Transbay%2011A%20Design.jpg
Construction has commenced at the southeast corner of Folsom and Essex, also known as Transbay Block 11A. As plugged-in people know, it’s an eight (8) story building with 120 below market rate apartments for the formerly homeless, a suite for supportive services, and two market rate retail spaces that’s rising on the former surface area parking site.
Transbay Block 11A Site (Image Source: MapJack.com)
The project will also yield a wider Essex Street sidewalk, a bulb out on the corner of Folsom and Essex, and two new rows of urban trees (click image below to enlarge).

The building is now slated to be construction complete by September 2013.
Transbay Block 11A (Folsom @ Essex) Plans And Proposed Design [SocketSite]

64 thoughts on “Construction Commences On 120 Units At Folsom And Essex”
  1. Sorry, first comment is already going off topic, but the picture above nudged my memory: does anyone know if they’ve broken ground on Two Rincon Hill? I drove by ORH the other day and saw a crane (presumably the same crane as in the middle picture above) and pilings sticking out of the ground on the lot next to ORH. Anyone know what’s going on?

  2. Legacy Dude, you must know that if/when construction ever starts on tower 2 this board will light up like a roman candle. No need to ask.

  3. Legacy Dude, you must know that if/when construction ever starts on tower 2 this board will light up like a roman candle. No need to ask.

  4. This constitutes real progress for The City. Simple surface level parking lots are a far cry from “highest, best use” of land.

  5. Housing for the formerly homeless. Sure, why not? All they need now is a place to get cheap booze.
    These housings (HROs, BMRs) are just a giant neon sign over SF to all the homeless in the country.
    In the mean time the lower middle class cannot find anything decent to put their kids.

  6. Legacy Dude:
    The crane you saw when driving is for the 333 Harrison project on the southeast corner of Harrison & Fremont. 2RH would be on the southwest corner.
    The Socketsite discussion of 333 Harrison is below.
    https://socketsite.com/archives/2009/03/333_harrison_approved_a_pluggedin_readers_13_notes.html
    Also, the crane in the picture above (if I am not mistaken) is actually from 1RH when it was going up. You can see some of 1RH’s structure in the picture.

  7. I have to agree with “lol” on this too.
    City money would be much better spent building housing for families of teachers, fire fighters, police, etc.
    Over the years, San Francisco has spent millions on homelessness with little improvement. Try spending those dollars on families will make a greater difference for the better.

  8. I agree that higher-density middle class housing for families should be a higher priority than homeless magnets. But the middle class (at least by BA standards) can buy here. Here is a good recent example:
    http://www.redfin.com/CA/San-Francisco/82-Ina-Ct-94112/home/1371476
    3BR house in the Excelsior, 39% below 2007 price and just below 2000 price – $510k. A firefighter could house his family there. Problem is that the SF public schools suck, so once you add private school tuition for 2 kids, now the firefighter cannot afford to live here.

  9. The Excelsior and Folsom street are 2 different animals. I see your point. Adding market rate condos in this area could release the pressure in other places. The key is to keep the costs down. If a developer need 1000/sf to make a buck on a luxury condo tower, this doesn’t help much the social segment that is leaving town. But if you’re going market rate sub-500/sf with minimal HOA overhead, then you are offering housing that is greatly needed.

  10. I challenge the notion that SF Public schools “suck”. Not all do.
    I personally know some young families with kids in public schools. The parents are VERY active in the school programs. They help to make it better. They do not believe in sending their kids to private schools. Often, sending your kids to private schools is really just “running away from the problem”.
    More parental involvement would help. And perhaps, more parents being less concerned about having the big screen TV, the latest, expensive iPhone, the blingyest SUV…would help.
    Priorities. Values. Mentoring. Involvement.

  11. Wai Yip Tung,
    The bulb outs will insure the ambulances can pull right up to the sidewalk without being blocked by parked cars. Faster to get them to the overdose ward at county hospital that way.

