John Baranski
Housing the City by the Bay
Tenant Activism, Civil Rights, and Class Politics in San Francisco
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John Baranski
Housing the City by the Bay
Tenant Activism, Civil Rights, and Class Politics in San Francisco
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John Baranski is Assistant Professor of History at El Camino College.
Produktdetails
- Produktdetails
- Verlag: Stanford University Press
- Seitenzahl: 328
- Erscheinungstermin: 26. Februar 2019
- Englisch
- Abmessung: 254mm x 183mm x 28mm
- Gewicht: 703g
- ISBN-13: 9781503603257
- ISBN-10: 1503603253
- Artikelnr.: 50911030
- Verlag: Stanford University Press
- Seitenzahl: 328
- Erscheinungstermin: 26. Februar 2019
- Englisch
- Abmessung: 254mm x 183mm x 28mm
- Gewicht: 703g
- ISBN-13: 9781503603257
- ISBN-10: 1503603253
- Artikelnr.: 50911030
John Baranski is Assistant Professor of History at El Camino College.
Contents and Abstracts
Introduction
chapter abstract
The introduction presents an overview of the book. The introduction focuses
on some of the book's main questions about what public housing meant for
San Francisco residents and presents the book's major themes, concepts, and
arguments. There is also a discussion about how the book contributes to
some of the more important historical themes of urban and welfare state
history in the twentieth century. The introduction presents an analysis of
liberalism as it relates to public housing, the welfare state, and the
economic and civil rights of citizens and suggests ways for the reader to
start thinking about these larger issues before moving into the narrative
of the book.
1Progressive Era Housing Reform
chapter abstract
The first chapter describes the city's working-class neighborhoods that are
considered for housing reform during the first half of the twentieth
century. The chapter also places the city's reform community-its members,
knowledge production, and policy visions-within a larger community of
housing reformers in the Atlantic World interested in the labor question.
Prompted by the social problems generated by industrial capitalism and
urbanization, reformers began to rethink how urban housing and planning was
done. Breaking from classical liberal economic ideas, transatlantic
reformers proposed an expanded role for all levels of government in the
economy. As was common in other parts of the world, San Francisco's housing
reformers also used a combination of social science research and moral
suasion to pass government building codes and zoning laws. They failed in
their attempt to create public housing in part because they failed to
inspire the city's workers and tenants.
2The San Francisco Housing Authority and the New Deal
chapter abstract
t examines the influence of the Great Depression and the New Deal on San
Francisco's housing and job needs and how federal housing officials drew on
popular movements, four decades of social reforms, and a change in
liberalism to guide the expansion of government housing policies. The 1937
United States Housing Act, along with expanded state legislation, permitted
San Francisco's residents, including nonwhites, to participate in the
creation of the San Francisco Housing Authority (SFHA), which in turn
allowed them to build government housing and provide jobs. The SFHA was not
a democratic agency or free of racism, but its policies were more inclusive
than pre-New Deal housing reform efforts and more responsive to the general
welfare than private landlords. From the discussions of the SFHA purpose,
the city's residents began to think in new ways about housing, civil and
economic rights, and liberalism.
3Public Housing, Race, and Conflicting Visions of Democracy and the State
chapter abstract
The chapter examines the war years when the SFHA housing program expanded
not only its housing stock, but also its social services at its projects.
Urban planners, housing reformers, and labor unions across California began
promoting a larger role for public housing authorities in local and
regional economic development, achieving full employment, and in expanding
economic rights for citizens. The 1948 United Nations General Assembly
declaration on civil and economic rights and the 1949 United States Housing
Act reflected the growing discussions around these ideas, although in the
United States, postwar affluence, the real estate lobby, and the red scare
dashed support for enlarging federal public housing and the welfare state.
Along with these developments, the chapter follows the growing civil rights
movement and how it targeted public housing for integration and ending
racial discrimination.
4Prosperity, Development, and Institutional Racism in the Cold War
chapter abstract
The chapter outlines the city's housing and neighborhoods most affected by
wartime demographic changes and by the tenant selection of private
landlords and SFHA staff. The chapter focuses on the ways civil rights
activism and the Cold War influenced the SFHA program. Civil rights
activists forced the SFHA to desegregate its housing, and the civil rights
struggles illustrated the ways housing intersected with economic rights and
identity formation. The politically chilling Cold War climate also led many
housing officials, like many New Deal liberals, to abandon the idea of
expanding government programs to ensure employment and housing, and this
shift came at a time when private redevelopment projects became a priority
at the federal and local level. The quality of some public housing in San
Francisco began to deteriorate in the 1950s, contributing to tenant
organizing and activism in the following decades.
