50 years ago: First skirmish of the International Hotel saga

Photo by National Register of HIstorical Places

The International Hotel was home for Filipino and Chinese elderly.

ON THIS DATE, 50 years ago, Nov. 27, 1968 - 150 elderly Filipino and Chinese tenants from the Manilatown neighborhood of San Francisco began a nine-year-long, anti-eviction campaign against Financial District encroachment after receiving an eviction notice.

Widespread student and community grass-roots support imprinted this event as a milestone in Asian American and housing advocacy history. 

The campaign culminated in the deployment of over 400 riot police, mounted patrols, anti-sniper units and fire ladder trucks in a 3 a.m. eviction raid on August 4, 1977. A 3,000-person human barricade was brutally cleared away by authorities before tenants were physically removed from the premises. 

The three-storey brick structure was demolished in 1077 leaving an empty hole in what was Manilatown and a gaping wound in the heart and soul of the Asian American community.

RELATED: 

• The day the International Hotel fell
• 1968 -- the year the Asian American community mobilized

The developers eventually sold the empty lot on Kearney Street to the San Francisco Catholic Archdiocese. With the input of housing activists, former tenants and city planners, over 104 affordable senior housing units and community space were built on that site and opened up in 2005. 

I covered this story as a fledgling reporter for the Philippine News. It was my first taste of journalism and ever since then it awakened an awareness in me that impacted my life in so many ways.

The battle for the International Hotel will go down in the annals of Asian American history as a watershed event. It galvanized the fledgling Asian American student movement on the college campuses in the San Francisco Bay Area, united generations of the elderly and the youth seeking a cause and gave birth to a consciousness that Asian Americans matter, that their history matters, and sparked a legacy of activism that was launched with the 1965 Grape Strike that continues to this day. Asian Americans would no longer be the quiet subservient people living forever on the margins of society. 

i made it to manilatown.
the people here can name every fish back home.
they sang songs at night.
waiting so long for the International Hotel.
i dreamt of a place to gather with them. 

Al Robles 

Excerpt from Wandering Manong

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A lawsuit filed on behalf of S.F. Chinatown tenants; another suit settled in Oakland

AMAM NEWS

The legal settlement in Oakland saved affordable housing for tenants of 524 8th Street.

ASAM NEWS

TENANTS of a Chinatown Single Room Occupancy building in San Francisco are suing a landlord for “unlawful intimidation” while another group in Oakland have settled their dispute.

A lawsuit in 2016 filed by tenants at 524 8th Street in Oakland, Calif. accused their new landlord, James Kilpatrick, and the property management company, GreenGroup, of trying to force them out in favor of wealthier tenants.

Advancing Justice -- Asian Law Caucus says the settlement includes a $1 million dollar payment to 14 tenants along with a permanent injunction protecting the tenants in the future from similar action.

“This resolution is a strike against all landlords seeking to profit without regard for human cost,” said Katherine Chu, Housing Rights Staff Attorney & Program Manager at Advancing Justice – Asian Law Caucus. “It’s important for landlords to know that there are consequences for disregarding housing and tenant protections laws and for everyone to see the real impact discrimination can have on tenants.”

Meanwhile, across San Francisco Bay, the San Francisco Examiner reports the Asian Law Caucus also this week filed a lawsuit on behalf of tenants at an SRO on 1350 Stockton St. in San Francisco alleging the landlord is trying to force them out as well.

Tenants in late 2016 began being fined $200 for hanging their laundry outside to dry although many have been doing the same things for years without any problems. One tenant complained the property manager threw her laundry into a dumpster.

“Regardless of what they say their intentions are, tenants are currently being hurt by their bad policies and that’s what we really need to fix right now,” Katherine Chu, a housing rights attorney with the Asian Law Caucus, told the Examiner.
The building has been owned by Valstock Ventures, LLC, since 2000. Val stock declined to comment.

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Seattle's Filipino community awarded $11 million for senior housing

A rendering of the proposed Filipino Community Village housing project in Seattle.

IT'S THE BEST CHRISTMAS GIFT that could ever be given to the Filipino community in Seattle.

The Filipino Community Center Monday (Dec. 17) was awarded $11 million to construct homes for low-income seniors as well as a youth center.

Along side the existing center, the Filipino Community Village, a four story building with 94 affordable housing units designed for low-income seniors. The project is part of the city’s plan to invest $101 million into building and preserving 1450 affordable homes throughout the city.

“The Filipino Community Center has been a dream for many of the community for many many years,” said Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan. “This community has been at the heart of trying to preserve the culture of the Filipino community.”

The Filipino Community Village project started nearly a decade ago and has involved the purchase of seven parcels of land near the community center, said Filipino Community of Seattle Executive Director Sheila Burrus. Although the center already provided free lunch and classes to low-income seniors, a 2012 community survey also revealed the overwhelming need for senior housing.

“Our elders are aging and they don’t want to be far from the community center,” Burrus said. 

“We’re hoping to … mitigate some of our seniors leaving the city,” Burrus said, adding that many Filipino elders are “disproportionately targeted” by rising rent because of their low incomes.

The center already offers the seniors culturally appropriate food, as well as health examinations from volunteer doctors and nurses from within the Filipino community. Yet rising rent has forced many seniors to move farther away from these services to Kent, Bryn Mawr-Skyway, and Renton, she added. 

The new housing project will include space for performing arts as well as a gym. The project should be completed in the year 2020.

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