Asemara’s Quest: An African immigrant tries to find work and housing in San Francisco
By Joe Sciarrillo
Asemara, an asylee from Eritrea, is sitting across from me at my desk at an immigration law clinic in San Francisco’s Mission District. Bouncing her one year old baby on her lap, she’s wearing a traditional zuria dress with a white shawl lightly draped over her braids and shoulders. Like many Eritrean and Ethiopian immigrants whom our office works with, she recounts living through two wars, persecution by Eritrean authorities, and surviving a trek of being smuggled from Brazil up through Central America to Mexico, and miraculously making it across the U.S. border with the help of coyotes. The irony of Asemara sitting there, is that despite all of the obstacles she’s faced so far, her next task seems insurmountable -- to find affordable housing in San Francisco.
Immigrants and refugees from around the world celebrate San Francisco’s leadership as a Sanctuary City, with some of the best civil rights protections and social services. However, more and more newly arriving residents have to pack up again and move to the outskirts of the city. Despite being called the #2 most-healthy housing market in the U.S., San Francisco’s rising rent prices have forced many to move to nearby cities like Oakland, Richmond, and even to towns in the far East Bay like Antioch and Hercules.
As Asemara pushes her baby in a stroller to head back to the homeless shelter, she passes several buildings along Mission Street that are home to burgeoning Internet start-ups, which are fueling a fierce competition among tenants, realtors, and landlords. Private, double-decker tech shuttles whiz past stalled MUNI busses, marking the widening gap between the haves and have-nots.
While much of the United States is slowly emerging out of the recession, the San Francisco Bay Area is in its second dot-com boom. San Francisco and the Silicon Valley experienced its first dot-com bubble in the late 90s, marked by increasing rents for apartments and offices in the Mission District and South of Market (SoMa) neighborhoods. To welcome the new wave in 2011, San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee announced tax-cuts for Twitter. Later that year, Twitter cofounder Biz Stone appeared in a campaign video endorsing Lee, which also featured Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer. Conservative Silicon Valley investor and SF powerbroker Ron Conway was fittingly listed in the video credits as “behind the scenes,” which the SF Chronicle and SF Bay Guardian point out is also his role at City Hall. So while the millionaires and start-ups are getting tax breaks, how does the other half in San Francisco live?
“Gentrification” is the San Francisco buzzword with the increased displacement and evictions of working-class, and particularly Latino families. But how do we define this oft-thrown-around word in 2013? The term gentrification is used so often that the word has become diluted and worn down, like the word “hipster,” in that almost any new housing development could be called “gentrification.” But the complexity of the situation in San Francisco can’t readily be defined by a simple, all-encompassing word.
In San Francisco, it’s a double-edged sword, both constructing and cutting down existing neighborhoods with effects that ripple to Oakland and surrounding cities. Talent is coming into the city, with innovative green businesses, blossoming restaurants, and music venues. Median incomes are rising but so are evictions, mom-and-pop businesses shuttering, and land-grabs for condominiums. The city reached an all-time high of 227 homeless families on waiting lists for temporary housing in 2011, many of whom couldn’t find space at local shelters after recent budget cuts. More housing is being built, specifically 22,000 units in both the approval or construction phase. However, with most buildings only allotting 8-12% as affordable housing units, most studios cost above $2,000, and two-bedrooms average at $4,500. Chances of obtaining a unit are slim, given the waiting lists and people lining up with resumes, credit reports, and bank statements to get in the door.
A month ago, Asemara told me that she had found an opportunity to stay in San Francisco with her baby. She had been selected by her shelter to receive one year of subsidized rent. She handed me a paper from her shelter, explaining that Salesforce will help her pay up to $800 for any apartment she can find under $1000. But after weeks of contacting landlords on Craigslist, no takers emerge, leaving her with a deadline of one more month before the shelter will require her to find her own place. She tells me, “even in the Tenderloin there is no opportunity to get an apartment so now I have to plan to go Oakland.” Many other Eritrean and Ethiopian friends have been moving to the East Bay for the past few years, where cheaper rent and bigger space can accommodate growing families and arriving relatives.
In December, 2011, tech moguls and philanthropists Marc and Lynne Benioff of Salesforce.com contributed $1.5 million to a city fund, to house San Francisco homeless families. The private-public partnership seemed like a sign that the new dot-com boom could help solve social woes while stimulating the local economy. Yet two months later, Salesforce axed plans for a $2 billion dollar company campus in Mission Bay, and city officials began second-guessing their dependence on such large tech investments.
Ellis Act evictions continue in both Oakland and San Francisco, based on a California state law permitting landlords to evict tenants. The Act permits evictions only if a landlord wants to either stop renting the unit for at least five years or sell the property as a condo or tenancy-in-common (TIC). In response, housing activists and the real estate industry in San Francisco cite their success in coming together to win voters’ approval of Proposition C. This creates a Housing Trust Fund that allots tens of millions of dollars per year over 30 years for low and middle income housing in the city. Still, the fund does not stop the high number of evictions continuing in the city. It's unclear whether or not the new super-majority of Democrats in the state capitol will touch legislation to address the Ellis Act in coming years.