  12. lol is just going on his preconceived notions about homelessness. Not all homeless people are derelict drunk bums (I think the preferred term of social science is ‘Chronic Inebriates’, but I’m not at all certain), although I can understand how one could reach that conclusion just by walking around downtown.
    8% of the homeless in The City in general, and a much higher percentage of the people sleeping in cars (the ‘vehicular homeless’) go to work every day. See the 2009 report (there might be a later one that I just haven’t seen or read) here.
    I am not at all an advocate for the homeless such as Martha Bridegam; I’m probably more repelled by the sight and smells of human excrement downtown as anybody (well, the folks that comment here probably don’t walk downtown…) here and I get more than a little irritated by aggressive panhandling.
    But not all of the homeless are drug addicts, inebriates, and untreated schizophrenics. Not all homeless people in S.F. are out on the street begging for money so they can pay for drugs.
    For the people who can be helped, this project offers the potential for a lot of good. Certainly a better land use than a surface level parking lot.
    As far as the contention that project such as this one are “just a giant neon sign over SF to all the homeless in the country”, I’ve said before here that The City spends a significant amount on bus tickets to get homeless people who don’t have ongoing ties to The City back to places where they do have family, etc.; and this has been an ongoing element of the City’s homelessness policies since at least the Newsom administration:

    Mayor Gavin Newsom Wednesday said his administration has moved 12,000 homeless people off the streets since he took office in 2004…The 12,000 number includes those helped by programs including Care Not Cash to slash welfare checks in exchange for housing and Homeward Bound to pay for people’s bus tickets home…The city paid for bus tickets for 5,000 homeless people who have a receptive relative or friend at the other end to greet them.
    “We’re not sending them back to some sort of unstable, unhealthy situation,” he said.

    Emphasis added. I realize that’s an old article; I’m assuming that the Homeward Bound program is still in operation since by all accounts it was a success in reducing the number of homeless on the street and I recall Newsom mentioning it during his campaign for Lt. Governor.
    lastly, about the crack “place to get cheap booze”; the post above mentions that the project will also contain “a suite for supportive services”, so I think its safe to assume that the common rules that halfway houses have against residents using will be in effect. That is, as a condition of continuing residency, residents will have to refrain from using and stay clean/sober, which The City wouldn’t have a way of enforcing if they just had the same people on the street.

  13. Brahma,
    Sure enough I know I do have preconceived views about homelessness. A good friend of mine works into homeless psychology and she tells me horrible stories of bad luck and sometimes bad choices. I understand that there’s much more to it than what we see.
    But at some point each group must define its territory. Do not assume that because I understand the problem is complex I am ready to take major downgrades in quality of life to accommodate a few.
    They say your personal freedom stops where other people’s freedom starts. I am telling you that to give more services to the homeless you are stepping on mine by lowering my opportunity and I do not like it one bit.
    1 – Services to the homeless or quasi-homeless (SROs) make roughly 40 city blocks separate from the rest. You have to cross them, but you do not want to live or work there (my wife is reconsidering working there after the shoot-out of late). As such they form a boundary of sorts IN THE HEART OF THE CITY.
    2 – Money used on the homeless is diverted from other programs. Myriads of not-for-profits (some questionable) collect millions over millions from the city’s coffers. We could be spending this money on more daycare support or funding schools, or more funds for firefighting or road improvement or more bike paths or more public transportation, things that benefit the rest of the general population. We’re not and my quality of life goes down a notch because of that.
    No other city in the Bay Area spends nearly as much on the problem as SF. This has made SF a homeless magnet because you can get treatment for addiction, almost-decent housing, counseling, free food. Why be in Daly City and starve, sleep on the streets, be exposed to disease when you’re a BART ride away from a shower and a bed?
    About the cheap booze, I was musing 2 weeks ago about the prospect of someone opening a sandwich shop near the new Twitter building. Maybe I could open a TL corner booze-mart on the first floor. I’d make a killing.

