Central City SRO Collaborative Victories

 

Visit the Tenderloin/NOMA website at http://www.nom-tlcbd.org/

Tenderloin/North of Market Community Benefits District

In July of 2006, more than two years of community organizing culminated in the election of the Tenderloin/North of Market CBD Board of Directors. With the adoption of the Tenderloin/North of Market CBD, the Tenderloin joined a variety of other neighborhoods in creating a Community Benefits District in which property owners voluntarily pay into a fund earmarked for improving the community. The Central City SRO Collaborative organized with other community groups, property owners, and residents to secure the 65% margin achieved in the affirmative neighborhood vote in 2005. The Tenderloin will now have the resources it needs to provide extra services that will change the face of the neighborhood. Such services will include enhanced cleaning, physical beautification, and street level services for tourists, visitors, and the homeless population.

Beyondchron article on the Tenderloin/North of Market CBD

Photo by Mark Ellinger

 

Bedbug Awareness and Eradication

Bedbugs were almost totally eliminated from US cities in the 1940's. However, by the early 2000's there was a resurgence of the bedbug epidemic. The problem spread through many american cities, affecting housing of all types. The Central City SRO Collaborative organized with tenants and other community groups to demand funding for subsidies for low-income tenants. At the urging of this activist group, Supervisor Chris Daly got $63,000 in this year's budget for subsidized laundry and freezing services for low-income tenants with bedbug infestations, a huge public education campaign for tenants and landlords, and 2 annual forums--one for landlords/tenants and one for social service workers/tenants--that will teach public health code, bedbug cleanup, and tenant advocacy.

San Francisco Bay Guardian article on bedbugs

 

 

Mailboxes at the Bayanihan House, an SRO on Sixth Street

SRO Mailboxes and Mail Delivery

For years the Central City SRO Collaborative worked to improve mail security and privacy for SRO tenants. Historically, the US Postal Service treated SRO tenants like second-class citizens. Mail was often times left in boxes on the stairs to be sorted through, or given in bulk to unreliable managers. Managers would often lose mail or fail to deliver it in a timely fashion, For tenants living on low and fixed incomes, receiving mail in a secure and timely fashion is of the utmost importance. Working with Supervisor Chris Daly's office, the Central City SRO Collaborative, the Chinatown SRO Collaborative and the Mission SRO Collaborative crafted a law that will require the owners of all SRO hotels in the City to install USPS certified mailboxes for tenants. The Collaborative also worked with local USPS representatives to ensure their support and assistance in bringing owners into compliance. As a result of this effort, 30,000 SRO tenants will enjoy the right to mail delivery and security, a right that Americans in other forms of housing have long taken for granted.

San Francisco Chronicle Editorial

Beyondchron article

Tenants and activists on the way to a meeting with a representative of assemblymember Nancy Pelosi

 


The Coalition for Transit Justice at City Hall (photo from Indybay.org)


Transit Justice
Underfunding of MUNI by the San Francisco city government led an advisory board to propose the cutting of many routes, raising regular fares 25 cents, raising the price of a monthly pass by nine dollars and increasing parking fees for San Francisco MUNI riders. The Central City SRO Collaborative helped form the Coalition for Transit Justice which organized to fight service cuts and fare hikes. The campaign succeeded in restoring cuts to important Tenderloin bus lines and establishing a low-income riders discount.

Beyondchron article on Transit Justice Coalition



Trinity Plaza tenants and activists rally to save their homes and protect rent controlled housing


Trinity Plaza
The Trinity Plaza victory was a seminal moment in San Francisco's history. When property owner Angelo Sangiacomo filed permits to demolish the apartment building (a converted residential hotel with 360 rent controlled units, ) Trinity tenants, many of who were low-income families and people of color, came together with the help of the Central City SRO Collaborative and other community groups to fight to save their homes. The battle, reminiscent of the 1970's struggle for the I-Hotel, came to a head in 2004. As a result of the leadership of Trinity tenants and the organizing of the Central City SRO Collaborative and other community groups, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed an Anti-Demolition Ordinance to stop Trinity owner Angelo Sangiacomo from demolishing the building. Although mayor Newsom vetoed the law, the influence of the community organizing on the Supervisors was evident, and eventually Sangiacomo agreed to a compromise. Negotiated by the Trinity Tenants Association and Supervisor Chris Daly's office, the deal will allow the owner to demolish and build a 1,900 unit building in it's place but it will replace the lost units with 360 units of rent-controlled housing and lifetime leases for current tenants. Additionally, 12% of the new units will be affordable. With this watershed compromise San Francisco bid goodbye to the days when developers could evict tenants en masse at will, and will set the standard for future development in the City.

