[Music] Narration: Welcome to voices of the community your
source for in-depth discussions on critical issues facing Northern California today's episode is
part of our continuing special series focused on the resurgence of the arts and culture
sector post Covid-19 our journey begins with a reflection on the recent state-of-the-arts
Summit a collaborative effort with Arts for Better Bay Area among the breakout sessions
one topic resonated deeply affordable housing for our creative workforce
feedback poured
in from suit attendees expressing a desire for more time to explore this pressing issue in
response we've crafted three follow-up episodes each delving into key discussions from the summit
today we shine a light on the Race and Equity in All Planning Coalition as they spearhead the
creation of the people's plan for affordable housing in San Francisco joining us are two
influential voices driving this initiative Dyan Ruiz co-founder and reporter of People
Power Media and and
Erick Arguello president and resident chair of Calle 24 Latino Cultural
District together they'll share their insights challenges and aspirations as they navigate the
complexities of housing accessibility in the city of San Francisco stay with us as we embark on this
illuminating journey into the heart of community activism. This is Voices of the Community where
dialogue leads to change and every voice matters. George: So Diane welcome to voices of the community
and I would love to if you
could share with our audience a little background on you know you're
founding a People Power Media and your work in the creation of the Equity and All Planning Coalition.
Dyan Ruiz: Thanks again for having me I really appreciate the opportunity I'm co-founder of People
Power Media we are a nonprofit based here in San Francisco that works to empower folks on
housing Justice and equity and land use and we do that through organizing policy and Innovation and
multimedia popular education we've f
ounded during the pandemic the Race and Equity and All Planning
Coalition REP SF (REP) for short which is a coalition of over 40 grassroots organizations affordable
housing developers cultural districts and um other nonprofits and groups throughout San Francisco
and People Power Media facilitates that coalition. George: Thank you and Eric could you please provide a
little background on yourself and then also on the Calle 24 Latino Cultural District. Erick Arguello: Sure. Thank you good after
noon thank you for having me my name is Erick Arguello I'm founder and president of Calle 24 Latino Cultural District.
Calle 24 formed in 2014 because of the gentrification displacement of over 10,000
Latinx residents from the mission from 2000 to 2020 and basically the work that we do is really
try to preserve community and all our cultural assets in the Mission district by creating
a culture district and we focus on affordable housing focus on building economic sustainability
with our sma
ll businesses includes our vendors events anything that really we see as a cultureal
assets that's needed to maintain and preserve a community. George: And does the Cultural District actually
create any affordable housing itself? Erick Arguello: We do a lot of advocacy any kind of development that's
coming into the culture district we engage with the developer to make sure that it aligns
with the the mission and vision of Calle 24 we have created architecture design guidelines that
guides t
he developers and the community which help streamline development and make again making sure
that it fits the character of the neighborhood as far as the designs go. George: Great and Dyan coming back
to you could you share with the audience some background on why the Citywide people's plan was
was created and who was part of creating the plan? Dyan Ruiz: Yeah so we created the Citywide People's Plan
last year it was actually about a year exactly ago and it was really a culmination of commun
ity
plans that have been existing for decades from organizations such as Calle 24 and also you know
Community organizations throughout San Francisco Chinatown, south of Market especially the ones who
the neighborhoods that face gentrification and displacement the most so we combined all of those
existing area plans community lead area plan and we created the Citywide people's plan and we
also updated it with innovative policy from our members. Our members are affordable housing
developers
they are advocates for affordable housing um they are tenant rights organizations
they are all the people on the ground helping our unhoused folks providing services for low income
people helping them stay off the street you know prevent homelessness and they're really like the
heart and soul of the city and we created REP to create collective power amongst each other and
it's all of those people that help to create the People's Plan so it was a big undertaking and the
reason we actually di
d it was because the city was undergoing a process called the housing element
which guides the housing policies for the city for the next 8 years it's a state profess that has
to happen every eight years and the way that the draft housing element was going there was really
hardly any real solutions to the most pressing issues that we face you know housing affordability
being you know the number one issue that every San Franciscan faces so we got together all of
the the best policies to actu
ally make housing more affordable in the city through those existing
plans and through the expertise of our community. George: Thank you and and as I was doing some some reading
and and it's really wonderful and we'll make sure that we share all of the work that the Coalition's
done and People Power Media you know on our our episode landing page but it looked like initially
there wasn't as much arts and culture integrated into it and then as the Coalition came together
and worked together i
t looked like more arts and culture was integrated into the actual plan.