  14. lol,
    if you brought in more services that helped families, you’d also bring in republicans and less leftist leaning liberals and then the current politicians would not have as easy of a time.
    By continuing to attract and keep homeless people, it chases away more and more of the not so left leaning potential residents: the people looking for a leftist utopia not only don’t have a problem with this development, they think it’s a positive thing. It makes them WANT to move here. And of course, the residents actually in this development will vote for the most left leaning politicians always.
    That is the calculus that the politicians make when deciding whether to place these things. The fact is, more homeless shelters are good for the current politicians and things that help families and residents are not. So your pipe dreams of “money for daycare support” is simply laughable. It’s never going to happen here, given the entrenched political environment we have here.
    The politicians have figured out how to use land use policy to feather their nests and they are going to continue. You need to get used to it.

  15. twister,
    Here we go again with the “start off with a wildly overarching blanket statement and go all crazy from there”.
    I do not think middle class and lower middle class families in SF could be qualified as Republican. Republicans claim loud and clear their “family values” but will make hard for you to provide your kids with health insurance, quality education, daycare services. The only claim to family values they can make is about abortion and gay marriage based on christian principles. They do not care about the real issues faced by families and everyone knows that.
    Anyway, happy new year. Let 2012 be not as bad as you predict it will be.

  16. I forgot: I support your theory that there’s a good level of homeless pandering (probably the reason behind this project, I agree), though I am not sure what the voting rate is among people in SROs. Looking at the typical loony homeless loudmouth, I’d say he is more likely to go for tin-foil-hat-it’s-all-a-giant-mainstream-media-conspiracy Ron Paul.

  17. lol, your latest was just a defense and restatement of your preconceived notions. As I wrote above, and what tipster ignored in his snark was that The City spends plenty of money sending homeless people from elsewhere back to where they came from. Your latest didn’t acknowledge that fact.
    I agree with you that money spent on homeless programs is diverted from elsewhere. The fact that you and tipster don’t want to address is that if the money wasn’t spent on homeless programs, the homeless wouldn’t suddenly disappear, what we’d get is even a large number of people on the street and sleeping in cars and that would degrade everyone’s quality of life even more than what we have now. At least for the subset of homeless people who can hold down a job, this gets them off of the street or out of sleeping in their cars.
    This project is going to house people currently homeless. That is going to increase your quality of life, and tipster’s and mine and everyone else in The City.
    What you both don’t seem to understand is that the homeless policies also help the businesses who would have their sales depressed because, just as an example, fewer people would go shopping down around Union Square if were filled with even more homeless people and aggressive panhandlers. The number one complaint that the City sees in its surveys of tourists, for example, is that the City has too many homeless people on the street.

  18. We should help the middle class instead? What middle class? We spent the last decade or so eliminating them. That’s one of the reasons we see so many homeless families now. The days when homelessness was for single males in trouble are long gone.

  19. Tipster, like I said above, I am far from an advocate of more programs aimed at the homeless, but since we’re snarking, why don’t you and lol get together and work toward a positive solution?
    Gather signatures for a ballot measure that would allocate the funds currently used for projects like this one and instead allocate them towards turning the homeless people who won’t just disappear because San Francisco has stopped “attracting” the homeless into Soylent Green, instead? At least that way, there’d be some revenue generation potential for municipal services.

  20. And I would add to my 12:18 PM comment that I’d be happy to read any study, published in any referred social science journal, that shows that once a city stops spending money on services for homeless people, in order to avoid becoming a “homeless magnet” or “attracting the homeless”, that the homeless people disappear.
    Please, do post a reference. It doesn’t even have to be available on the web, I’ll go to the library and read it on ‘king microfiche if its legitimate.

  21. Oh, and Tipster, just to add to what I wrote at 12:21, in case it’s not obvious, the additional benefit of the ballot initiative I mentioned is that it would allow you to go over the heads of the entrenched leftist leaning liberal current politicians you seem to distrust so much and implement the policy directly upon approval of voters.
    Get up from the keyboard today! Go for it!

