Friends and Neighbors,
Last week, I declared District 5 — a district where three out every four households are renters — an “Eviction Free Zone.” Even though California’s eviction ban expired on September 30, I want to say loud and clear: we are with you. You should not lose your home because of pandemic hardship.
With the support of the San Francisco Anti-Displacement Coalition, the Eviction Defense Collaborative, Open Door Legal, Daybreak PAC, Neighbors United, and the Housing Rights Committee of San Francisco, the “Eviction Free” D5 initiative will be powered by a robust outreach effort.
Over the next two weeks, our office and incredible volunteers will contact every D5 renter by phone, text, and email to direct them to the resources they need to stay in their homes. In addition, we are collaborating with advocates to hold biweekly Tenant Rights Boot Camps in District 5. The next boot camp is scheduled for this Wednesday, October 7th, 7pm, at Rosa Parks Elementary School. You can apply for rent relief at http://housingiskey.com.
Keep reading for some important updates on anti-eviction protections, office hours, and cool projects on the horizon!
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➩ Happy Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month!
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Happy Latinx & Hispanic Heritage Month! While this special commemoration has evolved since its 1968 inception, we hope that you will join us in recognizing the many outstanding contributions of Latinx and Hispanic community members, leaders, and activists to the tapestry of our city.
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➩ Meet the new District 5 team!
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As you may have already heard, D5 team members Jen Snyder and Avery Yu have moved on to start their own political consulting firm. We thank them for all their work in the D5 office and we wish them the best of luck in their new venture! While our office is sad to see them go, we are excited to officially welcome our new legislative aides Jennifer Bolen and Melissa Hernandez to the District 5 family!
We are also honored to thank our former District 5 Youth Commissioner, Calvin Quick, for his service to our district and thrilled to welcome our new District 5 Youth Commissioner, Arsema Asfaw! Ms. Asfaw was born and raised in Hayes Valley and has been an incredible champion for community and racial equity issues, including restorative justice, Free Muni, and youth empowerment.
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We want to meet you! Our office will be holding in-person office hours in different parts of District 5. Last week, we spent time talking to folks in the Panhandle. Want to talk to Supervisor Preston about your neighborhood or learn more about community programs? Join us for our next neighborhood office hours:
- Wednesday, October 13, 1:30 pm - 2:30 pm, @ Cole Valley
- Wednesday, October 27, 1pm - 2pm, @ Divis
Keep an eye out on our social media or reach out to our office for our announcements on exact locations for our October office hours. We hope to see you there!
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➩ COVID-19, vaccines, & testing
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We continue to monitor the City’s response and encourage our neighbors to get tested and vaccinated for COVID-19 as necessary. Here’s the latest:
- The City announced last week that they are getting ready to start administering vaccines to children under 12 years of age and administering some booster shots this Fall. We are working to get details regarding the timeline and will share it with you as soon as we have more information.
- Our office is working to ensure that the 1118 Golden Gate Ave vaccine and testing site currently run through Maxine Hall remains open as Maxine Hall gets ready to move back into its permanent location next month.
- The City has opened several vaccine sites at select San Francisco Unified School District schools.
Our office looks forward to continuing its collaboration with the Department of Public Health and Department of Emergency Management to expand testing and vaccine access in District 5, including in available school sites.
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➩ Tenant Counseling Resources
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With the patchwork of state and local protections, we know that it can be confusing for tenants to navigate the current legal landscape. Fortunately, there are a number of organizations citywide that provide tenant counseling. We strongly recommend reaching out if you have any questions or concerns, they’re staffed by first rate advocates and counselors who can help you resolve your issues. Here is a selected list, along with language access and contact information, for San Francisco groups:
Housing Rights Committee of San Francisco
Call Mission Office at (415) 703-8644 or Richmond Office at (415) 947-9085
Languages: Mission Office: English, Cantonese, Mandarin, Spanish;
Richmond: Cantonese, Mandarin, English, Russian
Call or email at (415) 513-5177 or info@bishopsf.org
Languages: English, French, Spanish, Tagalog
In addition to the counseling organizations listed above, for anyone who may need legal help, Open Door Legal is a great resource. ODL just opened a new office in the Western Addition, so feel free to stop by at 1113 Fillmore Street, call at (415) 735-4124 or email at info@opendoorlegal.org.