So as immigrants, refugees, and asylees continue to flee struggles in home countries, complex obstacles emerge for finding a stable home in the Bay. The Eritrean communities in the Bay Area continue to advocate for change back in the Horn of Africa while shaping and molding new lives here. Single mothers like Asemara, are hedging their bets that future job prospects amidst the dot-com boom will be enough to lead to stable housing in the city. But as her housing applications bring no response, city officials need to focus on coupling a sustainable economy with sustainable housing. Will all of our housing go to the top bidder? Or will San Francisco continue to be a place that champions diversity and welcomes with open arms those eclectic groups of people who continually re-energize its culture?
While Asemara awaits for a reply to her housing applications, she is taking English classes and is now enrolled in CalWorks job training program. She’s confident she can find a job in the coming weeks in housekeeping or senior care. Her job prospects, albeit at minimum wage, look strong. She’s additionally taking CNA training classes with her long-term future in mind, hoping to find a stable job at the future UCSF Children's hospital in Mission Bay or the future CPMC hospital on Van Ness.
Still without replies to her apartment applications, she resigns to thinking that she may have to move out of the city. Finding affordable housing in San Francisco to raise her son seems impossible, but she has not yet given up. San Francisco is the only city that she has ever called “home” in the U.S. The city’s unique urban landscape, economy, and cultures have inspired her to fight to stay. If city voters want to maintain the vibrancy that this city celebrates, they need to make sure city policies from housing to job placement allow all San Franciscans (be they low income, middle class, or upper class) to thrive.
This article is cross-posted on Oakland Local. The subject of this article’s name was changed to “Asemara” to protect her identity. Matt Werner also contributed to this article. Joe Sciarrillo is currently studying in UC Berkeley’s Masters of Social Work program and working as a paralegal/case manager for immigrant rights at the African Advocacy Network, a nonprofit he co-founded in San Francisco’s Mission District. Email him at joesciarrillo[at]berkeley.edu. Sciarrillo and Werner recently published Bay Area Underground, a new photobook featuring photos from the major protests and social movements in the Bay Area over the past five years.
Asemara, an asylee from Eritrea, is sitting across from me at my desk at an immigration law clinic in San Francisco’s Mission District. Bouncing her one year old baby on her lap, she’s wearing a traditional zuria dress with a white shawl lightly draped over her braids and shoulders. Like many Eritrean and Ethiopian immigrants whom our office works with, she recounts living through two wars, persecution by Eritrean authorities, and surviving a trek of being smuggled from Brazil up through Central America to Mexico, and miraculously making it across the U.S. border with the help of coyotes. The irony of Asemara sitting there, is that despite all of the obstacles she’s faced so far, her next task seems insurmountable -- to find affordable housing in San Francisco.
A worker working on a new construction project in San Francisco’s SOMA district. African immigrants have found it especially difficult to find affordable housing in San Francisco.
Immigrants and refugees from around the world celebrate San Francisco’s leadership as a Sanctuary City, with some of the best civil rights protections and social services. However, more and more newly arriving residents have to pack up again and move to the outskirts of the city. Despite being called the #2 most-healthy housing market in the U.S., San Francisco’s rising rent prices have forced many to move to nearby cities like Oakland, Richmond, and even to towns in the far East Bay like Antioch and Hercules.
As Asemara pushes her baby in a stroller to head back to the homeless shelter, she passes several buildings along Mission Street that are home to burgeoning Internet start-ups, which are fueling a fierce competition among tenants, realtors, and landlords. Private, double-decker tech shuttles whiz past stalled MUNI busses, marking the widening gap between the haves and have-nots.
While much of the United States is slowly emerging out of the recession, the San Francisco Bay Area is in its second dot-com boom. San Francisco and the Silicon Valley experienced its first dot-com bubble in the late 90s, marked by increasing rents for apartments and offices in the Mission District and South of Market (SoMa) neighborhoods. To welcome the new wave in 2011, San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee announced tax-cuts for Twitter. Later that year, Twitter cofounder Biz Stone appeared in a campaign video endorsing Lee, which also featured Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer. Conservative Silicon Valley investor and SF powerbroker Ron Conway was fittingly listed in the video credits as “behind the scenes,” which the SF Chronicle and SF Bay Guardian point out is also his role at City Hall. So while the millionaires and start-ups are getting tax breaks, how does the other half in San Francisco live?
“Gentrification” is the San Francisco buzzword with the increased displacement and evictions of working-class, and particularly Latino families. But how do we define this oft-thrown-around word in 2013? The term gentrification is used so often that the word has become diluted and worn down, like the word “hipster,” in that almost any new housing development could be called “gentrification.” But the complexity of the situation in San Francisco can’t readily be defined by a simple, all-encompassing word.