  22. Brahma,
    You’ve missed the point of my most recent post. It wasn’t anti homeless. It was “All politicians do a political calculation as to whether to support something or to oppose it. If it helps their reelection prospects, they support it, if not they oppose it.”
    That’s the system. Nothing wrong with that. I’m not passing judgment on them, I’m pointing out that they may have motives lol had not considered. I don’t distrust them, because I understand their motivations.
    lol was pointing out that the costs of this beneficial activity may take money away from other beneficial activities. Support for families was listed as one such activity.
    I simply pointed out something that lol may not have thought of: and that is that the politicians may feel their base is better cemented with this than the other activities listed.
    So keep your soylent green to yourself. I wasn’t making a statement as to whether or not to help this group or that, I was simply pointing out that the behavior lol thought was ill-considered might have been thoroughly considered, and that the considerations were unlikely to change in the near future, causing similar decisions to be made, both for the homeless and against families.

  23. Brahma,
    That’s the problem with this type of migration: it’s a one way street.
    Good reason enough to switch off the Homeless Magnet so that we can absorb the ones we already have to care for today. This building is a neon sign saying “120 spots just got freed up at homeless shelters”.
    This hurts families, tourism, finances. Time to reverse the polarity on the magnet.

  24. I certainly support lol’s right to his opinion. But, it very much comes off as dis-compassionate, negative, selfish and Republican.
    San Francisco has a history of openness and working to help others less fortunate. We must continue that process. This project does NOT hurt families, tourism and finances. It HELPS those who need help.
    Granted, there is much work to do to help the homeless. This is one more good step. I support the project, the building and the location.
    I suppose if you don’t like our homeless policies here,lol, you could always move to Texas. Go work for Rick Perry.

  25. The selection of this corner could be viewed from two very different angles.
    1. If the project had to be built and I had to have it in my neighborhood (I live in the area), this may be the best location. From the perspective is someone living in Metropolitan, Infinity or Hills Plaza, the worst location would be on the corner of Folsom (between Spear & Main). Put it on that intersection, they would have to walk past it almost every day. At Folsom & Essex, it is out of the way and those living in the high-end housing can avoid walking past or interactiTing with their new neighbors. So, from one perspective, Folsom & Essex is the ideal location.
    2. The counterpoint. Folsom & Essex is isolated and the residents will have limited opportunity to integrate and re-enter “polite” society. It seems almost every time “we” build concentrations of public housing, it fails to achieve the goals of lifting people out of poverty, etc. And we always seem to do it right in the middle of an already bad area. That is not a recipe for success. This project should move to Folsom & Spear/Main. 2-3 blocks to transit and right in the middle of a strongly developing middle/upper-middle class area. We are only talking 3 blocks east on Folsom, but a world of difference in attitude and perspective.
    There you have it. I would prefer to not have this project in my neighborhood, but if it has to be done, we need to go big and tilt the scales towards the residents having a larger opportunity to enter into “polite” society.

  26. futurist,
    Please refrain to move to the next step of Internet debates: calling someone a nazi.
    You’re working on many false assumptions: that I am a right-winger (I am not), that this project exists in a vacuum (it’s the tip of the iceberg of the huge homeless pandering industry), that saying no to abusive land grabs is selfish.
    The core of today’s democratic agenda is defending the middle class versus the splitting of the country between the very poor and the very rich. This project takes money and services from the middle class to give it to the very poor. It is enabling the killing of the post WWII American model of society.
    Giving money to fund this project (no doubt this will be the usual $1000+/sf typical unchecked bondoogle) will take money from education which is dire need of funding. Kids need school today more than before to be ready for globalized challenges. By not funding our schools and laying off teachers by the 1000s we are preparing the NEXT generation of homeless…
    Quick example: Republicans are at war with public schools in California. The reason? Latino kids have become a large segment in public schools today. It’s basically GOP white voters who do not want to finance Latino kids. As a result, latino kids are less likely to get the higher education they need to move on into the higher levels of American society. They’ll be more likely to stay in the lower crust and either 1) do like their parents did (manual jobs) or 2) not give a damn and go sideways.
    Fund the hope of the future, not the mistakes of a few.

  27. Oh, I forgot to address one more thing. lol wrote:

    About the cheap booze…maybe I could open a TL corner booze-mart on the first floor. I’d make a killing.

