Introducing arts into a neighborhood is often considered a step on an inevitable path to gentrification.

The three steps:

• blight

• arts

• gentrification

But artists, art workers and art patrons are also the victims of gentrification. They build studios, theaters, galleries, attract restaurants and shops to a neighborhood at great personal and financial cost.

Then rising rents and new construction drive them out.

The new plan for Central Market

offers an opportunity to end the spiral to gentrification

Tenderloin residents will not be affected by Central Market Art Space Zoning. They will not be driven out due to San Francisco’s “many anti-displacement laws,” says Randy Shaw of Tenderloin Housing Clinic, the large activator of Tenderloin’s low cost housing.

Residents of the “luxury look” buildings constructed by low cost housing organizations South of Market Street and around the Hilton are also protected from dislocation.

Artists depend on low rents as well.

The Art Space Plan preserves the rental facilities of current residents and of Central Market artists.

Providing "black box" spaces for arts assures that artists always have a place. Through lean times and creative blocks, the spaces would remain available.

If any place could make it happen, that place is San Francisco.

SOLUTION  

Just as the city requires a percentage of low income housing be built along with with new luxury construction in residential areas, the Central Market Plan must require the provision of  "black box" art spaces in renovation and new construction on Central Market St.

These low-cost-to-build art spaces enhance the value of the building by extending pedestrian traffic past 5pm. Rents for restaurants and stores can be raised as long as the facilities exist which make a space for artists.

For more about black boxes, Click HERE

In the areas around Central Market, SRO hotels push tenants into the streets during the day. The SRO landlords receive City guaranteed payments along with inadequate building code enforcement and are not required to provide common or gathering space. 

SOLUTIONS

Due to the current zoning preserving the outmoded Single Room Occupancy hotels in the Tenderloin and Sixth Street and due to City contracts providing landlords with a guaranteed income, the current residents are guaranteed their homes as long as the city continues the current “care not cash” policy. Unlike the artists, the SRO tenants are not at the mercy of market forces which might drive them out.

The landlords benefit from guaranteed and paying tenants for housing units which are illegal under current zoning. There is a danger that having this monopoly position, they can avoid providing adequate facilities. The City has a certain amount of room to negotiate for improvement due to the fact that landlords have no other potential tenants and the rent is guaranteed by General Assistance programs.

The City benefits by having low rent housing at an unbeatable price. The City is harmed by a concentrated mass of tenants, who can be defined as “people of leisure,” who rule the streets of Mid-Market. These tenants suffer from a lack of services which can help them cope with a range of problems, especially addiction. As “care not cash” has taken shape, the troubled folk spending their day on Market Street has intensified.

The tenants benefit from an indoor place to sleep and a guarantee that they will not be driven out. These “people of leisure” suffer from a room too small to spend the day in and an income too small to provide any purpose other than spending time on the street waiting for a soup kitchen to open.

Since tiny, dilapidated, old hotel rooms without a kitchen drive residents out into the streets, the Central Market Plan must require:

1. (1) greatly increased SRO building code enforcement and
   

(2) “home rooms” located within the SRO hotel or in a central  location in SRO prominent areas, served by visiting mental and medical health specialists.

ABOUT  “home rooms”  

In the past, Medicine Men roamed the Wild West with entertaining shows that touted the miracles of Patent Medicines --- along with samples and demonstrations. 

Today, we need “home rooms” to provide an alternative to the streets. The current situation of long, slow lines outside meal kitchens as the only daily destination is harmful to the SRO residents and the surrounding area. In many cases, a minor renovation of the existing lobbies could provide home room space. Or SRO residents could be provided with a card to admit them to a supervised room in one of the “luxury look” low cost housing buildings. The nature of their difficulty could be keyed to the card, providing safety by separating incompatibles.

The “home rooms” would be served by modern roaming Medicine Men who are social, mental and medical health specialists, touting and demonstrating today’s help for SRO tenants and landlords.

A study for The Mid-Market PAC counted 50 mental health facilitators in the Tenderloin, Mid-Market and SOMA areas. A new Central Market Plan must include operating guidelines to encourage them to roam the Wild North and South of Central Market.

For organizations which might provide traveling medicine men

Click HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE