Environmental and Social Injustice
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Hunters Point

Bayview/Hunters Point is located in the southeast corner of San Francisco, Hunters Point jutting out into the bay. Up until 1942, it was described as pastoral, "the entrancing beauty of its setting and the mildness of its climate mark it as one of the most favored spots of the city…gentle slopes undulating to the water." Attempts to develop this area began with the Gold Rush. In 1849, Dr. John Townsend and Corneille De Bloom tried to market houses there as South San Francisco. Unlike the rest of the shoreline, the Point has deep water close to the shore. This made it especially attractive since the construction of long piers was necessary near the heart of the City. Unfortunately for the investors, their scheme failed within a year with few houses sold and the rest abandoned. Sales agents for the investors, the Hunter brothers stayed on, essentially squatting in one of the nicer homes. Locals eventually named the center of the community Hunters Square and in 1886, called the area Hunter's Point. South San Francisco never materialized at this location. The essential missing element was transportation. It was too far from the city.

The first African-American community developed in San Francisco following 1848, settling on Telegraph Hill and the waterfront. This community included well-educated, prosperous people and immigrants from the Caribbean and Cape Verde, making the group an unusually diverse one in the United States. By 1900, African-Americans had mostly moved into the Western Addition and numbered 1,654 out of a total population of 342,782. Their numbers rose to only 2,414 by 1920. Perhaps because the African-American population was not large enough to be a major presence, San Francisco was considered an open, black-tolerant city. That would change as labor demand in the Oakland and San Francisco shipyards increased the African-American population in the Bay Area from 16,500 to 147,000 between 1940 to 1950. In San Francisco, their numbers swelled to 43,502, the overwhelming majority of these people settling in the Bayview-Hunter's Point district and the Fillmore, a neighborhood within the Western Addition.

The outbreak of WWII brought drastic changes to San Francisco. Although easy access to deep water first interest the Navy in the late 1800s, use had been minimal. In 1942, the Navy seized the entire Hunters Point neighborhood of 86 homes and 23 business, forcing the evacuation of 100 families to developed shipbuilding and repair facilities. They required a huge amount of war housing and construction proceeded rapidly. Tenants moved in as soon as units were completed. Construction materials were in short supply so the majority of these were quite austere with the minimum of necessities. Many of these multiple unit structures were constructed simply out of plywood with only tiny windows up high for ventilation and a little light and doors at either end. Essentially, they were firetraps yet "residents are being moved in as each unit is completed, so great is San Francisco's housing problem." After the war, the Navy severely reduced shipbuilding activities and their need for the housing dissipated. White families moved out. Blacks stayed on in the war housing. They found more housing in the Fillmore, as well. Blacks poured into that neighborhood following the spring of 1942 when internment commenced and Japanese Americans were evacuated. Soon, blacks comprised about 60% of the residents there.

Redlining and other discriminatory practices continued to limit the neighborhoods available to African-Americans in San Francisco. The inability to receive loans and the increasingly crowded conditions brought on by the containment of the black population to small areas led to dilapidated, slum housing. In 1948, the Board of Supervisors declared the Western Addition to be a blighted area and then used Federal and State laws to authorize the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency to revitalized it. The SFRA was empowered by The California Redevelopment Act of 1945 (CRA) and the Federal Housing Act of 1949. The CRA declares that blighted areas undermine the health, morals, and economic welfare not only of those who live in them, but also of the rest of the population thus necessitating large-scale redevelopment. It authorizes any city or county to establish a Regional Development Agency to combat urban blight. Agencies purchased property, razed and built structures, built infrastructure, developed affordable housing, and renovated downtown commercial areas. They also used their eminent domain power to purchase private property within designated redevelopment area not just for public use, but to transfer to other private owners .

