THE HOME PAGE — HOUSING NEWS AND VIEWS FROM RIGHT 2 A ROOF!
Good Housing News For The Holidays:
Coalition On Homelessness and Homeless Prenatal Program Win Protections for Transitional Housing Tenants After two and a half years of negotiations, tenants living in Transitional Housing Programs funded by the Department of Human Services (D.H.S.) can now enjoy some basic protections against evictions.
The Transitional Housing Grievance Procedure will be in effect early January and apply only to Denials of Service (evictions). Those who appeal will have their case heard before a fiveperson panel. What is needed now is a pool of former tenants of transitional housing programs to serve on that panel. Interested? Call Cindy Ward of D.H.S, at (415) 558-2847.
Transition to What? Transitional Housing programs have some of the most dedicated staff in town, helping their clients get their lives on track. Kudos and much respect to these underappreciated, over worked people. Unfortunately, because of an over-all shortage in housing some participants transition back to the streets eventually.
So what’s the solution? More affordable housing! How? One really good place to start is the National Affordable Housing Trust Fund, which will be reintroduced to Congress in January. Last session, it was defeated by a single vote, due in no small part to the fact the U.S.
Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Mel Martinez personally lobbied against the bill! Right to a Roof! kicked off our campaign to win the NAHT by staging a sit-in a Martinez’s offices November 20th while dozens of our friends rallied outside. O.K. so this sit-in didn’t exactly bring the government to its knees but I hope the message is clear: We are not waiting for Conservatives to become compassionate or Democrats to swing to the left: we are going to organize for housing like never before! This was one of twenty national events organized under the North Days of Housing Action.
Introducing The Sierra Hotel Campaign Th Sierra Hotel, at 20th and Mission is 48 units of currently vacant SRO housing. The building was shut-down by the City Attorney thanks to numerous nuisance violations. We are currently organizing door-to-door asking community input on how-to reopen the hotel as permanent low-income housing, but with community safety and stability at the forefront of any proposal we will make to the Board of Supervisors and the Landlord. The results so far is that most of the small businesses, renters and homeowners we have spoken with support the idea of reopening the Hotel, as long as it will be a wellrun, safe operation in a neighborhood already struggling with a lot of challenges. We are confident that we can accomplish this and much more. If you are a Sierra Hotel neighbor and would like to talk about your ideas or get involved with the campaign, give us a call!
Guess What? Housing Rights Committee Ain’t Crooked! It all started as a piece of socalled “journalism” and almost culminated in a witch-hunt. Secretary of Propaganda for the Fang/Examiner Frank Gallagher accused our friends at the Housing Rights Committee of illegally spending city funds on election time activities.
His column landed the HRC in the midst of a time wasting audit, and nearly closed this great organization. Months later, even the Mayor’s auditor cleared HRC of all charges, with the exception of a minor accounting error.
Did political consultant-turned journalist manage to squeeze out an apology? Nope.
Working for a paper that is kept alive thanks to a sweetheart deal subsidy and the political backing of the Brown machine means never having to say sorry.
Build it. The elections were bad news for GA recipients good for folks living in rent controlled buildings and a draw for just about everyone else. No matter what the results-keep fighting, elections are only part of the fight.
Thanks to everyone who volunteered with R2AR this year. Sarah Menefee, Sarah Town, George Tirado, Victor Haney, Randal Kalal, Anita Cheung, Milton Mack, Aimee Patten, Sam Dodge, Alicia Grogan Brown and we’re sure we’re missing someone.
Happy New Year!
Right to a Roof