Supervisors Consider Housing Reparations to Stem African-American Displacement

Supervisors Consider Housing Reparations to Stem African-American Displacement
by Randy Shaw‚ Aug. 11‚ 2008
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The San Francisco Board of Supervisors Land Use Committee is expected to approve legislation today that gives descendants of those displaced by the Redevelopment Agency from the Western Addition and Bayview priority in obtaining affordable housing. Sponsored by Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi and backed by Mayor Newsom and a Board majority, the measure is a precedent-setting and powerful strategy to stem the steadily declining number of African-Americans in San Francisco. Although the legislation gives priority to all displacees granted housing certificates by the Agency who were then unable to stay in San Francisco, the overwhelming number were African-American. This legislation comes on the heels of two other positive reforms to the city’s inclusionary housing law, showing that city political leaders remain committed toward addressing our affordable housing crisis.

When San Francisco’s Redevelopment Agency demolished the city’s largest and most successful African-American community in the 1960’s, it gave victims housing certificates for them to obtain homes elsewhere in the city. Predictably, many certificates either could not be used, or, for economic reasons, were not used, so that most of those displaced by the city’s “Negro Removal” strategy received nothing for their troubles.

Since that time, San Francisco’s African-American population has steadily declined, a trend with no sign of reversal. And those most likely to leave are families earning $50,000 or more, as they pursue affordable housing options outside expensive San Francisco.

http://www.beyondchron.org/articles/Supervisors_Consider_Housing_Reparations_to_Stem_African_American_Displacement_5961.html

large AA community in the City. :( The Bayview/Hunters Point area is a community that has a huge taregt on its back -- waterfront acces, great weather, hundreds of old victorians waiting to be refurbished, open space that can be crammed with overpriced condos -- the developers are salivating over the possibilities offered.

I live in the next neighborhood and work in Bayview, and I have been watching the yuppie creep coming from downtown along Third Street. The new T line car is really about further gentrification of the neighborhood.

I remember what happened in the Western Addition, and I will be damned if it happens to BV/HP. I am solidly for any measure that will help longtime residents of Bayview/Hunters Point stay in their homes and neighborhood, and the City in general. San Francisco is NOT San Francisco without our black community.