Dyan Ruiz: Yeah I mean I think so we have members including cultural districts in REP such as Calle 24
we also have the SOMA Pilipina Cultural Filipino Heritage Cultural District so we we have artists
and artist groups in the Coalition we are actually actively working to reach out to specific artists
individual artists to see how we can find ways to better integrate them into our work and have
specific asks for them f
or example and that's you know we're starting with organizations that we
have and see how they have Incorporated Arts into our our work but you know a lot of the communities
in San Francisco sometimes they get siloed right and that it's just a it's an it needs to be a
deliberate effort to reach out to to different groups George: And and Eric turning to you how did a Calle 24
get engaged in the the Race and Equity in All Planning Coalition? Erick Arguello: Through some Outreach that
they did
they reached out to a lot of leadership throughout the city you know we were one of them
and you know I thought it was a a great way for us to to build power collectively and to work with
other groups organizations activists Citywide so it was an opportunity to really work together with others.
George: Great and Dyan coming back to you one of the things I found it was so well thought
out and you've done chapters and again lots of great background information but the creation of
your you kn
ow kind of framework for City Planning the desegregation affordability culture and arts
stability framework could you share with us you know how that came about? Dyan Ruiz: And sustainability
George: And sustainability right. Dyan Ruiz: Yeah that was the other "s". Yeah so it actually came out of our award winning animated short called Priced Out which you can watch on our website peoplepowermedia.org and
Priced Out explains why housing is so expensive in San Francisco and it does it through
an
animation you know a story of a couple looking for housing in San Francisco and and as
a cartoon they get to explore all these different things that are magical for example a mural that
explains kind of the history of San Francisco and why you know ended up like this and kind of they
talk with a developer and a banker and the mayor so after we created the animation everybody was
always like okay great like it explains why we we do talk about solutions, but people really got
fired up and
they wanted to know like what can we do about this and we actually had planned another
Series where we would go to different communities around the world and and look at ways that they
solved issues of affordability and then things like that and and then the pandemic hit and we
couldn't travel and so so we decided to really try to write down what each of those elements the
elements that you needed to create equitable city planning which is what we were going to focus
that documentary on ki
nd of focusing on an issue in each City for example so we wrote it
down instead and it was actually because of that framework that we created that the Race and
Equity in All Planning Coalition came about because folks in the community who we have been
organizing with for a really long time and they looked at it and they're like this is amazing this
is really what the community needs is sort of this kind of straightforward way to think in visionary
ways, to think in aspirational ways because
our communities are under attack all the time and Erick
you can definitely talk about this in the Mission for sure you know we're always as progressives
and vulnerable populations in San Francisco all we can do a lot of the time is fight back and
try to mitigate some of the the damage that market rate development you know anti-homeless and
other you know external things like the pandemic like we can just all we can do is just survive
and so a lot of the time the visionary kind of language
visionary kind of policies they get put
on the back burner because we we just don't have the time to to like get to that so there was
actually a lack of of this type of framework for a while and I think we were able to apply
the the knowledge that we have to put in a way also that is accessible to folks.
