If we hadn’t been told over and over that it is an evil word that should never be uttered in San Francisco, even cynics would say it is the g-word:

Gentrification.

And it’s happening with surprisingly little grumbling.

“Or,” says 30-year real estate veteran Joske Thompson, “I think it is a different kind of grumbling. Even the long-termers in neighborhoods are appreciating the changes. Those people in the Mission like the fact that they can walk the neighborhood and feel safer.”

The difference this time is that the push is coming from the bottom up. Rather than fat-cat developers promoting ugly skyscrapers, the demand is coming from young techies who work here or in the Silicon Valley and want to preserve the feel of unique neighborhoods. Their presence is being felt not only in the Mission, where Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg now has a home, but to areas that were once considered downtrodden.

“Young people with talent are the new movers and shakers in the city,” says Thompson, who says the city sells itself. “Last weekend I had some clients who were looking in the Mission. We drove by Dolores Park, and it was packed. They said, ‘Is there a street fair?’ “

Nope, just another afternoon in trendy town.

“This is a small city of 800,000 people,” says Supervisor Scott Wiener, who chairs the Board of Supervisors’ Land Use and Development Committee. “And 2 to 3 million people want to live here. We just need to make sure we don’t kill that quirkiness and uniqueness.”

Displacement in ’70s, ’80s

While the city experienced a similar boom in the ’80s, the concern then was “Manhattanization” – and that’s when gentrification became a dirty word.

“In the ’70s and ’80s there was massive displacement of residents in the Haight, Noe Valley and the Castro,” says Randy Shaw, executive director of the Tenderloin Housing Clinic. “But now you are seeing a massive influx of upper-income people into previously unoccupied areas.”

This boom has its share of concerned activists, but we have yet to see the stop-any-kind-of-development movement we saw in the ’80s.

Still, higher rents are higher rents, and if monthly rates top $2,000, that will affect the entire rental stock.

“In over 30 years of doing this, I have never seen rents like this,” says Delene Wolf, executive director of the city’s Rent Stabilization Board. “My surmise is those Google buses must be fueling that. The whole demographic has changed. I just think about what people on the low end of the economic ladder are feeling.”

Tenants feel at risk

Sara Shortt, executive director of the Housing Rights Council of San Francisco, says the booming rents create a climate that encourages landlords to drive out rent-controlled tenants.

“I am hearing from people who are feeling like survivors in isolated pockets,” she said. “Don’t be fooled. There are still big-money real estate developers creating that market.”

But, those changes are largely happening in neighborhoods that have made the progression from urban blight to uber-hot.

Take Dogpatch, an obscure right turn off Third Street south of ATT Park. Until recently, it was best known as home to the clubhouse of the San Francisco chapter of Hells Angels.

In 2002, Arienne Landry moved her Just for You Cafe from Potrero Hill, but not before she parked her truck on the street for a few days to check out the vibe.

“It was pretty sketchy, almost industrial,” says Landry, who had to shoo drug users away from the cafe entrance after she opened.

Now there’s a line out the door for weekend brunch, and she says weekdays have gone from “whatever to craziness.”

Susan Eslick, an artist, has lived in Dogpatch since 1996. Now she can walk down 22nd Street and call out the changes on every corner. There’s Chocolate Lab, a local chocolate maker, Rickshaw Bagworks, which makes custom messenger bags, a cheese shop, a gourmet ice cream store and Olivier’s, a French butcher shop. And perhaps most important to the transformation, Puccino Restaurant. It opened in 2006, attracting both foodies and good reviews.

“When I got here, you’d have been hard-pressed to find a woman pushing a baby stroller,” says Eslick, vice president of the Dogpatch Neighborhood Association. “Now we have three preschools and a baby gym. It all happened around the time Puccino opened.”

Dogpatch hasn’t lost its funk. The Hells Angels are still there, and they’re active members of the Dogpatch Neighborhood Association.

So don’t try to tell her that upscaling of the neighborhood is a bad thing.

“The term gentrification is loaded,” she said. “I say bring it on. It just has to be designed well. There’s no tolerance for schlock.”

People mean change

There are surely more changes to come. The Tenderloin’s Shaw says the neighborhood has been relatively untouched by the surge, but thousands of residential units near Eighth Street are under construction, and with the arrival of both Twitter and Dolby Labs, it seems impossible that area won’t be transformed.

Those who have already ridden the wave say it is best to go with the flow. Now that her cafe has become a hot spot, startup millionaires stop by for lunch regularly.

“We just ignore them,” she says.

C.W. Nevius is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. His columns appear Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. E-mail: cwnevius@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @cwnevius

Article source: http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/nevius/article/Gentrification-no-longer-a-dirty-word-4302093.php

But after all the grand fanfare, with impressive deals made in anticipation of city funding contributions and millions of dollars raised for design and preliminary development, the harsh reality of the national housing meltdown brought the dream crashing to a halt. Public housing residents who have been repeatedly disappointed are back in limbo, living day-to-day in homes that — in many cases — are vermin-infested, lack heat, have broken walls, ceilings or windows, and are consistently rated as dangerous and life-threatening.

In U.S Department of Housing and Urban Development inspections, a score of at least 60 out of 100 is considered passing. Scores at the eight public housing projects supposed to be upgraded by Hope SF range from 51 to 65 — and HUD found “life-threatening conditions present” at all of them.

For decades, running well into the early ’90s, the rundown condition of San Francisco’s public housing was a disgrace to The City. Executive managers were ousted and angry federal reports blasted the projects’ inadequate upkeep. Then between 1994 and 2006, money from the federal Hope VI program successfully revitalized public housing in the Mission, North Beach, Western Addition, Hayes Valley and Bernal Heights.

But the money from Washington eventually disappeared. Newsom tried to continue the work by assembling one of his bolder programs. Hope SF was a complex package partnering with private or nonprofit developers who would make money by building market-rate condos in the area. However, with the housing market and real estate financing limping along in the Bay Area, four years after Hope SF began, only two of its sites — in Hunters Point and the Bayview — actually have the public funds to move ahead.

Funding has run dry for six other developments, including the 769-unit Sunnydale housing project, sites atop Potrero Hill and in the Western Addition. The dismal news arrived in The City’s March report outlining San Francisco’s next decade of development: City Hall needs $127 million for infrastructure upgrades such as utilities, street paving and drainage before money becomes available to finish the public housing rebuild.

The fact remains that Hope SF made a four-year-old unfulfilled promise to San Franciscans whose needs have been shoved back to the end of the line for a disgracefully long time.

There can be no arguing about how difficult today’s municipal spending constraints are. But simply giving up and leaving Hope SF on the back burner will only worsen the problems plaguing these low-income communities. This is a time to try moving beyond the bureaucratic envelope. Some ways should be found to sweeten the developer deals so they become more attractive to private funding. It would seem that a task force of creative business people ought to be able to find some way to move Hope SF forward.

Article source: http://www.sfexaminer.com/opinion/editorials/2011/04/san-francisco-public-housing-shouldn-t-be-left-hopeless