'Hello' parody targets San Francisco's Mayor Ed Lee

AS SAN FRANCISCO rents soar, home prices are out of reach for the middle-class,  affordable housing is getting more out of reach in the neighborhoods that make up the character of this city, including homes for the newly arrive immigrants and elderly on limited incomes in Chinatown, South of Market (Filipino/American), the Mission, the Bayview -- throughout the City by the Bay.

Ed Lee, the first Asian/American mayor of San Francisco is under a lot scrutiny even though he won re-election easily last November. A lot of his former supporters, who backed him in previous elections because on his history as being an advocate for affordable housing, now see him as having caved in to the dollar-rich high-tech industry whose well-paid workers are willing to pay exhorbitant prices for closets (literally - some live in closets) much less a studio or a one-bedroom flat. 

As this ad that ran during the November election indicates - former allies are now Ed Lee's critics.

Everywhere you look in San Francisco yo see the building cranes building high-rise offices and condominiums raising the property values of those parcels within their vacinity.

The only way some projects are getting approved are through promises from the builders to include affordable housing. In S.F., "affordable housing" -- out of necessity -- means below market rate, which developers are loath to build because it reduces their profit margin.

Lee knows something has to be done to address the housing implosion. He has called for raising the affordable housing mitigation requirement from 12% to something higher. (In some newer projects, it has been as high as 40%.) 

A change in the inclusionary housing policy will require a ballot measure because the law is part of the city's charter. Lee is seeking a proposition for the November election this year.

"We want to do it in collaboration with the private sector," said Lee. 
What happens when the high-cost residences are constructed, landowners of adjacent parcels see the value of their properties rise and are no longer satisfied charging affordable rents and either evict their low-paying tenants in exchange for higher-paying new tenants,  or sell out to other developers who, in turn, build more expensive housing. The poor renter, is left out in the cold or they have leave the city.

We're not just talking about the poor, though they are the first to suffer, the higher cost of living in the city is impacting, the working poor and the what - in other cities - would consider middle-class occupations. We're talking about teachers, construction workers, nurses, bus drivers or all those secretaries and administrative assistants who work in the financial district.

San Francisco is not alone in facing this housing dilemma. There is a dire lack of affordable housing in all of America's urban areas, from Los Angeles to New York City, an issue no presidential candidate has yet to address. In the meantime, he has to put up with the critics who created his parody of Adele's "Hello."

Lyrics to the parody:
Hello, Ed Lee
I was hoping we could talk about a tale of two cities
And not the book, but reality
They say you started on our side
But you were bought and sold by greed

Hello, can you hear me?  
Has Ron Conway got your ear, planning his next big back room deal
Like more tax breaks or bus stops for free
I can’t help but count red carpets, are there any left for me?

Oh this city is filthy rich, yet there’s crisis in the streets

Hello from the other side
The Google bus don’t give no rides
And I don’t work for Twitter or Airbnb
So I’m struggling to stay here, I’m down on my knees,

Hello from the Mission
Ground zero for evictions
Where bus drivers, school teachers, the old and the young
Are fighting to hold on, we’re all on the run

Hello, Mayor Lee
I'm in San Francisco dreaming about how things used to be
When I could pay rent and eat
Can’t afford these here new condos cause I’m not some VIP

How do you sleep Ed, when this city is losing its heart and soul

Hello from Vallejo
This is just how far I had to go
Now I can pay my rent but my friends are all gone
I left my heart, wait, that’s someone else’s song

Hello from a city robbed
Self dealing cronies, inside job
SOS SF, home of the tech bourgeoisie?
Your “progress" is toxic, Mr. Mayor can’t you see? 

For more news about Asian/American &Pacific Islanders, read AsAm News.

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Filipino district proposed for San Francisco; may help preserve SoMa neighborhood

Streets named after Philippine heroes include Rizal, Mabini and Tandang Soro are in SoMa district,
the proposed neighborhood that would receive a heritage designation.

ONCE AGAIN, a Filipino neighborhood is fighting to survive modern market forces. Some call it gentrification, others call it progress. Still others, like the thousands of Filipinos living in the South of Market area, call it displacement.

Like the old Manilatown that grew organically next to Chinatown, big money, high rents and skyrocketing living costs are pressuring the modest homes of working class Filipino  immigrants and Filipino/Americans in San Francisco.

To help preserve the Filipino nature of the neighborhoods and save the affordable housing provided by the apartments, row houses and  residential hotels that dot the SoMa area of San Francisco, a plan that has been in the works for years, was proposed last week to create a cultural heritage district called SoMa Pilipinas, a district that would highlight more than 25 historic buildings, sites and objects that preserve the neighborhood's Filipino character.

An 8-story mural on the San Lorenzo Ruis Center
marries Filipino and Filipino/American history.

