meet the demand." How then, does the city resolve the problem of a lack of affordable housing supply for low- and very-low-income people? Continue to build more market-rate housing.

In the meantime, residents in public housing continue to live in absurd conditions ranging from open raw sewage in the presence of children to ceilings that aren't guaranteed to hold up from this winter's rains or the next big earthquake.

That's why POWER is fighting for a development plan that serves the needs of people who already live in the community, rather than the needs of an imaginary group of people who haven't even arrived in San Francisco yet. Instead of redevelopment accommodating the needs of developers and big businesses, we want redevelopment to accommodate the needs of the people, particularly low- and no-income people who are most vulnerable to displacement.

With a median income in Bayview-Hunters Point of $18,500 a year and a steady decline in San Francisco's black population over the past decade (20 percent, or one in five, black residents have left town since 1990), it's more important than ever that development creates long-term jobs for the unemployed and underemployed, quality affordable housing for low- and very-low-income people (particularly families, seniors, and folks with disabilities), and provides services and programs to abate the steady stream of violence that plagues the community.

Home Depot, lofts and condominiums, and palm trees don't even begin to address the deep-seated disinvestment that has occurred in Bayview-Hunters Point since the 1970s. We have an opportunity to stop the trend of Negro Removal in San Francisco and to show the world that San Francisco takes care of its people.

Alicia Schwartz is an organizer with People Organized to Win Employment Rights.