Dolores Park has a notable trash problem, and District 8 supervisor Jeff Sheehy is one of many insisting that park-goers be more responsible about their trash. But Sheehy is about more than just talk, he’s also bringing out the big guns with new proposed legislation that would increase fines for littering specifically in Dolores Park from $192 to $1,000. The fine would remain the...
Four months ago, Mission District Supervisor Hillary Ronen took office with the promise of tackling some of the district’s most pressing issues, including housing and homelessness. Ronen sat down with Mission Local for the first in a series of conversations to discuss strategies and evaluate the progress on some of her key goals. This interview has been edited and shortened for print. ML:...
Renters want better protections from landlords who say they’re going to exercise their legal right to occupy a unit and then turn around and rent the unit to a new tenant at a higher cost. Owner move-in evictions are legal, but tenants say landlords often circumvent the restrictions in place that are supposed to keep them from being used to...
After a decade and a half of advocating for the homeless in the Mission and throughout the city, Mission Neighborhood Resource Center director Laura Guzman announced on Monday that she will be leaving her post in pursuit of new endeavors. “I leave my heart in the Mission,” wrote Guzman in a Facebook post announcing her departure from the center that...
It’s not just residents who are displaced when rents in San Francisco skyrocket – it’s nonprofits. Two planners who saw that happening are now constructing an entirely new building that will be sold, piece by piece, to nonprofits for a permanent home. Common Ground Urban Development is seeking approvals to tear down a two-story building at 1850 Bryant Street and...
Some 60 people, including whole families, turned out for the first in a series of community outreach meetings concerning the construction of a 130-unit affordable housing project at 681 Florida St. that could break ground in Spring 2019. People were there to learn about applying for the spaces and to make suggestions on the use of its community space. ...
Having raised a total of $1,295,007 from some 12,000 donors, the Gray Area on Friday ended its fundraiser for victims of the Ghost Ship warehouse and arts space fire that struck in Oakland in December of last year. The organization intends to have all the money disbursed by the end of the month, according to a press release. Per its published...
After years of disrepair and neglect, a historic building at 18th and Mission streets is in the process of trading ownership from a former Facebook executive to a commercial developer. Once a hub of the Mission’s Miracle Mile, the building may now become a dialysis center. Mike Conn, senior vice president of Meridian Property Company, a commercial developer based in San Ramon, confirmed...
Listen Local is Mission Local’s biweekly radio program. We broadcast live online at BFF.fm every other Thursday morning from 9:30 to 10:00. Saira Hussain, a staff attorney at the Asian Americans Advancing Justice / Asian Law Caucus, joins us to go into the details of what being a Sanctuary City means, specifically in San Francisco. No, it doesn’t mean ICE can’t...
In response to a surge of complaint-driven sweeps of homeless encampments by city officials in recent months, advocates for the homeless are now organizing and training civilians to monitor and document the rampant encampment removals. On Wednesday, organizers with the Coalition on Homelessness conducted the city’s first ever “Sweeps Watch” training to coach some 40 residents in identifying and...
Assigned from the Airport Bureau to one of San Francisco’s busiest police districts, new Mission Station Police Captain William Griffin said he anticipates a change of pace and comes equipped with a “customer service” centered lens that he hopes will shape the station to better and more efficiently serve the local community. “I think it’s always good to bring...
Every time the words “affordable housing” are used in local media, commenters appear and argue about the phrase. Either they’re frustrated that, in a region where someone thinks it’s okay to charge people $800 a night to sleep on the floor, nothing is really “affordable.” Or they’re mad that we use the term in reference to city-administered below-market-rate units with...
A 17-year vision to transform an empty parking lot at 17th and Folsom streets into a recreational park is months away from completion and all that remained to do at Thursday’s final community meeting was to vote on a name. “The park is almost there,” announced Paulina Araica, the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department’s project manager, who briefed community members...
A survey of 584 households with children in the Mission District and surrounding area shows that while the city overall enjoys low unemployment rates and high incomes, local Latino families experience a starkly different economy. Nearly all of the respondents were Latino and the majority of them were women. Most – 77 percent of the 447 who answered the household...
San Francisco Supervisors unanimously approved an ordinance Tuesday that will regulate the use and the merging of commercial spaces to protect existing businesses on 24th Street. The legislation, which designates a Calle 24 Special Use District, aims to stem the tide of new restaurants moving into former retail businesses. The legislation affects an area roughly outlined by Cesar Chavez and...