2,600 residential units were torn down in the Western Addition. "Moreover, for many years demolition far outpace new construction." Essentially, it razed entire neighborhoods, displacing as many as 4,000 families . Resettlement help was scarce. While the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency (SFRA) applauded the move to place resettlement in the hands of the Mayor, the fact was that Mayor John Shelly balked at enforcing resettlement policy adopted by the City Council. He vetoed a resolution to halt all redevelopment until families affected by the project could be relocated. Assistance was negligible. Blacks crowded into the only place available to them, Bayview/Hunters Point or moved out of San Francisco. The Western Addition Community Organization (WACO) opposed redevelopment on the grounds that SFRA policies ignored plans for low-cost housing in favor of middle-class dwellings that the poor cannot afford. The fast pace at which the huge Diamond Heights project for market rate housing progressed versus all other projects supports that argument. By 1975, Diamond Heights was near completion while the two Western Addition projects were only half-complete. A mere 325 of 1,940 planned units for Hunters Point were finished. The racial balance was shifting. In 1970 the Western Addition was 48% black and 36% white versus 65.5% black and 20% white for Bayview/Hunters Point.

Western Addition employment also suffered. Construction of the Geary Expressway, the transform of the section through the Western Addition into a limited-access highway to improve access between downtown and outlying, mostly white areas killed local retail shops. General razing took others. Of the nearly 1,000 San Francisco African-American-owned businesses recorded by the Committee for Community Solidarity Inc. in 1959, 80% were located in the Fillmore District and nearly 100 were located on Fillmore Street proper. Years later, in The Contested City (Princeton University Press, 1983), John H. Mollenkopf explains what really happened:
"After World War II, the Western Addition had a thriving black commercial life. Its main commercial artery, Fillmore Street, featured every manner of convenience, including nightclubs like the Cafe Society, Esther's Breakfast Club, Jimbo's Bop City, and the Both/And. Vernon Thornton owned a popular bowling alley on Fillmore. As renewal began execution, according to Thornton, the [Redevelopment Agency] held off purchasing his thriving business, even though it was located in the area to be demolished for a new shopping center-style development. Instead the [Redevelopment Agency] demolished much of the surrounding housing, displacing Thornton's clientele and driving him out of business. Only then did the Agency take his property, offering him a fraction of what it was worth."

Another project removed yet one other major source of employment from the Western Addition. The stockyards and slaughterhouses were razed and relocated to Bayview as part of the Butchertown project. The project area, 125 acres located in the neighborhood of Third Street and Evans, was already home for much of the meatpacking industry as well as a variety of auto salvage yards, junkyards, and light industry. The Butchertown project would concentrate the meatpacking industry here, make this area friendlier to industry and remove all residences. Evans Avenue would be widened as the main corridor for industrial development. Along Third Street, the main commercial artery in this neighborhood, the project would remove retail stores, even those that thrived. The zoning would be strictly light and heavy industrial. Project promoters on one hand said, "The main objective…is the creation of jobs for the unemployed and underemployed residents of the Bayview/Hunters Point community." On the other hand they called it, "A great opportunity for unskilled and minority workers." Displaced residents were offered relocation in Hunters Point only. A highway planned for the eastern end of this project would serve to separate the project area from white neighborhoods and further isolate the black community.

By 1955, the City knew it had to do something about the slum condition of the war housing in Hunters Point. Most of it was temporary housing and was long past its expected service life. Poor management and neglect had reduced the area to deplorable conditions. Broken pavement, peeling paint, overgrown weeds, etc. A redevelopment plan would be set up to demolish over 1,600 units and replace them with a mixture of market rate and subsidized housing, schools, day care facilities and recreational facilities. In 1963, state law set a deadline of 1970 for the demolition of all war housing yet construction lagged considerably behind that. This project would not see closure until 1983 with only 929 low and moderate priced units and a mere 14 market rate units completed out of 1,685 total planned for all types . This is considerably less than the 1,940 called for in 1975.

Bayview/Hunters Point has been subjected to environmental health hazards, as well. Nearby Candlestick Point served as a garbage dump until the building of Candlestick Park in 1960. Newspapers describe the "Big Smell" as a pervasive odor from the garbage dump and of raw sewage discharged into the bay from the Bayview and Brisbane sewers. The City did not address these problems until the smell interfered with the pleasure of stadium patrons. Still, the community has contended with car exhaust from two freeways, one polluting power plant in the neighborhood and another close by on Potrero Hill. The Navy has dumped toxins into the soil, including radioactive materials at five parcels containing several federal Superfund sites. "Overall the health of the Bayview is a little worse than in other parts of the city, and that's because of the environmental factors: the power plant, the soil. It's not just the shipyard but Bayview itself." says Dr. Arthur Coleman who has run a private practice on Third Street for the past 52 years. He said he sees a lot of patients with asthma, lung disease, and sinus problems.