5Something to Help Themselves
chapter abstract
The chapter examines how the shortages of good jobs and housing and racial
discrimination provided fertile ground for tenant mobilization. Taking the
idea of participatory policymaking to heart, public housing tenants
organized tenant unions at the project and city level. SFHA policies
continued to demonstrate how the power built on race, class, and gender
privileges stymied participatory policymaking as SFHA tenant attempts to
participate in SFHA achieved mixed results. Tenants and allied civic
organizations fought federal cuts to government housing and urban renewal
projects. Tenant activities sometimes spilled over into surrounding
communities as renters in private housing joined hands with public housing
tenants in a variety of campaigns. Significantly, this part of the book
deepens our understanding of the traditional narrative of the 60s by
including the social activism of tenants and challenging the stereotype of
public housing tenants as part of an urban underclass.
6Out of Step with Washington
chapter abstract
The chapter focuses on how tenants tried to expand their rights through the
SFHA and other public agencies. Tenant leaders, who were primarily women,
drew on the resources of the SFHA and other public institutions to nurture
their tenant organizing. The city's tenants organized for more public
housing, useful jobs, and social services. For a short time, tenants even
demanded control of public housing funds and SFHA policymaking. Although
their desire to fully democratize their housing met opposition, tenant
efforts resulted in reforms that made policymaking more inclusive. Their
growing influence came at a time when the SFHA program, like many social
welfare programs, suffered from federal budget cuts. Federal housing
policies began to move away from funding government homes to private sector
solutions, and this shift hurt the quality and scope of the city's public
housing and tenant organizing.
7All Housing Is Public
chapter abstract
The chapter highlights tenant responses to federal cuts in social programs,
another wave of urban redevelopment, and rising housing costs. To SFHA
tenants, government housing continued to offer not just housing but a host
of programs aimed at ensuring a degree of economic security. That housing
and those programs allowed tenants to maintain a sense of community. But
non-SFHA tenants also turned to the government program in their struggle
for housing security. In these ways, the SFHA continued its role in the
daily lives of the city's residents. The SFHA's declining resources aligned
with the rise of the New Right and the power of neoliberalism to cut
federal housing funds further. Tenants continued their struggles over
housing. Not everything was oriented around struggle. Public housing
tenants expressed their creativity and identity through art and community
projects, thus reinforcing their identities through culture, place, and
struggle.
8Privatizing the Public in the Dot-Com Era
chapter abstract
This chapter examines how demand for housing, cuts to the SFHA program, and
federal legislation influenced the direction of housing trends in the city.
As housing costs soared, landlords skirted tenant rights and evictions
rose; many residents unable to keep or secure housing joined the homeless
population or left the city. Some residents resisted and fought for housing
rights in an era of gentrification. This housing crisis was not unique to
San Francisco. Across the country, tenants were squeezed out of
neighborhoods as wages failed to keep up with urban housing costs. Housing
legislation continued to shift resources and support to private sector
housing solutions rather than public housing. By the twenty-first century,
the SFHA was losing its place as the largest affordable housing landlord in
the city.
Conclusion
chapter abstract
The conclusion highlights the key points and themes of San Francisco's
housing history and connects those insights to a national and international
affordable housing shortage and income, wealth, and racial inequality. The
conclusion also proposes recommendations for thinking about public housing
as a program that could be used once again to expand the civil and economic
rights of citizens and engage residents in the political process. The
history of public housing in San Francisco offers insights into how to
approach contemporary housing reforms and social movements.
Introduction
chapter abstract
The introduction presents an overview of the book. The introduction focuses
on some of the book's main questions about what public housing meant for
San Francisco residents and presents the book's major themes, concepts, and
arguments. There is also a discussion about how the book contributes to
some of the more important historical themes of urban and welfare state
history in the twentieth century. The introduction presents an analysis of
liberalism as it relates to public housing, the welfare state, and the
economic and civil rights of citizens and suggests ways for the reader to
start thinking about these larger issues before moving into the narrative
of the book.
1Progressive Era Housing Reform
chapter abstract
The first chapter describes the city's working-class neighborhoods that are
considered for housing reform during the first half of the twentieth
century. The chapter also places the city's reform community-its members,
knowledge production, and policy visions-within a larger community of
housing reformers in the Atlantic World interested in the labor question.