George: And following up on that Dyan you were able to actually get some of the framework adopted in the housing element
so could you share a little bit about that process because we know h
ow easy and wonderful the city
planning department is and how easy they are to work with etc. So I can only imagine and the whole
coalition had lots and lots of push back etc. so walk us through how that went and what you guys
have been able to accomplish? Dyan Ruiz: Yes so the Equity and Land Use framework that People Power Media
created that's actually separate from the people's plan the people's plan was a community-driven
process and it's the people's plan was created in response to the
housing element really lacking
any kind of real substance when it came to the ideals that they spouted so supposedly this is
the first housing element that centers equity racial and social equity but they didn't actually
have anything in there that could develop that it could create the ambitious affordable housing
plan that they they had set out even before this housing element session this the we're supposed to
be building 57% of our all of our housing supposed to be affordable and there
is nothing there
isn't anything in there to actually get there. George: So Dyan just I want folks to understand in
the housing element that they finally had to get through the state the state is requiring them to
build around 880,000 of you know housing units by what is it 2031 and so what I'm hearing you say
is that 55% of that 80 some odd thousand needs to be affordable so how did that work out?
Dyan Ruiz: It's not working out because they they don't don't have a plan you know the the ma
yor's plan literally is
let's get a bunch of people together not from the community even though we asked to try to think
of a way to to get to that number and they're going to come out with a report in January and
that was their plan and and trying to be like oh well the state doesn't give us enough money so
it's also a really kind of twisted it's sort of like an onp paper requirement because the state is
threatening to actually take away affordable housing dollars from San Francisco if the
y don't build the
overall number they don't meet the overall goal of 880,000 which is a huge amount it's more than San
Francisco's ever built and so it's really just a drive for them to have developer giveaways to push
this narrative like I said that build, build, build narrative that San Francisco is not building
enough and that's why housing prices are so high, but everybody knows you can't afford the
condos that they're building the you know the new apartment that they're building and it
's
not a matter of they not being enough if you just open Zillow right now you can see you know
hundreds of listings that are just sitting there vacant it's about forcing the city to make sure
that they build affordable and there's lots of programs that are we have in the Citywide People's
Plan that could make huge steps towards building affordable housing you know one example is
land banking that's like setting aside land for example land that we the city already owns public
land for affo
rdable housing that could be enacted tomorrow and we can designate that for affordable
housing and that's the type of thing that we talk about in in the people's plan. George: Thank you and
Erick coming back to you could you talk a little bit about from Calle 24 cultural District's
point of view how has the Citywide people's plan helped provide more affordable housing or
address some of the specific issues especially in the mission which has been under attack for
obviously many decades that
's the reason for creating the Cultural District. Erick Arguello: Sure yeah you know it. It aligns with the priorities that we have as a culture district you know a lot of the things that
we see you know in the housing element like we were talking about is just policy statements right it's
not actual plans you know it's not a priority to build affordable housing and so the people's plan
is more of prioritizing the low to moderate income particularly the low income housing right which we
prio
ritize also for the culture districts through a chess report that we are required to do it's a
cultural heritage economic sustainability report that that each culture district does which
you includes housing right how are we going to prioritize affordable housing you know how
are we going to you know raise funds and it's done through you know bringing community members
together through focus groups through stakeholder interviews through public meetings to come up
with the plan so it's a pla
n that comes from the community up instead of top down that
we see a lot of the times and again it's an uphill battle because you know we have to work
with the city and other entities to be able to reach our goals and when the city's priorities
are not the the same as ours then basically we're just you know doing a lot of having a lot
of conversations a lot of policy statements are being made but there is no teeth to anything and
so we're constantly just pushing and pushing to try to get yo
u know them to make formal housing priority.
[Music] Narration: welcome back to voices of the community where we delve into critical issues facing Northern California communities. Voices of the Community is made possible by generous support for
the Zellerbach Family Foundation dedicated to ensuring vibrant work is created new voices is celebrated
and diverse communities have opportunities to thrive learn more at zff.org.