By 1966, the supermarket and local stores in Hunters Point were boarded up. Owners of essentially sound structures found it impossible to borrow money to rehabilitate them because special loan programs created to help rehabilitation in redevelopment areas could not be used without redevelopment. That summer riots broke out in Hunters Point. Several days of fighting fueled by frustration failed to bring the community closer together in common cause or result in concessions from the City:

"Hunters Point is a depressed and isolated district… a true ghetto, despised and neglected as far as possible by the rest of the city. Its votes have been taken for granted by Democrats, ignored by Republicans. It is poorly serviced; garbage collection is irregular; public transportation is inadequate. Hunters Pointers are clearly an outcast community in San Francisco."
- Hippler, 1970

"When we talked about our neighborhood, we mostly said it was 'bad'…a lot of trash around…broken windows…People shouldn't live in garbage cans…rats …abandoned cars turned upside down…people dump garbage into the cars… people don't come here to visit because they are scared…a lot of fires … It makes me scared…I live in a wooden house."
- Fourth Graders in Hunters Point, 1987

In August 2000, a surface brush fire occurred on one of the Hunters Point Superfund parcels. The subsurface landfill fire continued to smolder for many weeks. No air monitoring was conducted during the early days of the fire. Many of the local children have asthma, and some are now going through an inhaler a day.

Community leaders in Hunters Point are frustrated with a system that does not serve them. At every step, they are being told that they do not matter, they are not important. The power structure blocks the path of progress. Racism, the possessive investment in whiteness, growth politics, and outright theft are among the factors impeding decent housing in a decent neighborhood. In 1990, HUD secretary, Jack Kemp, was promoting resident empowerment and tenant ownership within his broader agenda of eliminating public housing. Theresa Coleman had just organized a community group called Ujamaa to rebuild her battered public housing neighborhood, the Westbrook project, in Hunters Point. "I had never seen a black community like this," she said. "The store was gone; the school was gone. It was dead." Frustration over San Francisco Housing Authority (SFHA) mismanagement, disregard for the community and the deteriorating condition of the dwelling and neighborhood, Ujamaa sought authority to bypass the SFHA and institute community based decision. The Bush administration approved and authorized Ujamaa to manage their $4.2 million share of HUD funds. Almost immediately the political climate shifted in Washington and Ronnie Davis, the Director of SFHA reacted. Fears that residents couldn't handle the burden of managing their own housing developments prompted immediate audits and a funding freeze. Business arrangements made in good faith went unpaid and the community was suddenly without working capital. Said Davis, "I believe residents should have every opportunity," he explained. "But we have a responsibility to assure that they were properly trained." He said that Coleman had assumed too much power without proper oversight. Coleman maintains SFHA has declared war on resident leaders who challenge the agency's near-total control over their communities. The community is naturally upset. "When Ujamaa was around, you didn't hear about the crime up on the hill; you didn't hear about shootings," said Lynne Brown, one of Coleman's neighbors. "Everybody was working." Funded by HUD, the SFHA was created in 1938 to "provide housing for residents otherwise not able to secure decent, safe, and sanitary dwellings." But although the SFHA has largely failed creating ghettos and mismanaging countless grants it won't give residents a shot at self-governance. One of Coleman's concerns was that SFHA did not designate any Hope VI funds for Hunters Point projects. This plan would replace older projects with smaller developments that mix families of different incomes, while moving thousands of tenants into privately owned buildings. Funds were made available to projects in other parts of the City.

Coleman was eventually investigated by SFHA for missing funds yet her innocence is plausible. She claims the check she had supposedly signed for missing funds was forged and the evidence is in her favor, especially considering later discoveries about Davis' activities. Davis was indicted for misconduct by a grand jury in Cleveland and investigated in San Francisco. Two audits by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development released almost simultaneously in March of 2000 detailed alleged financial abuses in both cities. The Ohio audit claims Davis diverted hundreds of thousands of dollars from Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority housing programs to management perks, including bonus and incentive payments to Davis and mortgage payments for his boss Freeman-McCown's townhouse. The San Francisco audit said the Housing Authority wasted hundreds of thousands of dollars by handing out contracts without proper bidding. The San Francisco and the Ohio audit called for disciplining Davis. The Cleveland agency won a civil judgement against Freeman- McCown, who was ordered to repay $462,000. In addition, during that trial, an agency employee testified that Davis was instrumental in drafting an apparently fraudulent letter that authorized Freeman-McCown's mortgage payments. Three housing authority commissioners testified that the signatures on the letter were not theirs, and they had not known of the letter's contents.