Prompted by the social problems generated by industrial capitalism and
urbanization, reformers began to rethink how urban housing and planning was
done. Breaking from classical liberal economic ideas, transatlantic
reformers proposed an expanded role for all levels of government in the
economy. As was common in other parts of the world, San Francisco's housing
reformers also used a combination of social science research and moral
suasion to pass government building codes and zoning laws. They failed in
their attempt to create public housing in part because they failed to
inspire the city's workers and tenants.
2The San Francisco Housing Authority and the New Deal
chapter abstract
t examines the influence of the Great Depression and the New Deal on San
Francisco's housing and job needs and how federal housing officials drew on
popular movements, four decades of social reforms, and a change in
liberalism to guide the expansion of government housing policies. The 1937
United States Housing Act, along with expanded state legislation, permitted
San Francisco's residents, including nonwhites, to participate in the
creation of the San Francisco Housing Authority (SFHA), which in turn
allowed them to build government housing and provide jobs. The SFHA was not
a democratic agency or free of racism, but its policies were more inclusive
than pre-New Deal housing reform efforts and more responsive to the general
welfare than private landlords. From the discussions of the SFHA purpose,
the city's residents began to think in new ways about housing, civil and
economic rights, and liberalism.
3Public Housing, Race, and Conflicting Visions of Democracy and the State
chapter abstract
The chapter examines the war years when the SFHA housing program expanded
not only its housing stock, but also its social services at its projects.
Urban planners, housing reformers, and labor unions across California began
promoting a larger role for public housing authorities in local and
regional economic development, achieving full employment, and in expanding
economic rights for citizens. The 1948 United Nations General Assembly
declaration on civil and economic rights and the 1949 United States Housing
Act reflected the growing discussions around these ideas, although in the
United States, postwar affluence, the real estate lobby, and the red scare
dashed support for enlarging federal public housing and the welfare state.
Along with these developments, the chapter follows the growing civil rights
movement and how it targeted public housing for integration and ending
racial discrimination.
4Prosperity, Development, and Institutional Racism in the Cold War
chapter abstract
The chapter outlines the city's housing and neighborhoods most affected by
wartime demographic changes and by the tenant selection of private
landlords and SFHA staff. The chapter focuses on the ways civil rights
activism and the Cold War influenced the SFHA program. Civil rights
activists forced the SFHA to desegregate its housing, and the civil rights
struggles illustrated the ways housing intersected with economic rights and
identity formation. The politically chilling Cold War climate also led many
housing officials, like many New Deal liberals, to abandon the idea of
expanding government programs to ensure employment and housing, and this
shift came at a time when private redevelopment projects became a priority
at the federal and local level. The quality of some public housing in San
Francisco began to deteriorate in the 1950s, contributing to tenant
organizing and activism in the following decades.
5Something to Help Themselves
chapter abstract
The chapter examines how the shortages of good jobs and housing and racial
discrimination provided fertile ground for tenant mobilization. Taking the
idea of participatory policymaking to heart, public housing tenants
organized tenant unions at the project and city level. SFHA policies
continued to demonstrate how the power built on race, class, and gender
privileges stymied participatory policymaking as SFHA tenant attempts to
participate in SFHA achieved mixed results. Tenants and allied civic
organizations fought federal cuts to government housing and urban renewal
projects. Tenant activities sometimes spilled over into surrounding
communities as renters in private housing joined hands with public housing
tenants in a variety of campaigns. Significantly, this part of the book
deepens our understanding of the traditional narrative of the 60s by
including the social activism of tenants and challenging the stereotype of
public housing tenants as part of an urban underclass.
6Out of Step with Washington
chapter abstract
The chapter focuses on how tenants tried to expand their rights through the
SFHA and other public agencies. Tenant leaders, who were primarily women,
drew on the resources of the SFHA and other public institutions to nurture
their tenant organizing. The city's tenants organized for more public
housing, useful jobs, and social services. For a short time, tenants even
demanded control of public housing funds and SFHA policymaking. Although
their desire to fully democratize their housing met opposition, tenant
efforts resulted in reforms that made policymaking more inclusive. Their
growing influence came at a time when the SFHA program, like many social
welfare programs, suffered from federal budget cuts. Federal housing
policies began to move away from funding government homes to private sector
solutions, and this shift hurt the quality and scope of the city's public
housing and tenant organizing.
