For decades the SoMa has been the epicenter of development in San Francisco where enormous commercial office towers and market rate residential housing have significantly increased land values and rents, threatening the stability of long-time working class residents.  Despite these displacement pressures, SoMa tenants, housing justice organizers, and Filipino cultural preservation activists have persevered to protect working families, affordable housing, parks, and open space.  The SoMa walking tour will visit some sites highlighting key victories in their struggle for self determination and underscoring the need for continued community development investment. 

MEETING LOCATION & TIME ARE UPDATED HERE.

Join South of Market Community Action Network (SOMCAN), Bill Sorro Housing Program (BiSHoP), and SOMA Pilipinas Filipino Cultural District. Sponsored by the Council of Community Housing Organizations. Please wear comfortable shoes for this neighborhood tour. 

Be sure to sign up for the tour on Eventbrite.

Note: This is a walking tour, and unfortunately we won’t be able to offer non-walking options due to downtown congestion. If you will arrive later than 15 minutes after the tour starts, reach out to Li@sfccho.org.

The “Sa Amin: Our Place” documentary is the untold story of Filipinos in San Francisco’s South of Market neighborhood, the cultural heart of the Filipino-American community. The film tells the story of how Filipino activists, artists and intergenerational families are claiming a right to the city, battling against displacement caused by urban renewal, real estate speculation, and tech booms. It features powerful interviews of current residents and community leaders covering decades of organizing. Telling this story will change the larger narrative about San Francisco and help the South of Market’s Filipino community claim physical spaces- to save homes and to sustain it as a cultural hub.

See the "Sa Amin" film trailer and get more information about Our Place in the Park festival here: https://saaminfilm.com/

The campaign to push for a Public Bank is no longer a question of if San Francisco will do it, but what will it look like? Who will it serve?  Our City is looking towards investments of our public money that strengthen our communities, in particular Black, indigenous, and people of color marginalized by our current economic system.

Join us for a community expert panel discussion to explore how themes of environmental justice, local enterprise, affordable housing, racial justice, and banking accountability intersect with a Public Bank.

Sign up on Eventbrite: https://SFPublicBank-AHMonth.eventbrite.com

San Francisco has big goals to meet for the construction of affordable housing. Given the unique history of the affordable housing sector in San Francisco, how do we build more housing – in the community, by the community – to meet the needs of all our City’s workers? Join San Francisco Labor Council, Building & Construction Trades Council, Supervisor Connie Chan, local union leaders, and community housing developers in the CCHO coalition for a robust discussion on the ways that labor and nonprofit builders can channel our collective energies to support these goals and help the City scale up the resources needed.

Sign up on Eventbrite: https://HousingOurWorkersSF.eventbrite.com

CCHO’s Affordable Housing Month kicks off with the Annual CCHO Party on Friday, May 5th at the Filipino Cultural Center where we will honor the work of SoMa-serving housing organizations and community cultural activists. Join us to connect with affordable housing advocates and professionals, learn about SoMa's remarkable history, sample local cuisine, and catch a preview of the film "Sa Amin" on the Filipino community's activism in SoMa!

RSVP to the CCHO Party on Facebook or Eventbrite.

Over the last decade, the number of vacant units in San Francisco has skyrocketed, largely due to units being held off the market as either second homes or investment vehicles. They’re in high density areas like SOMA, Downtown, and the Mission District, neighborhoods where the highest concentration of new units have been built has also caused mass gentrification. Vibrant working class communities of color have been pushed out, and more and more people find themselves without a home, while units sit empty.

Join us for an in-person gathering to learn how faith communities and progressive political movements are joining forces to change this at the ballot this coming November.

In person, at St. John the Evangelist, 1661 15th Street.

This will be a bilingual event in English and Spanish, interpretation provided.

• With Violeta Roman Mijares, Faith in Action

• Shanti Singh, Democratic Socialists of America

• John Avalos, Council of Community Housing Organizations

• Supervisor Dean Preston, San Francisco Board of Supervisors

Zoom/FB Live: Please register in advance for this event here.