Beyondchron article on the Trinity Settlement


A rally for Trinity Plaza at City Hall

 

 

 


San Francisco Supervisor Matt Gonzalez speaks at a press conference announcing the successful gathering of signatures to get Proposition L on the ballot.

Raising the Minimum Wage
The California minimum wage is $6.75 an hour, but as any minimum wage worker in San Francisco can tell you, that won't get you very far in one of the most expensive cities in the United States. In the spring of 2003, A group of community based organizations and individuals, including the Central City SRO Collaborative, formed a coalition to put an initiative on the ballot that would raise the minimum wage in San Francisco to $8.50 an hour. The coalition gathered more than enough signatures to qualify Proposition L for the ballot, waged a citywide voter education and turnout campaign, and managed to pass the measure by a 20% margin on November 4, 2003.

San Francisco Chronicle article on Proposition L

Hatzune Aguilar appeals to Ross Dress for Less to pay its workers a decent wage as part of the campaign to pass Proposition L.

 

 

Activists and tenants at a press conference on AB 1217

Exempting SROs from the Ellis Act

The Ellis Act allows owners to 'go out of business' and evict tenants. In 2003 the Central City SRO Collaborative organized with assemblymember Mark Leno, as well as other elected representatives and tenant groups, to pass AB 1217 which allows local governments to exempt SROs from the state Ellis Act.

Leno Press Release on AB 1217

SF Examiner coverage of AB 1217

Assemblymember Mark Leno receives an award from Randy Shaw of the Tenderloin Housing Clinic

 

 


Electrical Rewiring
The number one complaint for many tenants in SROs is the lack of adequate electrical capacity. Electrical code requires only that buildings be up to code for the year in which they were built, and since most hotels were built in the early part of the 20th century, they are ill-equipped to handle modern appliances such as microwaves, televisions, and computers. As a result, there are frequent power outages in the hotels, and turning on even one appliance can throw the breaker. In the spring of 2003, hotel tenants on Sixth Street formed an unusual alliance with hotel owners to fight for the creation of a workable Redevelopment Agency program to give forgivable loans to owners who agreed to electrically rewire their hotels. In the end, the neighborhood won and the program was approved despite the opposition of the Redevelopment staff.

SF Examiner coverage of Rewiring Campaign


Hotel tenants and owners formed an historic coalition to fight for money for rewiring in residential hotels

 


Prince Bush testifies in front of a committee of the Board of Supervisors about the need for studios for hotel tenants


Studios for Hotel Tenants
Although residential hotels were designed to be temporary or transitional housing, they have in recent years become permanent homes for the majority of the elderly, disabled, and working class people who live in them and cannot afford the skyrocketing rents of studios in the city. In March of 2002, an opportunity to change this came when a San Francisco developer who had permits to build over 170 live-work lofts at 4th and Freelon Streets decided that he would rather build 335 apartments on the site. In exchange for getting permission to change his plans, the developer agreed to construct at least 56 studios to be owned and rented by a non-profit firm to residential hotel tenants for just $561 a month. Hotel residents organized testimonies and a petition drive to convince the Planning Commission and Board of Supervisors to allow the project to move forward so that the studios would be built. They were successful, and soon there will be at least 56 new, truly affordable studios available for hotel tenants to move into.

SF Examiner article on Fourth and Freelon project

 


Baldwin House tenants gather for a vigil to call attention to the 1700 hotel rooms lost to fire in San Francisco since 1988


Baldwin House Hotel Fire
In June of 2002 the Baldwin House Hotel had a fire that displaced over 200 residents. Typically, hotel owners take years to renovate their hotels after a fire to make them habitable again, but in this case the Central City SRO Collaborative worked with Baldwin House tenants to pressure the owner to make repairs quickly and efficiently. They also successfully lobbied local government officials to extend their housing vouchers so they would not become homeless while they waited for the hotel to reopen. After holding a vigil to call attention to the hundreds of hotel rooms lost to fire in San Francisco, tenants were able to move back into the Baldwin after the city helped house them the entire time they were displaced.