7All Housing Is Public
chapter abstract
The chapter highlights tenant responses to federal cuts in social programs,
another wave of urban redevelopment, and rising housing costs. To SFHA
tenants, government housing continued to offer not just housing but a host
of programs aimed at ensuring a degree of economic security. That housing
and those programs allowed tenants to maintain a sense of community. But
non-SFHA tenants also turned to the government program in their struggle
for housing security. In these ways, the SFHA continued its role in the
daily lives of the city's residents. The SFHA's declining resources aligned
with the rise of the New Right and the power of neoliberalism to cut
federal housing funds further. Tenants continued their struggles over
housing. Not everything was oriented around struggle. Public housing
tenants expressed their creativity and identity through art and community
projects, thus reinforcing their identities through culture, place, and
struggle.
8Privatizing the Public in the Dot-Com Era
chapter abstract
This chapter examines how demand for housing, cuts to the SFHA program, and
federal legislation influenced the direction of housing trends in the city.
As housing costs soared, landlords skirted tenant rights and evictions
rose; many residents unable to keep or secure housing joined the homeless
population or left the city. Some residents resisted and fought for housing
rights in an era of gentrification. This housing crisis was not unique to
San Francisco. Across the country, tenants were squeezed out of
neighborhoods as wages failed to keep up with urban housing costs. Housing
legislation continued to shift resources and support to private sector
housing solutions rather than public housing. By the twenty-first century,
the SFHA was losing its place as the largest affordable housing landlord in
the city.
Conclusion
chapter abstract
The conclusion highlights the key points and themes of San Francisco's
housing history and connects those insights to a national and international
affordable housing shortage and income, wealth, and racial inequality. The
conclusion also proposes recommendations for thinking about public housing
as a program that could be used once again to expand the civil and economic
rights of citizens and engage residents in the political process. The
history of public housing in San Francisco offers insights into how to
approach contemporary housing reforms and social movements.
Contents and Abstracts
Introduction
chapter abstract
The introduction presents an overview of the book. The introduction focuses
on some of the book's main questions about what public housing meant for
San Francisco residents and presents the book's major themes, concepts, and
arguments. There is also a discussion about how the book contributes to
some of the more important historical themes of urban and welfare state
history in the twentieth century. The introduction presents an analysis of
liberalism as it relates to public housing, the welfare state, and the
economic and civil rights of citizens and suggests ways for the reader to
start thinking about these larger issues before moving into the narrative
of the book.
1Progressive Era Housing Reform
chapter abstract
The first chapter describes the city's working-class neighborhoods that are
considered for housing reform during the first half of the twentieth
century. The chapter also places the city's reform community-its members,
knowledge production, and policy visions-within a larger community of
housing reformers in the Atlantic World interested in the labor question.
Prompted by the social problems generated by industrial capitalism and
urbanization, reformers began to rethink how urban housing and planning was
done. Breaking from classical liberal economic ideas, transatlantic
reformers proposed an expanded role for all levels of government in the
economy. As was common in other parts of the world, San Francisco's housing
reformers also used a combination of social science research and moral
suasion to pass government building codes and zoning laws. They failed in
their attempt to create public housing in part because they failed to
inspire the city's workers and tenants.
2The San Francisco Housing Authority and the New Deal
chapter abstract
t examines the influence of the Great Depression and the New Deal on San
Francisco's housing and job needs and how federal housing officials drew on
popular movements, four decades of social reforms, and a change in
liberalism to guide the expansion of government housing policies. The 1937
United States Housing Act, along with expanded state legislation, permitted
San Francisco's residents, including nonwhites, to participate in the
creation of the San Francisco Housing Authority (SFHA), which in turn
allowed them to build government housing and provide jobs. The SFHA was not
a democratic agency or free of racism, but its policies were more inclusive
than pre-New Deal housing reform efforts and more responsive to the general
welfare than private landlords. From the discussions of the SFHA purpose,
the city's residents began to think in new ways about housing, civil and
economic rights, and liberalism.
3Public Housing, Race, and Conflicting Visions of Democracy and the State
chapter abstract
The chapter examines the war years when the SFHA housing program expanded
not only its housing stock, but also its social services at its projects.
Urban planners, housing reformers, and labor unions across California began
promoting a larger role for public housing authorities in local and
regional economic development, achieving full employment, and in expanding
economic rights for citizens. The 1948 United Nations General Assembly
declaration on civil and economic rights and the 1949 United States Housing
Act reflected the growing discussions around these ideas, although in the
United States, postwar affluence, the real estate lobby, and the red scare
dashed support for enlarging federal public housing and the welfare state.