    You either have never been in the tenderloin for more than half an hour or you don’t understand business.
    You wouldn’t make a killing because there are already lots of liquor stores in the tenderloin (the tenderloin has the city’s largest number of current liquor licenses granted per square block) and so you’d have lots of competition, which tends to reduce profit margins, lol. There are so many liquor stores there, in fact, that about twelve years ago The Board of Supervisors approved a ban on new liquor stores opening in that area.’
    Just sayin’

  28. Brahma,
    What I said was “open a TL corner booze-mart on the first floor” of that building, which is not in the TL. There are not many liquor stores around this area. Therefore not as much competition like in the “2 booze-marts per corner” Tenderloin.

  29. And I am kind of tired of the “you obviously don’t know blah blah blah”. This is Gingrich speak, not a good basis for a conversation.
    Again, never assume anything about posters. reply on the facts, not your perception of who the person you respond to might be. Just like futurist calling me Republican. It’s always convenient to put people into tidy nice boxes to prevent being challenged by other opinions.

  30. Well, when you wrote “open a TL corner booze-mart on the first floor” I assumed you meant the tenderloin. What the hell is “a TL corner booze-mart” if it’s in a bldg not in The Tenderloin? Does TL stand for something other than TL? If so I apologize for that one.

  31. Trouble is lol. Ya don’t listen, honey.
    I did not call you a Republican. And I did not call you a nazi, nor even imply that. Read the post AGAIN.
    Get your big ole chip off your shoulder. Stop complaining. Stop being the party of no.
    Be more compassionate. There is room in this fair city for all kinds of humans, rich and poor, struggling and succeeding.

  32. From reading this thread, it seems “lol” is really pointing how much money the City has spent on homelessness without much improvement.
    It simply has not worked.
    Diverting some of these funds into schools, family housing, etc. will benefit the City more in the long term.
    I’m not saying we shouldn’t help those down on their luck.
    No, I am not Republican either, before “futurist” starts with the stereotypical labeling.

  33. Once, again. Now it’s Jackson who doesn’t seem to know how to read.
    I called NO ONE republican. Never. You read that into my comment.
    Also, I did not say he should move to Texas, ’cause I “disagree with him”. I said “if you don’t like our homeless policies…”. Just to be clear.
    And, seriously; even a lower middle class or middle class family renting a home in SF is FAR better off than any homeless person or family. And lots of middle class families do, in fact, own a home already here in SF. It may not be Noe or Glen Park or Pac Heights, but they have worked hard to own.
    How does that EVEN begin to compare to a homeless person or family who will have the chance to no longer sleep on the streets, but rather live in a decent, safe housing such as this one?
    Some of you are just a bunch of complainers.

  34. Futurist. @1:34pm, you wrote: “…I certainly support lol’s right to his opinion. But, it very much comes off as dis-compassionate, negative, selfish and Republican.”
    You also said…”Go work for Rick Perry.”
    Now maybe I don’t how to correctly read between the lines on this one, but that very much sounds like you calling lol a republican.
    But, who knows, I could be wrong and I certainly support your right to your opinion. But it very much comes off as overly sensitive and narrow-minded.

  35. futurist,
    “it very much comes off as dis-compassionate, negative, selfish and Republican”. OK, you were using republican as an insult, not a qualifier. Fair enough.
    We need to make tough choices. Say you have 2 kids to feed but also an addict brother. Where is your priority? SF has decided it was the addict.
    The problem is that 20 years from now everyone will suffer from the short-sightedness of today.
    Also, I agree that we do have a big middle class in SF. But in a City of 60% renters, it’s just a question of time before they are squeezed out by higher prices. It’s either “move up” challenges, or rent-controlled tenant eviction. They do not need one more reason to leave this city.
    It is precisely to keep this middle class that we must address imbalances in the budget to favor schools and day cares.
    Say a middle class couple making 120K/Y buys a 600K house in the Sunset. From the day they are born their 2 kids will cost them more than a mortgage in schooling, activities, daycare. Probably one of the parents will decide not to work for the first few years.
    If in addition to that the school you trust your kids into is underfunded, they’ll be in a lower class ghetto for kids who have no choice. Parents will have no choice to improve this situation. Rich kids might get extra tutoring but this runs into many 1000s per year.
    120K is regular middle class in SF. If they moved to Daly city or Oakland housing would be 1/2 or 2/3, opening more options for their kids future.
    The political issue is that the homeless and people who support their cause are much more respected by politicians than the middle class. The middle class are basically in a “taxation without representation” situation. Their vote are taken for granted but they have no say in how their tax dollars are used. They are there by choice and therefore probably Democrats. They cannot easily demonstrate (no real freedom to strike and you gotta keep your job) but are expected to take blow after blow, slowly knocked off their social status from both sides: priced out by the rich or cut out from under.
    Again, not a republican. I support paying more taxes. We need better services, better government, better infrastructure.