In San Francisco, it’s a double-edged sword, both constructing and cutting down existing neighborhoods with effects that ripple to Oakland and surrounding cities. Talent is coming into the city, with innovative green businesses, blossoming restaurants, and music venues. Median incomes are rising but so are evictions, mom-and-pop businesses shuttering, and land-grabs for condominiums. The city reached an all-time high of 227 homeless families on waiting lists for temporary housing in 2011, many of whom couldn’t find space at local shelters after recent budget cuts. More housing is being built, specifically 22,000 units in both the approval or construction phase. However, with most buildings only allotting 8-12% as affordable housing units, most studios cost above $2,000, and two-bedrooms average at $4,500. Chances of obtaining a unit are slim, given the waiting lists and people lining up with resumes, credit reports, and bank statements to get in the door.
New construction in China Basin near the ballpark. Many biotech companies and startups are raising the rent prices throughout San Francisco.
A month ago, Asemara told me that she had found an opportunity to stay in San Francisco with her baby. She had been selected by her shelter to receive one year of subsidized rent. She handed me a paper from her shelter, explaining that Salesforce will help her pay up to $800 for any apartment she can find under $1000. But after weeks of contacting landlords on Craigslist, no takers emerge, leaving her with a deadline of one more month before the shelter will require her to find her own place. She tells me, “even in the Tenderloin there is no opportunity to get an apartment so now I have to plan to go Oakland.” Many other Eritrean and Ethiopian friends have been moving to the East Bay for the past few years, where cheaper rent and bigger space can accommodate growing families and arriving relatives.
In December, 2011, tech moguls and philanthropists Marc and Lynne Benioff of Salesforce.com contributed $1.5 million to a city fund, to house San Francisco homeless families. The private-public partnership seemed like a sign that the new dot-com boom could help solve social woes while stimulating the local economy. Yet two months later, Salesforce axed plans for a $2 billion dollar company campus in Mission Bay, and city officials began second-guessing their dependence on such large tech investments.
Ellis Act evictions continue in both Oakland and San Francisco, based on a California state law permitting landlords to evict tenants. The Act permits evictions only if a landlord wants to either stop renting the unit for at least five years or sell the property as a condo or tenancy-in-common (TIC). In response, housing activists and the real estate industry in San Francisco cite their success in coming together to win voters’ approval of Proposition C. This creates a Housing Trust Fund that allots tens of millions of dollars per year over 30 years for low and middle income housing in the city. Still, the fund does not stop the high number of evictions continuing in the city. It's unclear whether or not the new super-majority of Democrats in the state capitol will touch legislation to address the Ellis Act in coming years.
In the wake of the Arab Spring uprising, Eritrean-Americans living in the Bay Area call for democratic reforms in their East African nation outside City Hall in May, 2011.
So as immigrants, refugees, and asylees continue to flee struggles in home countries, complex obstacles emerge for finding a stable home in the Bay. The Eritrean communities in the Bay Area continue to advocate for change back in the Horn of Africa while shaping and molding new lives here. Single mothers like Asemara, are hedging their bets that future job prospects amidst the dot-com boom will be enough to lead to stable housing in the city. But as her housing applications bring no response, city officials need to focus on coupling a sustainable economy with sustainable housing. Will all of our housing go to the top bidder? Or will San Francisco continue to be a place that champions diversity and welcomes with open arms those eclectic groups of people who continually re-energize its culture?
While Asemara awaits for a reply to her housing applications, she is taking English classes and is now enrolled in CalWorks job training program. She’s confident she can find a job in the coming weeks in housekeeping or senior care. Her job prospects, albeit at minimum wage, look strong. She’s additionally taking CNA training classes with her long-term future in mind, hoping to find a stable job at the future UCSF Children's hospital in Mission Bay or the future CPMC hospital on Van Ness.
Still without replies to her apartment applications, she resigns to thinking that she may have to move out of the city. Finding affordable housing in San Francisco to raise her son seems impossible, but she has not yet given up. San Francisco is the only city that she has ever called “home” in the U.S. The city’s unique urban landscape, economy, and cultures have inspired her to fight to stay. If city voters want to maintain the vibrancy that this city celebrates, they need to make sure city policies from housing to job placement allow all San Franciscans (be they low income, middle class, or upper class) to thrive.
This article is cross-posted on Oakland Local. The subject of this article’s name was changed to “Asemara” to protect her identity. Matt Werner also contributed to this article. Joe Sciarrillo is currently studying in UC Berkeley’s Masters of Social Work program and working as a paralegal/case manager for immigrant rights at the African Advocacy Network, a nonprofit he co-founded in San Francisco’s Mission District. Email him at joesciarrillo[at]berkeley.edu. Sciarrillo and Werner recently published Bay Area Underground, a new photobook featuring photos from the major protests and social movements in the Bay Area over the past five years.
