San Francisco Public Press (https://www.sfpublicpress.org/author/madison-alvarado/)
Madison Alvarado is a reporter based in San Francisco who is interested in California's housing crisis, environmental justice and structural inequities. In addition to her reporting on public housing and rent relief at the Public Press, she has covered issues related to the coronavirus pandemic, housing and city government for San Francisco news site Mission Local.
The San Francisco African American Reparations Advisory Committee shared its final recommendations to remedy historical and ongoing harms to local Black communities.
The San Francisco Public Library offers a wealth of resources about the history of Black San Franciscans and the struggle for reparations. Check out our compiled list, which includes library recommendations and other resources we have relied on for our reparations reporting.
One year after emergency repairs were supposed to be completed at Plaza East, 39 units are still waiting on fixes. Meanwhile, in late May, the U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development gave the complex a failing score of 40 out of 100 following physical inspection.
After 2½ years of meetings, community discussions, historical deep dives and policy generation, a panel tasked with proposing how San Francisco might atone for decades of discrimination against Black residents is ready to ask the city to step up and support equity rhetoric with action.
San Francisco’s African American Reparations Advisory Committee is aiming to submit its final recommendations to the city by June 30, according to Brittni Chicuata, director of economic rights at the city’s Human Rights Commission. In the meantime, the city’s annual budget process is in full swing, which may affect funding and the timeline for whatever reparations policies the board decides to pursue.
San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors will review and discuss dozens of policy recommendations beyond a proposed $5 million payment to each qualifying Black resident — the option that captured national media attention and inspired a handwringing frenzy — when it meets March 14 to discuss the city’s draft Reparations Plan.
Its proposals are non-binding, with the committee noting in the plan that “it will be up to the community to create the momentum to ultimately get these recommendations officially codified into San Francisco law.”
Urban renewal was a publicly and privately funded effort across the U.S. wherein local governments acquired land in areas deemed “blighted” — often using a racially biased lens — through eminent domain, forcibly displacing residents and demolishing existing buildings with promises to rebuild. In San Francisco, urban renewal targeted Black cultural centers and neighborhoods, uprooting thousands of families and destroying lively, well-established communities.
Now, San Francisco is giving renewed attention to a program that aims to bring displaced residents and their descendants back to the city as the Board of Supervisors prepares to review a draft Reparations Plan to address historic harms against Black San Franciscans at a meeting March 14.
The Board of Supervisors passed a plan to build 82,000 housing units over the next eight years, maintaining city control over the permitting and building processes. Some critics said the plan does not do enough to prevent low-income residents from displacement as more market-rate apartments are built.
Despite San Francisco officials’ attempts to get ahead of storms, many unhoused people said they were having a hard time accessing shelter beds and other resources to protect them from the rain.
Housing advocates say San Francisco’s eight-year housing plan doesn’t include a comprehensive strategy to build enough affordable housing, to the detriment of the plan’s race and equity goals.
San Francisco residents revealed their top local concerns in a recent Public Press poll. They were given the chance to weigh in on some of those matters during this November’s election.