  36. asiagoSF,
    If BMRs are at the rate of SROs, it could be similar to the current “care not cash”. Your welfare check would go to the City and would pay for the rent. You get a few bucks back.

  37. What the hell is “a TL corner booze-mart”
    Any generic store like this one: http://g.co/maps/766cm
    No real windows (closed off by ads, the owner got tired of replacing them), anti-theft bars, “LIQUOR” written in upper case for better drunken reading.
    They should trademark them. Maybe sell miniatures to tourists. It’s so SF.

  38. Okay, so since the location lol posted as an example is in The Tenderloin, I’ll interpret that as meaning he originally intended to write something like “TL-style corner booze-mart” but located elsewhere in The City. Fair enough. S/he still wouldn’t make a killing, but arguing that point would be even more of a digression from the topic of this post, so I’m going to just skip that.
    Here’s the thing. Ideas have attributes independent of the people advocating them at any given point in time.
    If Obama says that he’s going to raise the age of eligibility for Medicare in order to reduce the deficit, just to identify one “quick example”, that is a right wing idea and everybody knows it. It has nothing at all to do with whether or not Obama is a right-winger. People commenting on that proposal would be correct in saying that it is a right-wing idea regardless of whether or not is is accurate to describe The President as a “right winger”.
    Similarly, if someone says that if San Francisco stopped spending money immediately on homeless-related programs, that The City would stop becoming a “magnet for homeless” and the number of homeless people present in The City would decline dramatically in a short time period, regardless of what the ideological affiliation of the advocate of that idea is at the present, observers would be correct to label that a right-wing proposal.
    And, as I said earlier, lol is just posting his preconceived notions. There isn’t a shred of evidence that I am aware of that if The City cut off spending on the homeless, that the homeless people current on the street would evaporate.
    Lol should just come out of the closet and say that his preferred policy preference is that The City should allocate the corresponding amount of money on services for middle class families and argue that point. Instead of trying and failing to argue that public money spent on getting a number of marginally homeless people off the street, a goal which this project would aid, is attracting or would attract more chronic, chemically-dependent homeless people to The City.
    At least JustLooking is honest about being a NIMBY.

  39. lol is so hung up on just yes/no/either/or style of thinking. And the old “question of time” bs.
    “If we don’t change soon, it’s just a matter of time before we all collapse completely..”
    Completely misguided and I feel, selfish.
    One can feed your 2 children and take care of (help) the addict, the homeless, the less fortunate, ALL at the same time. Yes, some renters and homeowners will be “squeezed out” and possibly have to move. The next wave of renters and owners will still arrive. Remember, there is no inherent “right” to living here as a renter or owner. Those who want to badly will make it work.
    Lol is biased against the unfortunate here. It seems harsh and without reason.

  40. @Just Looking,
    The corner of Folsom and Essex in theory would develop to be a great location once the Transbay Terminal and Folsom corridor are developed.
    Would be shocked if it made it next to the Infinity and Gap headquarters. But then this is SF after all. Perhaps The City can demand that Gap funds the whole project for the right to have an office building in SF.
    All people deserve BMR condos in waterfront property. Isn’t that in the bill of rights somewhere?

  41. @futurist – ” Remember, there is no inherent “right” to living here as a renter or owner….”
    Unless you’re homeless, apparently.