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➩ Tenant Rights Boot Camp
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Worried about the eviction protection moratorium expiring? Don’t panic! Come to our Tenants Rights Boot Camp on Thursday, October 7, 2021 at 7:00 p.m. at Rosa Parks Elementary at 1501 O’Farrell Street and learn your rights as a renter.
This workshop will cover what you’ll need to know about eviction protections, community organizing, rent relief & much, much more!
Counselors from Open Door Legal and Supervisor Preston will be on hand to answer specific questions after the presentation. We hope to see you there!
Stay tuned for additional Boot Camps, we’re planning as many as possible as we enter a new phase in our pandemic protections.
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➩ How to Apply for Rent Relief
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➩ What to do if you get an eviction notice
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If you get an eviction notice, you are entitled to free legal representation. Oftentimes, when a landlord gives a tenant an eviction notice, a tenant just assumes that the landlord has a legal right to evict them, though that’s often not the case! But even if a tenant knows their rights and wants to fight the eviction, the average person usually doesn’t have the money and time to fight them in court. Having an attorney in your corner makes a huge difference--we know that 2 out of 3 tenants who have access to an attorney end up staying in their homes. That’s why we passed the 2018 ballot measure to create the Right to Counsel program, and why we’ve gone to bat since taking office to get the program fully funded.
We hope it never comes to pass, but if you receive a notice of eviction, don’t wait, contact the Eviction Defense Collaborative immediately by phone at (415) 659-9184 or legal@evictiondefense.org.
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➩ Landlord lobby challenges small business rent law
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In July, we passed a first-in-the-nation law to forgive back rent for small businesses that were completely shut down during the pandemic. This past week, the landlord lobby struck back, filing a lawsuit against the law in California Superior Court.
Brought by the San Francisco Apartment Association and the Small Property Owners of San Francisco Institute, the lawsuit seeks to invalidate a bill that gives an upper hand to small businesses struggling with pandemic debt by waiving certain back rent.
These landlord associations are trying to kick neighborhood businesses when they are down/ This was an attempt to give our mom and pop small businesses a fighting chance to get back on their feet, and now the Apartment Association wants to pull the rug out from under them.
“The total amount of back rent that the Ordinance seeks to wipe out is staggering,” the plaintiffs conceded in their filing. At least on that point, we agree.
If our favorite neighborhood bars or salons have this powerful tool taken away, many may never see a path to recovery. Shame on the landlord lobby for attacking small businesses on the brink.
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Stop the MTA from eliminating 5 Muni Lines that Serve the Western Addition and Japantown
Earlier this month, the SFMTA released a city-wide online survey on several restoration proposals, including proposals that would eliminate the 2, 3, 6, 21, and 47 in 2022. The only five lines in the entire city on the chopping block serve the Western Addition and Japantown, raising serious equity concerns.
MTA’s survey is misleading, fails to allow impacted riders to register their concerns, and will almost certainly be used to justify the elimination of critical bus lines in our district. Supervisor Preston objects to this thinly veiled effort to permanently eliminate lines with minimal outreach in the middle of a pandemic when the Delta variant is running rampant.
Supervisor Preston has asked MTA at recent hearings to confirm that these lines will be returning. Despite a year of representations from MTA that the line suspensions were temporary, MTA now refuses to commit that these lines are coming back. Together with the biased survey, this refusal to clearly commit to the return of these lines strongly suggests that the goal is permanent elimination of some or all of these longstanding Muni lines.
We demand that the MTA immediately commit that MTA will restore these lines, and that they follow through and do so as soon as possible. We will not simply sit by while MTA in the midst of a pandemic seeks to permanently eliminate critical lines that serve District 5 residents, particularly residents in the Fillmore and Japantown.
