SF Chinatown gets some financial relief from the city

San Francisco Chinatown streets are less busy because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Some relief is finally coming to the struggling businesses in San Francisco's Chinatown after the San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously approved $1.9 million to those businesses hurt by the COVID-19 pandemic.

In addition to that sum, the office of Mayor London Breed is also planning to add $500,000 into the budget and another $100,000 from the Chinatown Community Development Center (CCDC), bringing the total funding to $2.5 million.

The funds, which were approved last Jan. 19, will help those Chinatown businesses that suffered because of the health measures required to fight the pandemic, which included a ban in indoor dining.

The plight of the Chinatown businesses was brought to light when the 100-year old Far East Cafe announced its intention to close by the Dec. 31.

“We’re ready to fight to preserve this iconic neighborhood and this is one small step toward that,” Supervisor Aaron Peskin told the San Francisco Chronicle.

"San Francisco’s iconic Chinatown neighborhood has suffered from the triple threat of Central Subway construction delays, early xenophobic attacks and an extended shutdown that has made already struggling immigrants even poorer," Peskin's office said in a statement to Hoodline shortly after the Jan. 19 vote.

This financial assistance will help fund the Feed + Fuel Chinatown, a program launched in partnership with the nonprofit SF New Deal and the Human Services Agency that launched in April to help businesses hurt by the pandemic and at the same time, to feed the poor residents in the Chinatown neighborhood.

The funding will help the community in multiple ways, including funding roughly 60 restaurants, keeping their employees on the payroll and feeding 2,400 residents over eight weeks. It will also help control the spread of COVID-19 through shared kitchens of single-room occupancy hotels.

At this juncture, 600 residents have already received meal vouchers from 10 restaurants, including Yuet Lee Seafood Restaurant, Hang Ah Tea Room and the Far East Cafe.

"Our seniors and families in crowded SROs (Single Room Occupancy) are at higher risk of COVID exposure and going hungry, and our legacy restaurants are at risk of shuttering for good," said Peskin. 

"The cancellation of the nation’s largest Lunar New Year parade is especially dramatic, with most small businesses typically making 30% of their income in that one week alone.

"The statistics are startling," Peskin continued: "Before the pandemic, 97% of the families were working and gainfully employed. After shelter-in-place, half of them, 45% have lost all of their income.”

Filipino American historic hotel preserved as affordable housing

MISSION HOUSING

The historic Gran Oriente Hotel is located at 106 South Park Street.

SAN FRANCISCO rent is among the highest in the country. Rents have risen even faster and higher in the trendy South of Market neighborhood.

The city and housing advocates have succeeded in preserving the historic Gran Oriente Hotel, which  provides 24 single-room affordable housing for recent immigrants and their families.

“I think community members around the city and county of San Francisco and the Bay Area and beyond are watching exactly what’s happening in the heart of the Filipino cultural heritage district, and watching how the community is taking back its cultural assets, partnering with non-profits and housing organizations to really not only sustain but, in the long term, empower,” said San Francisco Mayor London Breed during a ribbon cutting ceremony.

The preservation of the low-rent  property grew stronger when the hotel formed a partnership with Filipino community organizations and the Mission Housing Development Corporation, the hotel's 24 units of affordable housing will remain available and all existing tenants can remain.

Smack dab in the middle of it all is the modest Gran Oriente Hotel, owned by Gran Oriente, one of the fraternal lodges formed in the early part of the last century by Filipino men who worked in the hotels, Merchant Marine and the farm fields of California. Because of the racist laws of the early 20th century, Filipinos were not allowed to own property. However, that law didn't apply to lodges.

So the Filipino men (because of another racist labor rule that limited immigration of Filipinas) banded together to purchase property that included the hotel. They bought the hotel in the South of Market area, which at the time was a primarily Irish American neighborhood.

While across town Manilatown was devoured by the financial district, including the famous International Hotel unsuccessfully fought for survival, the Gran Oriente continued to provide an affordable home for Filipinos and South of Market was designated as a Filipino Historical District known as SoMa Pilipinas.

As South of Market property values skyrocketed over the years, the fraternal organization received numerous unsolicited, speculative purchase offers for the Gran Oriente Hotel. Community leaders wondered just how long the building could avoid being “gentrified” — sold on the private market, the units rehabbed and then leased at high rents.

“The Gran Oriente Hotel is a significant building to the Filipino community in San Francisco and for the South Park neighborhood,” said Supervisor Jane Kim. “It also provides 24 SRO units which provide critical affordable housing for the community.”

“I am honored to have worked with SoMa Pilipinas and Mission Housing over the last two years to facilitate its purchase through the Small Sites Program and ensure it remains a community-owned site.”

In meetings between the leadership of the Filipino Community Development Corporation, the Filipino-American Development Foundation, SOMA Pilipinas, the SOMA Stabilization Fund Community Advisory Committee and Mission Housing representatives, ideas were shared about how to honor the Filipino legacy of the building, and find a current and future co-ownership structure that involves the Filipino community.

The outcome: a Filipino organization will own or co-own the Gran Oriente by 2025.

Until then, Mission Housing  Development Corporation will be working with community members on rehabilitating the site, ensuring that all existing tenants remain, and utilizing the site for future community activism and support.

"I am committed to making sure that we invest more in small-site acquisition programs like this so that we can have incredible block parties where we are saving housing,” said Mayor Breed.

______________________________________________________________________________