SF Examiner coverage of Baldwin House fire

A Baldwin House tenant answers a reporter's questions about the fire in his hotel

 


Sprinkler Ordinance
Since 1988, over 1,700 SRO rooms have been destroyed due to fire in San Francisco. Some SRO tenants have died in such fires; thousands have lost their only property; and numerous tenants have become homeless for months or years afterward. Evidence shows that when there are sprinklers in every room in a building, fires are most often contained to one or two rooms and rarely destroy an entire building. In August of 2001, the Central City SRO Collaborative worked with the San Francisco supervisors to pass a law requiring all SRO hotels to install sprinklers in every room. CCC has been working closely with city departments to ensure that the Sprinkler Ordinance's deadlines are met and the safety of SRO tenants' lives, property, and housing are protected. In November 2003, the Collaborative successfully went with a group of tenants from the National Hotel to the Rent Board in a case about sprinklers. This precedent-setting case found that the tenants were eligible for rent reductions due to their landlord's irresponsibility in not installing sprinklers in a timely manner.

SF Chronicle coverage of the Sprinkler Ordinance deadline
SF Bay Guardian coverage of the Sprinkler Ordinance deadline

 


Uniform Visitor Policy
 For many years, owners and operators of SRO hotels charged their tenants fees for their visitors and guests. Sometimes guests had to pay up to $20 to visit a friend or family member in a hotel. Though tenants believed they had a right to have visitors without paying additional fees, there was no law preventing operators from taking advantage of this lucrative source of untaxed income. Then in late 2001, the Central City SRO Collaborative worked with local lawmakers to pass the first uniform visitor policy for all residential hotels in San Francisco. Among other things, this law prohibits all visitor and overnight guest fees and protects tenants' rights to have guests. In April of 2002, the CCC battled hotel operators to win an enforcement mechanism for the law that gave the San Francisco Police Department and Rent Board jurisdiction over the new Visitor Policy. The Collaborative has continued to work to improve the

SF Examiner coverage of Tenant Convention and Visitor Policy

 


Hastings Parking Garage
In the 1970's, Hastings Law School stole money from its fund for minority scholarships to buy several lots of land around its campus in the Tenderloin. On one of these lots were two residential hotels with over 80 low-income units. Hastings evicted the tenants and knocked down the hotel, leaving the lot empty for over a decade. In 2002, with no community input, Hastings put forward a plan to build a massive, 885-space parking garage on the site with no replacement housing. Along with a broad coalition, the Central City SRO Collaborative fought to make Hastings replace the low-income housing they destroyed. After testifying at numerous hearings and staging a non-violent sit-in, the community won. The Hastings Board voted to rescind the parking garage proposal and create a blue-ribbon committee with several community members on it to decide how to include housing on the site.

SF Chronicle editorial on the Hastings garage
Stephanie Salters' opinion piece on the Hastings garage

Tenants and neighborhood activists protest the proposed Hastings parking garage that included no replacement housing

 

 

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Proposition D
Before March of 2002, the San Francisco Planning Commission and Board of Permit Appeals were appointed by the mayor. During the dot-com boom, these boards repeatedly gave the green light to developers to build high-end projects that displaced many low-income people and caused gentrification in many San Francisco neighborhoods. In early 2002, tenants groups banded together to put an initiative on the ballot that would give the Board of Supervisors a majority of appointments to the Planning Commission and Board of Permit Appeals. The Central City SRO Collaborative worked with these tenant groups to pass the initiative, Proposition D, which reformed the planning process by making planning officers more accountable to the people of San Francisco. As a result, planning decisions will no longer be made entirely by one politician exclusively in the interests of big business.

 

 

 


Empress/West Cork Hotel
In 1981, the Empress Hotel was shut down, taking 88 units of low-income housing off the market. Almost 20 years later in the middle of a critical shortage of affordable housing, the new owners tried to illegally reopen the hotel for tourist use under the name West Cork Hotel. Despite the owners' high-paid lawyers and $100,000 budget and a city board reluctant to hear community concerns, the Tenderloin neighborhood and the Central City SRO Collaborative won. The San Francisco Board of Permit Appeals finally bowed to community pressure and ordered the Empress to remain wholly residential.

Poor News Network coverage of the Empress/West Cork Hotel
SF Bay Guardian coverage of the Empress/West Cork Hotel


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