Here’s what you can do to help:
- Please sign this petition demanding that SFMTA stop the elimination of 5 Muni lines, which serve the Western Addition and Japantown. We will also use the contact information you provide to keep you in the loop about what is happening.
- Take the SFMTA survey.
- Reach out to the SFMTA directly to share your concerns. You can email them at TellMuni@SFMTA.com or call the Survey Hotline at (415) 646-2005.
The Slow Street Survey Results are in
Many Slow Streets have become community gathering places and safe spaces for people to share the roadway. Now you can review the Slow Street Survey results for District 5 Slow Streets.
For more information on the Slow Streets program, visit the main webpage at SFMTA.com/SlowStreets.
Golden Gate Avenue Slow Street
The SFMTA will soon be kicking off the design process for a post-pandemic Golden Gate Avenue Slow Street. They will be posting notices and outreach materials along the corridor to hear from more residents about how the Slow Street is working and what changes they might want to see to make it work even better. They anticipate this process will last about 3 months and result in a redesigned Golden Gate Slow Street that will last beyond the pandemic.
You can sign up for email and text updates or take their Golden Gate Avenue Slow Street survey here.
New Signal on 10th Avenue and Lincoln Way
We are excited to share that there will be a new signal on 10th Avenue and Lincoln Way along the southern perimeter of Golden Gate Park and adjacent to the San Francisco County Fair building. The location is on the City’s Vision Zero High Injury Network with nine injury collisions in the past five years the majority of which involve traffic turning on or off of Lincoln Way, a high volume four‐lane roadway.
The signalization of this intersection will provide an opportunity for drivers to make turns and will improve connectivity between the Inner Sunset and Golden Gate Park by providing pedestrians with another opportunity to cross Lincoln Way.
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➩ Green Apple Books is coming to SFO!
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Congratulations Green Apple Books! On September 14, the Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a lease agreement to bring Green Apple Books, in partnership with the Hudson News Group, to the Harvey Milk Terminal at SFO.
We’re delighted to see one of our favorite District 5 small businesses expanding to the airport. Hats off to the folks at SFO for bringing our beloved small businesses -- including Bacon Bacon, another D5 favorite -- to the airport. A great way to highlight what makes our city special!
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10/6: Mark your calendar for Walk & Roll to School Day
Thousands of students across San Francisco will walk, bike, scoot, and roll to school on Wednesday, October 6.
The event builds yearlong excitement around getting to school in people-powered ways that are good for our health, environment, and communities. Parents and caregivers: be sure to mark your calendar! Learn more at walksf.org/walkandroll
Additional graphics for social media can be found here.
10/17: Livable City’s Phoenix Day Block Party
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Join your neighbors on October 17, 12-5pm, 500 block of Page St between Fillmore and Webster!
As part of Livable City's Phoenix Day, Page Slow Street will be hosting a block party. Come join us for a fun day of arts & crafts, activities, music, and more! To volunteer, perform, or exhibit, email pageslowstreet@gmail.com.
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SFPUC Watershed Stewardship Grant
In partnership with the Community Challenge Grant Program, the SFPUC offers the Urban Watershed Stewardship Grant to support community led green infrastructure projects and manage stormwater in San Francisco. Since 2010, the Urban Watershed Stewardship Grant Program has awarded over 2 million dollars for projects that have transformed sidewalks into rain gardens, created stormwater resilient schoolyards, and provided sustainable community spaces throughout the city. Applications will open October 20. More information about the Urban Watershed Stewardship Grant and eligibility criteria can be found here.
Salesforce has created a $1 million fund to provide $10,000 grants for San Francisco-based small businesses
Applications opened on Monday, September 27th and will close on Sunday, October 17th at 11:59pm PST. You can sign up here to be notified when the application is live.
Eligibility requirements and the full terms & conditions here.
If you have any questions, you can send an email to salesforcegrants@ureeka.biz.
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| Please do not hesitate to reach out to our office with any ideas, questions or concerns, at prestonstaff@sfgov.org.
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