We're also supported by the Peaceful World Foundation fostering a culture
of global peace through hosted conversations
and education discover more at peacefulworldfoundation.org Now if you're just joining us our
guest today are Dyan Ruiz co-founder and reporter of People Power Media and Erick Arguello president and
resident chair of Calle 24 Latino Cultural District or exploring their collaboration with the race
and equity and all planning coalition to craft the people's plan for affordable housing and the city
of San Francisco let's rejoin our conversation as E
rick highlights the integral role of artists as
community and cultural assets and how cultural districts are stepping up to support them while
addressing the pressing need for more affordable housing. George: And staying with you Erick can you
talk a little bit about how because it's in the culture district how much focus it within your
work is around providing affordable housing for our creative workforce. Erick Arguello: Sure you know artists in our community are part of our culture assets
and what we do and you know they tend to be siloed out
the artist in many cases and historically and what we've tried to do with the culture district is
bringing all these different elements that create community right and includes the artist right
they need housing they're the ones who create you know our murals they create our our events
you know there are performers there are musicians and dancers and so we integrate them into all
our plans and and a recent legislation that came up was
to build housing for artists right
I believe it's it's 10% inclusionary for market rate housing in the neighborhood and
we've been hearing from artists for a very long time about that because you know we were
pushing family housing you know senior housing and never specifically for artists you know so we
had a make sure that they're integrated into the advocacy that we're doing to make sure that that
population is also covered because we as community especially in the Mission cannot be sust
ainable
with our artists there's a cultural economy that we have that we we build on and they are part
of that they're essential to that so making sure that they have housing so they can stay in
the neighborhood where they are being creative. George: And the piece of legislation is AB-812 that for
folks who are listening watching the show we had Julie Baker on our last episode who shared about
AB-812 and Erick you were sharing before we came on that Calle 24 had worked to help get this this
signed can you talk a little bit about that. Erick Arguello: Yeah we're we are Calle 24 and SOMA Pilipinas are the only
state designated culture district and there is a statewide coalition that advocates for funding
for culture district statewide so it was an opportunity through the coalition to advocate
to the governor to make sure that he signed to this bill so you know through letter writing
campaigns through you know working together and and racing that voice help push this through. Ge
orge: And so as a recall from the conversation with Julian in reading AB-812 it requires 10% of any housing being built in cultural districts to be set aside for creative workforce for artist.
Erick Arguello: That's correct. Yes. We wish it could be more. George: Of course. Erick Arguello: You know it's a start you know and there are a lot of competed interests so we have to balance out what the needs of the community are to make sure that
you know we cover as much as we can you know for artis
ts. George: Are there any projects in the pipeline Erick
or developers that you know Calle 24 has been in discussion with regards to you know housing
in the district that could utilize AB-812? Erick Arguello: You know right now there's a lot of stalled projects
you know so nothing's moving through right now because of the economy things are very expensive
for the developers so we have some projects in the pipeline before this legislation went through
so we haven't seen anything specificall
y that's requiring this amount yet. We think that
eventually as things get moving you know I think we'll be seeing some of that. Right now we have a lot of stalled projects.
George: Right Erick Arguello: Before this legislation
George: Lots of stall projects everywhere in San Francisco or projects that they're just being turned back to the banks sadly.
Erick Arguello: Absolutely we're seeing yeah a few being and for other folks to pick them up.
George: Yeah it it almost it almost seems like
they should create the entire downtown San Francisco should be a Cultural District and then
they can convert office space into housing Erick Arguello: Agreed George: So Diane I'm going to come back to you because as we were starting our conversation you were talking about one of your major focuses is
to change the narrative on housing and you you mentioned that earlier in our conversation could
you kind of you know share with us you know what you've been doing how you see the why
this is so
important changing the narrative about housing and housing development in San Francisco?