  42. brahma,
    There you go again on the hyperbole. Did I write I wanted all pending on homelessness stopped? Nope. Just that more spending on homelessness takes away from other budget lines that can be more vital to the long term health of this city.
    Of course the homeless would not go away or disappear. But we need to ask other cities, counties, states to share their burden. You didn’t comment on my Daly City point and I guess you brushed it off because this is a truth that hurts. Why be in a world of pain in the boonies when a City of well-meaning people is 20 minutes away. Everyone should help his own. Right now SF is bearing the weight of other people’s problems.
    You’re very quick in dismissing other ideas with stereotypes. I might sound a but harsh, but I prefer telling like it is. Your heart is probably in the right place, but can the rest of the population accept the direct consequences of your generosity?
    futurist,
    Wow. Watch out, democracy can be a b!@tch. The voters give, but the voters can take away. Just look at how the Daly/Peskin do-gooder/Napoleons have been sent back home with their tails under their legs. They forced too much of their agenda onto people that liked their ideas but didn’t like the consequences. The power has gone back to a more center-left balance because this is where the people are in this City today. There was a great op/ed in the Bay Guardian a few months back about how the most progressive supervisors lost the power to moderates. It had a lot to do with their excessive agenda as well as a deep change in who San Franciscans are.

  43. BillyBalls,
    Very true. This means that middle class families are on their own and can leave if they do not like it, but if you just happen to be homeless we will help you stay. That’s truly messed up.

  44. Brahma:
    I guess I am a NIMBY, but then we are all NIMBYs in one way or another. The second you protest anything that is being developed or changed, you are a NIMBY. Those who tried to stop the America’s Cup from coming to San Francisco were NIMBYs. We should take back NIMBY because it is a sign that we care enough to protest. For what it is worth, we could call the OWS crowd NIMBYs – that would just irk them to no end!
    sfresident:
    On the topic of Folsom & Essex becoming a nice area. That could happen if the elevated off-ramp and street-level on-ramp for I-80 go away. Do you see that happening? But, if you want to see what what is like now, stand on that intersection at 5pm on a week day – wall-to-wall traffic coming east on Folsom and turning south on Essex and onto the Bay Bridge.

  45. After spending 16 years in SF watching most of my friends leave for the suburbs, Portland, and beyond, I couldn’t agree with this statement more:
    “Very true. This means that middle class families are on their own and can leave if they do not like it, but if you just happen to be homeless we will help you stay. That’s truly messed up.”

  46. How does NYC deal, apparently successfully, with homelessness?
    I just returned from Manhattan and counted less then a dozen visibly homeless during my 3 days of walking around many parts of the island. Panhandling was nearly non-existant. Nobody sleeping/passed out on the sidewalk or on the subway.
    I have to assume that NYC has a similar proportion of homeless citizens as we do here. Do they treat/house them somewhere in the outer boroughs?
    Whatever they are doing seems to be working, at least from the perspective of an out-of-town visitor.

  47. “How does NYC deal, apparently successfully, with homelessness?”
    By having much crappier weather than California.

  48. Glad I didn’t buy the horribly overprices condo on Guy Pl whose view this is about to totally block.
    Oh my, did I just post something about real estate, not social services? Tsk, tsk.

  49. Taxpayers have put 3000 homeless in housing in the last six or seven years and yet there are still roughly 8000 homeless on the streets.
    The only people who benefit from all this largesse, aside from the relatively few homeless who get subsidized housing (with “on-site support”, whatever that means) are the hundreds, if not thousands of “homeless lobby” sycophants and non-profit organizations who thrive off the misery of the homeless.

  50. Elbee – What was the unit, what was the asking, and what was your opinion? I had some friends looking for a place in this area recently.