The proposal was announced Oct. 27 by Jane Kim, the city supervisor representing SoMa. “Historically, the Filipino-American community has made the South of Market their home,” Kim said. “There’s a lot of history of nonprofit community-based services and organizations, as well as small businesses, that have served this community.”

The transformation of SoMa, formally a home for Irish immigrants, into a Filipino district was a long process that may have started in the 1950s but it really took off after the 1965 Immigration Reform Act was passed by Congress, thus replacing the former immigration policy that favored European countries. The more equitable policy allowed more Filipinos to immigrate to the U.S. but Filipinos also discovered that it gave preference to family reunification and those with special skills that would benefit the United States. 

With the demise of the former Manilatown, the new immigrants found the low rents offered in South of Market Street fitting their needs as they adjusted to their new country.

As a result of this huge immigrant influx, St. Patrick's Catholic Church founded by immigrant Irish on Mission Street became predominantly Filipino with Filipino priests and masses celebrated in Tagalog.

Bessie Carmichael Elementary School houses the Filipino Education Center and most of its teachers are bilingual in English and Filipino dialects to teach the large Filipino student body.

By the early-1970s, the Filipino population reached a critical mass and were able to convince San Francisco and the Federal government to fund programs that could serve the needs of newly arrived immigrants and elderly Filipinos. HUD funding financed The Dimas Alang House, renamed the San Lorenzo Ruiz Center, a home for Filipinos senior citizens. The streets around the housing project were also named after Filipino heroes: street names such as Lapu-lapu, Bonifacio, Mabini, and Rizal. . 

The area is also the home of the headquarters of Gran Oriente, which along with Caballeros de Dimas Alang, were the social/fraternal societies created by the first wave of Filipino immigrants. 

The proposed Filipino district would cover these blocks in San Francisco

Nonprofits and businesses catering to the Filipino residents are scattered throughout the neighborhood. There is a 2-acre park named after Filipino/American Vicky Manalo Draves, an Olympic diving champ who grew up in SoMa. 

Despite the obvious presence and history behind the neighborhood, it has been under siege from planners and developers who tout the sunnier weather, the flat land and close proximity to the shopping and financial districts. 

Filipino  residents were once again displaced, along with artists and small businesses, lost a big chunk of real estate when the Yerba Buena Center and the Moscone Convention Center was built across from St. Patrick's Church in the 1970s. The project opened the door to the high-end hotels, expensive condominiums and offices catering to the high-tech industry with Twitter and Facebook leading the way followed by dozens of startups taking over the warehouses and light industry spaces.

NEW THREAT

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors will vote  later this year on the 5M project that has divided the Filipino/American community. The giant project will combine offices, apartments, condos and open spaces right in the middle of the proposed district along the 5th Street corridor.

There are some Filipinos who believe that you need to fight the project now or else it will be like a domino effect impacting the hotels and apartments nearby. Owners will raise rents or remodel into high-rent  housing units.

An artist's rendering of a new park in the proposed 5M project.

The 5M project would divide the proposed Filipino Heritage District.

Filipinos opposed to the project have jammed public hearings. Their efforts have caused changes in the original proposals, bringing in more open space and more dedicated affordable housing. But critics say the project will raise rents in the area forcing many low-income residents to find other housing in a city that has the some of the highest rents in the country.

It's uncertain what the impact would be on any future projects if SoMa was declared a Filipino Heritage District but it may be a case of too little, too late. Any such designation would not take effect for about a year at the earliest. The new 5th Street development project could be approved by the Board of Supervisors before the end of the year.

“This is discrimination against Filipinos. No community should be treated this way,” said Vivian Zalvidea Araullo, executive director of the West Bay Pilipino Multi-Service Center.

After nine hours of public testimony, the Planning Commission approved the recommendation in a narrow 4-3 vote. (UPDATE: Nov. 4, the vote was corrected from earlier versions of this post.)

“They want to work on stopping and preventing displacement of families, seniors, residents, as well as small businesses that they are worried are leaving South of Market due to how expensive real estate is becoming,” said Supervisor Kim. 

Kim hopes the proposed district designation will help prevent further displacement as well.

Although the idea of a special district is a long-time coming and it may be too late to affect the 5M project, it could be helpful in keeping low-cost housing in SoMa, so crucial to the  immigrants and the working class residents of SoMa.

TAKE ACTION

A petition to San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee, a lawyer who got his start defending the International Hotel, was started in change.org urging him to recommend to the supervisors to opposed the 5M project.

It reads in part:

"Your office, the Board of Supervisors, the Planning Department, the Planning Commission, and the Office of Economic and Workforce Development cannot continue to ignore the concerns of the Filipino community by supporting the proposed 5M Project. Otherwise there will be no more Filipino community left in SoMa."

