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by Gretchen Hildebran/PoorNewsNetwork
The crowd shouted wildly as it approached the corner
of 6th and Howard in the early evening darkness.
Laughs, songs and cheers washed over the frustrated
honks of the nearby commuters like a fresh and
exuberant wind. As we approached the intersection, a
cluster of waving people appeared in the second story
rooms of the giant empty building on the corner
that used to house hundreds of people and families.
Two Banners unfurled from the windows welcoming us and
echoing our cheers, they read: "Aqui estamos y no nos vamos! and
Everyone has a right to a roof!"
Last Wednesday's march and Housing Reality Tour was
organized by the National Affordable Housing Trust
Fund Campaign, a coalition of local and national housing rights
groups, tenants, poor people, homeless folks and
families. While the US spends approximately one
billion dollars a day to fight a war in Afghanistan,
poor people and activists are organizing this campaign
to make the government put its resources into fighting
poverty at home. The Affordable Housing Trust, which
could be funded for one year by the last week of
government military spending alone, would build 1.5
million affordable homes in the United States over the
next ten years.
The protest began with a group of several hundred people
gathering in the late afternoon shadow of City Hall.
Families, SRO tenants and homeless folks held up
placards reading Housing for All! and Housing for
the Homeless! to passing cars as local gospel group
Bay City Love sang Down By the Riverside. Krea
Gomez of the Homeless Prenatal Program, one of the
campaign organizers, started things up by
reminding the crowd that we all struggle with the need
for affordable housing, and that this everyday reality
cannot be ignored anymore.
James Tracy from Right 2 A Roof explained next that
this day was designated as the National Day of
Housing Action. This protest was a national one,
happening simultaneously in 20 cities across the US,
and advocating to Congress the importance of the bill,
to be voted on early next year. Maria Orsonio and Cindy Weisner
from POWER (People Organized to Win
Employment Rights) added that economic justice must also
be part of any affordable housing program. Living
wage jobs are just as important as affordable
housing, so that people can keep and care for their
homes.
The crowd had swelled to over a hundred as night fell
and I picked up a sign as the march began. ìHousing
is Hope. Hope did pick up momentum, even as we made
our way to various sites in the Tenderloin and South
of Market that represented the greed, ignorance and
misrepresentation that perpetuate the current lack of
housing for so many. With the revving engines of
police motorcycles surrounding us, we walked to the
offices of Housing and Urban Development. There
speakers addressed the government policy which has
pulled back financing of subsidized housing over the
last 20 years. Someone in the crowd yelled, We need
a NEW new deal! and cheering erupted.
At the Page Hotel, our next stop, a SRO resident spoke
in Cantonese about how SROs are often the only
available housing to the most vulnerable people ñ
especially families and recent immigrants. Tenants at
this SRO have organized against the managementís
racist and illegal eviction procedures. Miguel Barrera
of Hogares Sin Barreras then made the point, ìWe all
should be able to demand housing no matter our
culture!
Next was the former Empress Hotel, an SRO that was
shut down by the city for health reasons in 1981. The
owners of the building recently invested millions in
the hotel in order to illegally reopen it as the now
tourist-only West Cork Hotel. Meanwhile these same
landlords have left their other SRO hotels (most
notoriously the Alder Hotel on 6th St.) in disrepair.
An SRO resident spoke about the need of owners and
government to respect peopleís needs and the laws,
reminding them, don't forget about the people who
were here before you.
By the time we made it to the Examiner building to
protest that newspaper's smear campaigns against the
poor and homeless of the city, we were informed that
local housing activists were already occupying a
nearby vacant building and needed our support.
In a phone interview from inside the infamous
"defenestration" building at 6th and Howard, Ted
Gullickson of the San Francisco Tenant's Union
explained why the activists had chosen to occupy this
building. "Notorious landlord, David Patel evicted the
building's tenants about twelve years ago, and now is
asking the city to pay an inflated $2 million to buy
it. While this building's 75 apartments would be an
important first step towards addressing the need for
low-income housing in the city, real estate
speculation and government inaction have left it
vacant"
Alison Lum of Homes Not Jails, also occupying the
building, said that the group planned to not only.
house over a hundred people at this location but to
also employ them in fixing up their future homes.
Local activists are determined to not just campaign
for the government to recognize the housing needs of
our communities, but to also take an immediate stand
against the city's unwillingness to create low-income
housing. As Alison stated, We will not let
people suffer while buildings stand vacant!
The following day after the police forcibly removed the protestors only the voices of resistance remained, whistling through the now-empty building, "Aqui Estamos Y no Nos Vamos, Everyone has a Right to a Roof"
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