San Francisco has led the way in the nation around Housing Preservation: from the inception of the Small Sites Program in 2009 to the first-of-its-kind COPA legislation, now being emulated from California to New York. What are the lessons of Housing Preservation as a strategy against displacement? Given the ongoing outmigration and displacement of the African American community, what role can a sufficiently funded and scaled Preservation program have in the Black community? How is Housing Preservation leading the way to new housing cooperatives for BIPOC communities? How big can we go – in Small Sites, Big Sites, and SRO preservation – in the next two years, or by 2030? And what’s the potential for a permanent source of funding in San Francisco?

Moderated by Karoleen Feng, Mission Economic Development Agency. With:

• Young Community Developers

• Saki Bailey, San Francisco Community Land Trust

• Chris Cummings, Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation

• Fernando Martí, CCHO, vice-chair of the Housing Stability Fund Oversight Board

Connecting Housing Justice and Journalism: with Berkeley Media Studies Group, BARHII, and Bay Area and state housing reporters

Zoom/FB Live. Register in advance for this meeting:
https://us02web.zoom.us/.../tZAkcumvrzotHNcUtZbKdEMrvboWR...

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

Moderated by Maya Chupkov, Media & Democracy Advocate. With:

• Kathi Schaff, Berkeley Media Studies Group

• Darris Young, Bay Area Health Inequities Initiative

• Laura Wenus, journalist

• Laura Waxman, journalist

• Manuela Tobias, journalist, invited

GRAND OPENING: Casa Adelante at 2828 16th Street

Join MEDA and TNDC for the Grand Opening of the Mission District’s newest 100% affordable housing development.

RSVP by Friday April 29, rsvp@tndc.org or calling Denice Hernandez at 415-696-3798. Spaces are limited

The impacts of housing policy are intimately woven into the lives of tenants and homeowners who are also workers, without whom our City would cease to function. Good jobs and benefits are essential to workers, as is good housing and affordability. But gentrification and speculation have severely impacted working-class neighborhoods, and the ability of workers to continue to live in the city where they work. Hear from Labor, housing advocates and policy makers on how we should continue working together to ensure that the needs of workers shape our city's housing policy. Join Kim Tavaglione, Executive Director of the San Francisco Labor Council, Davida Sotelo Escobedo of Jobs with Justice, John Doherty of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), and the Council of Community Housing Organizations for a discussion on the fruits and future of this collaboration. 

 Housing preservation is a necessary and high-impact affordable housing strategy particularly in context of stabilizing communities against gentrification and displacement pressures. What do the stories tell us? What happens without preservation? What does success look like? What residents, geographies, and buildings define housing preservation? 

Housing Preservation Stories a dialogue with a group of housing providers, activists, and residents, in conversation about documenting and celebrating the acquisition and preservation of at-risk housing across this city.

In "Rethinking the Suburbs," guests from across the region will share their work towards a vision that looks at racial equity in a way that's inclusive of the broader Bay Area beyond the big three core cities. Joining the conversation will be San Francisco Supervisors Gordon Mar and Myrna Melgar, Shajuti Hossain from Public Advocates, Debra Ballinger from Monument Impact in Concord, and Poncho Guevara from Sacred Heart in San Jose. Moderated by KQED's Erin Baldassari.

CCHO wrote a series of essays on the topic (https://medium.com/@sfccho/tackling-exclusionary-housing-policy-in-california-1e7db6387e24), that offers a framework for reviving suburban infill housing as a way to address the Bay Area's housing needs and address regional segregation.

A dialogue on the realities and opportunities of moving from the success of shelter in place hotels to permanent affordable housing, with a group of policy experts, housing providers, activists, and residents. 

Since the beginning of the pandemic, the City and affordable housing and homeless service providers have mobilized to run 25 emergency Shelter-in-Place (SIP) hotels, housing some 2,500 COVID-vulnerable individuals. Through the state Project Homekey funds, the City has now been able to purchase two hotel properties. Now, between expanded FEMA funds and the new federal stimulus package, the City has an opportunity to acquire thousands of hotel units – perhaps the biggest opportunity in decades to provide permanent dignified homes for our unhoused neighbors. Join CCHO, the Coalition on Homelessness, Faith in Action, CHP, and a SIP hotel resident, for a lively talk on what it would take to grab this opportunity to end homelessness for thousands.

The Annual CCHO Awards, and honoring our community housing COVID frontline workers. Join us to celebrate the resilience of our movement and honor the activists and leaders who have persevered in dedication to service through a pandemic.