You can sign the petition, here.

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San Francisco's Chinatown fighting off gentrification

The "Ellis Act" allows landlords to kick out their tenants if they convert their buildings from apartments to condos.

HERE WE go again!

Today's housing crunch in San Francisco is starting to look a lot like the 1960s and 70s. Back then, the affordable housing movement really hit public consciousness because of  the Battle for the International Hotel, the epic decade-long fight to keep low-rent housing for elderly Filipino and Chinese tenants of the hotel, a centerpiece of what remained of San Francisco's Manilatown.

It looks like gentrification spurred by the high-tech boom in San Francisco is eyeing the Chinatown and North Beach neighborhoods for new rental units for the free-spending Techies who want to live in the city.

But the owners of the Vallejo Emery Apartments learned that these neighborhoods will not go down without a fight from politically connected organized tenant groups who learned valuable lessons from the I-Hotel struggle.

A group of low-income elderly Chinese residents were threatened with eviction from their 32-unit residential hotel (corner of Vallejo and Emery) so that the owner can rent out the 100-square foot rooms to the techies who have plenty of money to burn. The shared kitchen and bathrooms could lend themselves to the communal living desired by the mostly younger would-be renters. 

Google 2 Emery Lane to get an exact location. Its two blocks away from Columbus Avenue lined with coffee shops and Italian eateries and steps away from any kind of Chinese food that you may want. Right across the alley is the North Beach police station so its a relatively safe area. You can see why it might be so appealing to the techies. 

If that wasn't enough, there's a bus stop for those plush techie busses with amenities such as wifi, cushy seats and refreshments. The buses, sponsored by employers like Google and Yahoo, gather the workers living in San Francisco and sweep them down to Silicon Valley without having the stress of navigating busy Highway 101. 

The landlords were closely monitoring their tenants to find lease violations so they can have an excuse to evict tenants. Violations include hanging Chinese New Year decorations in the hallway or hanging laundry out your window.

Unfortunately, San Francisco rents have skyrocketed because of limited number of rental units. These residential hotels like the Vallejo Emery are the last bastions of reasonable rents for those on limited incomes. Chinatown is full of the small hotels located on increasingly valuable property.

Mayor Ed Lee, who worked with Chinatown tenants in the 1980s with the Asian Law Caucus, made it clear where he stood. He reminded the apartment owners that the city has provided $13.3 million for eviction defense. The Chinatown Community Development Center, which organized the tenants' protests, receives some of those funds.

Gentrification has hit all parts of the city especially in the Mission District. Attempts to evict long-time tenants for richer tenants have been met resistance from well-organized community groups like the San Francisco Tenants Union, which knows how to use demonstrations and apply political pressure on elected officials.

RELATED: America's Chinatowns feeling the squeeze

Gentrification is not unique to San Francisco. Throughout the country, increasingly, the only people who can afford to live in America's cities are the uber-rich. The poor working stiffs who may have grown up in the city's neighborhoods, can no longer afford to live in the city homes.

The Vallejo Emery Apartments is a harbinger of what's likely to come. The majority of Chinatown's housing stock are made up of these small residential hotels that could follow the same path to higher rents. 

If the city doesn't do something to preserve the low-rent housing, soon the city will be made up of only those who can afford it. 

Families with children are among those forced to leave. Schools, houses of worship and the institutions that serve families wither. 

Low-income workers are particularly hard hit. If they leave the city for the suburbs, they will have to commute to the city to wait on tables, brew lattes, work retail, drive cabs, fill potholes, replace the plumbing, police the streets, teach the students and do all the work that allows the city to function. That - in turn - leads to more traffic jams, more pollution, more stress and ... a city without a soul.

I-HOTEL POSTSCRIPT: 

After the demolition of the International Hotel in 1977, the lot lay undeveloped - a great big hole in the ground - for over 20 years. That raises the question: why was it so urgent to tear down the building? 

The Manilatown Cultural Center and housing
for seniors has replaced the I-Hotel.

The site was eventually purchased by the Catholic Archdiocese of San Francisco. The Archdiocese decided to develop an underground garage, and partnered with International Hotel Senior Housing, Inc. and Chinatown CDC to develop senior housing above. Another partner, St. Mary’s Chinese Catholic School, a Chinatown institution, built a school on the remainder of the site. 

The site where the International Hotel used to stand now - appropriately - provides 15 stories of senior affordable housing with many amenities for residents including a daily nutrition/activities program and a ground floor Cultural Center operated by the Manilatown Heritage Foundation. The few former tenants who survived the whole ordeal were given priority for residency.

The building features design elements and art depicting the history and legacy of the I-Hotel struggle. If you're touring San Francisco and want a glimpse of it's Asian American history, this is definitely worth a stop. They even offer small-group walking tours of what used to be Manilatown.

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