Dyan Ruiz: Yeah sure so one of the missions of the REP SF Coalition is to change the narrative that is
dominating our mainstream media and politicians rhetoric which is a lot of it is on basically
build build build like we need to build our way out of the housing crisis and that is I'm going
to be led by development after development really just ramming it down every neighborhood's throats,
but you know
we all know that that's not going to create affordability it's just going to
create investment properties it's going to create vacant units vacant buildings you know like you
mentioned the hollowing out of downtown is you know one example of you know just the amount of
vacancies that we already have in San Francisco and so none of that is is you know being turned
into affordable housing which would be another solution to use the existing assets that we
have. We have a program for small buil
dings to be bought by the city to be turned into permanently
affordable housing that we could expand and that would be another way to create affordable housing
in the city immediately and so yeah sorry I forgot the question. [laughter] George: Your working changing the narrative
which you you were you were you narrative change. Dyan Ruiz: yeah okay yeah so narrative change so we're we
want want to move away so in our narrative change work in REP SF we really want to move away from this
buil
d build build narrative and the way that we're going to do that is move towards that of housing
justice and that's making sure that historically marginalized communities really blead all of the
efforts and decisions that that are about their neighborhood they get to decide you know what's
what affordable means like Erick said you know it's really focusing on low-income folks that many
of them don't even qualify for affordable housing right now it's you know talking about protecting
tenants
right now there's a legislation that the mayor is trying to push you know that comes out
of the housing element focusing on the worst parts of the housing element not the parts REP SF was
able to get into the housing element but rather it's all about what they call streamlining which
we call developer giveaways is just trying to take away constraint it's the same you know neoliberal
like trickle down policy that has been discredited in so many other areas of our economy, but for some
reason
housing is sort of the last bastion for it and looking until the state and governors
and also they all ad this type of policy so really want to get away from that and there are a lot of
organizations that have to call out like some like YIMBY the yes in my backyard and and SPUR in housing
Action Coalition that really pedal lies about this policy and and they're able to sugarcoat it and
in a lot of the things that San Francisco stand for like diversity affordability you know and and
communi
ty they're they're able to use a lot of the language that that progressives have and make
it seem like that's how we're going to accomplish those things is is to just let developers do
what they want to do and and none of that will make affordability there's no like if you let
let developers do what they want there's there's never an additional thing that this the city says
oh if you if you can do that you have to increase your inclusionary for example increase the amount
that you have in y
our building that's affordable there's never like uh you know a give and take or
get any or if there is there's nothing close to the 50% that we're supposed to be building
in the city of that affordability maybe's like a one or two% here or there it's nothing to
the levels that we actually need so we need to get away from this narrative that the only
two sides to the housing story is the the yes in my backyard or no in my backyard NIMBY be like
not everyone that opposed is development is a
is someone that is a NIMBY someone that says no
just because of you know things like Shadow or kind of like not life or death issues such
as displacement from your home or equity or or making sure that San Francisco continues to be
diverse racially and socially you know those are the reasons why people like us oppose development
because it's not what our community needs and and land is really precious in San Francisco and when
you see a an empty lot turn into another high-rise condo that we
care for that's a lot that could be
used for affordable housing instead you know the city is even giving away public land for expensive
housing so you know this this is the kind of thing that we're fighting for.