  51. lol: I didn’t comment on your assertions, presented without any evidence, about Daly City somehow being a source of homeless people for The City because they just supported my earlier claim that you’re just posting your preconceived notions and prejudices. Do you have even a single fact to base this on? Even an anecdote to share?
    You wrote that “we need to ask other cities, counties, states to share their burden,” and you know what? You’re correct. That’s why I believe state law requires each county to have their own homeless services, because if the state didn’t do that, then every county would pursue a “beggar they neighbor” policy of shoving homeless people over into the next county. I went looking for that so I could quote you chapter and verse, but I couldn’t find it and I figured I’d delayed this response long enough. But it comes up at The Board of Supervisors level all the time. I’ll follow-up later or perhaps in the comment of another socketsite post when the usual comment section suspects start railing about how come the City just doesn’t make the homeless go away somehow. Everyone (read: at least counties and some municipalities) should help his own and in fact is required to.
    Btw, state law required that The Transbay project include a low-income housing component and this project is in partial satisfaction of that requirement.
    As someone wrote earlier, all the major cities in The Bay Area have a homeless problem and they all deal with it in their own way. And here I mean cities, not places out in rural areas or suburbs or exurbs. I haven’t visited Daly City in quite a while, so I can’t say whether or not homeless people who end up there leave in appreciable numbers for SF because somehow SF is a “homeless magnet” and therefore Daly City doesn’t have a homeless problem or has less than the one they ordinarily would have if San Francisco’s policies weren’t as “magnetic” for the homeless.
    I previously posted a link to very thorough study that The City did of its homeless population. Why don’t you spend some time reading that instead of just posting more of your preconceived notions? Please point me to the page or section in it where in it concludes that Daly City in particular or San Mateo County in general was the previous location of any more of the homeless who migrate to SF than anywhere else. If you can’t do that, you’re just posting your preconceived notions and those aren’t worth commenting on because they’re nonsense.

  52. And just for the record (and for the socketsite editor’s future reference) it appears that the project is named The Rene Cazenave Apartments in memory of Rene Cazenave, a founding board member of Community Housing Partnership who died in 2010 and was an advocate for affordable housing in San Francisco for over 40 years (must have been one of those “homeless lobby sycophants” who thrive off the misery of the homeless that James described above).
    JustLooking, this one’s for you. From The Redevelopment Agency’s memo:

    In addition to attending CAC meetings, staff attended two informal meetings in neighboring homes to address questions from people who will be neighbors of the proposed Project as well as several larger more formal neighborhood meetings…In addition to the preceding meetings, Agency staff took a group of interested neighbors on a tour of the Plaza Apartments, which is also an Agency-funded supportive housing development for formerly homeless people, in order to show how services enriched supportive housing model functions.

    Two people from the Rincon Hill Neighborhood Association (“RHNA”) who became interested in the Project Area through community outreach for this Project have since been appointed to the CAC, and one of those new members sat on the selection panel for the Project. The CAC members reviewed the proposed Request for Proposals (“RFP”). In addition to the CAC’s participation, the RFP included input from community groups, including the RHNA.

    The CAC has voted to support the Project.

    I don’t think of the Rincon Hill Neighborhood Association as shrinking violets, do you?
    I should correct something that I may have implied inadvertently earlier. This project could have been aimed at “the working homeless” but as the description of “support services” implies, from what I’ve read over the past few days it appears that the residents are going to be those who are getting services (e.g., mental health issue counseling) but need a place to stay in order for those service to be effective in getting them off the street. A significant amount of funding for the project came from AIDS-organizations and state mental health agencies.

  53. first of all, i will self-disclose as an employed desk clerk at a building in SOMA and as a supporter of services for our low income residents AND for the homeless.
    having lived in our fine city from ’77 to ’89 (i left before the LP quake) and recently having returned to SF in 2006, i find that the homeless problem has gone from almost non existent then to out of control now. i don’t appreciate the decline in “quality of life” and am totally bewildered at the lack of energy and new ideas generated by the board of supes (along with the mayor) put forth to fight the homeless situation. have all of our politicians crossed over to being in the back pocket of the contractors/developers? since Lee took office it has been the same ol’ same ol’ status quo. if education for the middle class family continues to suffer, this city will not be able to compete with texas (for example) let alone China.
    for the first time i myself have been considering moving out of the city in order to find less costly rental housing. i want to be part of the solution – i really have enjoyed the debate going on here at socket site – but this is a big issue and we’ve got to get creative! i don’t know where to begin exept that i am grateful for my job and i feel very close to many of the lower income/formerly homeless people and families whom i work for. i guess all i can do to create change sooner as opposed to later is do my job well and hope i make a difference in a life or maybe even many lives.

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