Davis' administration came under further scrutiny for tampering with election polls on Housing Authority property. Chosen by Mayor Willie Brown to head the San Francisco agency, the Mayor called on Davis to get out the vote in support of $100 million in bonds to build a new stadium and mall at Candlestick Point. Proponents of the measures, employing the slogan "Build the stadium - create the jobs," crossed a wide spectrum of public employees and elected officials, the Chamber of Commerce and the usual proponents of growth. Additionally, some community leaders and activists in the depressed Bayview-Hunters Point district supported the effort for the promised 10,000 jobs and $12 M for low cost housing they so desperately need. The opponents of these measures sought to expose the hidden costs and the full impact of the development as well as point out the realities of the deal. In addition, "only 14-15% of the season ticket holders are San Franciscans . Some pointed out the vast expenditures for luxury items, "some of the richest men in America threaten to leave if we don't but them a sports palace chock-a-block with luxury-boxes average tax-payers will never see the inside of ." Environmental showed concern for the loss of parkland, increased pollution and traffic associated with the huge mall, which would be far from regular public transit lines. Small business owners voiced concerns that existing retail businesses in the vacinity would be hurt. That concern is shared by some local community leaders who see the mall as a boondoggle that will take development funds away from the established community along Third Street.

The political, social and economic issues of major league sports facilities, especially publicly funded ones, are complex and confusing. Proponents of growth at any cost seek to further obscure the facts with emotionally charged rhetoric and slogans such as "Build the stadium - create the jobs." The result is that the public is asked to appropriate huge sums of money from other programs and services to create profits for private industry without even hearing the alternatives. The promise of jobs and economic boom is an illusion. Studies point out that "sports account for negligible increases in net new spending and new jobs. " In addition, comparisons of the public cost of stadium construction versus the actual number of jobs created show that public financed stadiums cost between $331,000 and $1.82 million per job

Focusing on the existing community centered on traditional commercial space has greater community support. In 1993, The Third Street Corridor was studied to assess existing conditions and needs, identify opportunities for real estate and business development, and describe potential funding mechanisms for an economic development program. This has the support of the Bayview Hunters Point Project Area Committee and is in line with solid economic reasoning. According to Alan Greenspan,
"In our economy, the three principal means for household asset accumulation are through home-ownership, small business ownership, and savings. As important as these are for the individual, they also represent distinct and important benefits to the broader economy and, therefore, play prominent roles in the operation of our financial markets and the priorities of our public policy. The choice to buy a home is a decision to plant a family's roots in a community with all the implicit incentives to make that community thrive… It is essential that the opportunity to start an enterprise is open to anyone with a viable business concept… Developing non-home equity, largely through small-business ownership, not only enhances home ownership among business owners in minority communities, it more importantly offers a source of risk capital to budding entrepreneurs in that community… Community-based organizations have contributed in this evolving marketplace by helping to ensure that traditionally underserved populations and geographic areas are able to achieve gains in asset accumulation."

MUNI is finally in the process of extending light rail service from downtown along the Third Street corridor. This is the connection that may reverse 150 years of isolation for Hunters Point.

Urban Renewal, and the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency, in particular, has been hard on the black community. Along with the loss of neighborhood has come the loss of leadership, institutions and economic opportunity. It has been said that "urban renewal equals Negro removal" or as "sending the Negros back." The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development states, "it is our goal to reconstruct the physical and social fabric of the American urban environment." Sadly, the results have been just the opposite. African-Americans in San Francisco have been displaced time and again from home, job and community as those places were destroyed in the name of progress. Government policy and direct action have rendered Hunters Point, spoiled of its natural beauty, the refuge for the Cities largest minority, an environment and social injustice of great enormity.

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