George: Thank you Dyan and so bringing us to a closure I was going to ask each of you to just share with the audience
projects that you're working on and how folks who are listening watching the show can actually
get engaged in supporting your work so Erick tell us what you guys ar
e up to. Erick Arguello: There's several things that we're doing I think the most current thing and impressing thing is there is a project that
actually is starting to move it's a large project we call it the next monster in the Mission which
is a large Development coming into 22nd admission there's a community meeting happening this
Wednesday 6:30 to 8PM at the Mission Cultural Center between 24th and 25th we're asking people
to come out you know we're asking the developer to create afforda
ble housing 100% affordable
housing and and work with the community to be creative to get that done. George: And then where can folks go Erick to find out more about the project and how to get engaged and if they can't make it
you know support letters etc. Erick Arguello: They could go to our web page Calle24sf.org and they could email info@calle24sf.org for more information George: Great and Dyan how about your team's work how can folks continue to stay engaged in the work in the coalition? D
yan Ruiz: Yeah so you can email info@repsf.org to
get involved directly with REP with the Race and Equity Planning Coalition it is a coalition of
community groups with some individuals you know currently we don't really do outreach specifically
to individuals because we want to make sure the people that participate are accountable to a
community and have you know communities needs upfront when they participate and advocate
that being said we know that everybody is affected by the issue that
we are advocating for
and against and we are setting up an action team that individuals can help support for hearings
for example to to speak at public hearings to write letters to the city you can write letters
to the city now and the Board of Supervisors specifically the head of the land use committee
Supervisor Melgar about legislation that they're considering that we think is very dangerous
it proposes to demolish rent controlled housing throughout the city and in order to accommodate
that that number of the 80,000 units to be built in San Francisco which is really the only
way that they will able to accomplish that is to tear down rent controlled housing throughout the
Richmond district, the Sunset, and then also continue the gentrification and displacement in
neighborhoods like Chinatown, the Mission, and South of Market so we really want to make sure
that tenants are protected we're really facing a redevelopment style issue here you know and and
and what they're tryi
ng to do is enable developers to redevelop the city and have no protections
for people if they get displaced from a torn down building unlike redevelopment there was at
least an agency for that back in the you know the 70s and so you know it's it's a big threat
and we're trying to fight against it you can you can also just tell this City that they have a a legal
mandate to affirmatively further fair housing it's an you know acronyms are kind of a thing in the
the housing world but so AFFH w
e need to Affirmly Further Fair Housing it's a civil right federal
requirement that the city and the state are not doing they're ignoring in the favor for developer
giveaways and we need to keep fighting to make sure that all of the things that we were able to
get into the housing element actually you know create affordable housing in the city and this is
all the things that the REP SF Coalition is fighting for. George: Great thank you so I want to thank Dyan
and Erick for sharing their org
anization's work to support our arts and culture workforce we will
make sure that our viewers and listeners have your contact information your websites and your social
media so they can engage and support all of your work in support of both our artist and cultural
workforce as well as all of the families that can afford housing in San Francisco so thank you Erick
and Dyan for being on Voices of the Community. Erick Arguello: Thank you so much.
Dyan Ruiz: Thank you for having us. Narration: A
nd with that we've come to the end of another insightful episode of Voices of the Community today you've
heard from Dyan Ruiz co-founder and reporter of People Power Media and Erick Arguello president and
resident chair of Calle 24 Latino Cultural District as they share their efforts with the race and
equity and all planning coalition to craft the people's plan for affordable housing in the city
of San Francisco to learn more about our guests and their organizations programs, services,
volu
nteer opportunities, and how to support their cause with the donation visit voicesthecommunity.com click on the link to the arts and culture series and find episode 8 while you're on
our website take a moment to explore the wealth of content available you can watch or listen to
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captivating stories we encourage you to consider making a donation
and volunteering to support our vibrant arts and culture organizations as well as our dedicated
arts and culture workforce. Today's episode was made possible through a special co- production
partnership with Arts for a Better Bay Area for their State of the Art Summit on June 28th 2023
we extend our heartfelt thanks to our incredible technical crew including the audio and video
wizard and our associate producer Eric Estrada
additionally we'd like to express our gratitude to
our esteemed co-production partner BAVC Media and their dedicated staff Paula Arrigoni, Andy Kawanami, Isa
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amplifying diverse voices and perspectives Voices of the Community is made possible by
generous support from the Zellerbach Family Foundation dedicated t
o ensuring vibrant work is created
new voices celebrated and diverse communities have opportunities to thrive learn more at zff.org.
We're also supported by the Peaceful World Foundation fostering a culture of global
peace through hosted conversations and education discover more at peacefulworldfoundation.org.
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ur entire team thank you for joining us on this journey of exploration and dialogue until
next time remember your voice matters. [Music]
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