Along with these developments, the chapter follows the growing civil rights
movement and how it targeted public housing for integration and ending
racial discrimination.
4Prosperity, Development, and Institutional Racism in the Cold War
chapter abstract
The chapter outlines the city's housing and neighborhoods most affected by
wartime demographic changes and by the tenant selection of private
landlords and SFHA staff. The chapter focuses on the ways civil rights
activism and the Cold War influenced the SFHA program. Civil rights
activists forced the SFHA to desegregate its housing, and the civil rights
struggles illustrated the ways housing intersected with economic rights and
identity formation. The politically chilling Cold War climate also led many
housing officials, like many New Deal liberals, to abandon the idea of
expanding government programs to ensure employment and housing, and this
shift came at a time when private redevelopment projects became a priority
at the federal and local level. The quality of some public housing in San
Francisco began to deteriorate in the 1950s, contributing to tenant
organizing and activism in the following decades.
5Something to Help Themselves
chapter abstract
The chapter examines how the shortages of good jobs and housing and racial
discrimination provided fertile ground for tenant mobilization. Taking the
idea of participatory policymaking to heart, public housing tenants
organized tenant unions at the project and city level. SFHA policies
continued to demonstrate how the power built on race, class, and gender
privileges stymied participatory policymaking as SFHA tenant attempts to
participate in SFHA achieved mixed results. Tenants and allied civic
organizations fought federal cuts to government housing and urban renewal
projects. Tenant activities sometimes spilled over into surrounding
communities as renters in private housing joined hands with public housing
tenants in a variety of campaigns. Significantly, this part of the book
deepens our understanding of the traditional narrative of the 60s by
including the social activism of tenants and challenging the stereotype of
public housing tenants as part of an urban underclass.
6Out of Step with Washington
chapter abstract
The chapter focuses on how tenants tried to expand their rights through the
SFHA and other public agencies. Tenant leaders, who were primarily women,
drew on the resources of the SFHA and other public institutions to nurture
their tenant organizing. The city's tenants organized for more public
housing, useful jobs, and social services. For a short time, tenants even
demanded control of public housing funds and SFHA policymaking. Although
their desire to fully democratize their housing met opposition, tenant
efforts resulted in reforms that made policymaking more inclusive. Their
growing influence came at a time when the SFHA program, like many social
welfare programs, suffered from federal budget cuts. Federal housing
policies began to move away from funding government homes to private sector
solutions, and this shift hurt the quality and scope of the city's public
housing and tenant organizing.
7All Housing Is Public
chapter abstract
The chapter highlights tenant responses to federal cuts in social programs,
another wave of urban redevelopment, and rising housing costs. To SFHA
tenants, government housing continued to offer not just housing but a host
of programs aimed at ensuring a degree of economic security. That housing
and those programs allowed tenants to maintain a sense of community. But
non-SFHA tenants also turned to the government program in their struggle
for housing security. In these ways, the SFHA continued its role in the
daily lives of the city's residents. The SFHA's declining resources aligned
with the rise of the New Right and the power of neoliberalism to cut
federal housing funds further. Tenants continued their struggles over
housing. Not everything was oriented around struggle. Public housing
tenants expressed their creativity and identity through art and community
projects, thus reinforcing their identities through culture, place, and
struggle.
8Privatizing the Public in the Dot-Com Era
chapter abstract
This chapter examines how demand for housing, cuts to the SFHA program, and
federal legislation influenced the direction of housing trends in the city.
As housing costs soared, landlords skirted tenant rights and evictions
rose; many residents unable to keep or secure housing joined the homeless
population or left the city. Some residents resisted and fought for housing
rights in an era of gentrification. This housing crisis was not unique to
San Francisco. Across the country, tenants were squeezed out of
neighborhoods as wages failed to keep up with urban housing costs. Housing
legislation continued to shift resources and support to private sector
housing solutions rather than public housing. By the twenty-first century,
the SFHA was losing its place as the largest affordable housing landlord in
the city.
Conclusion
chapter abstract
The conclusion highlights the key points and themes of San Francisco's
housing history and connects those insights to a national and international
affordable housing shortage and income, wealth, and racial inequality. The
conclusion also proposes recommendations for thinking about public housing
as a program that could be used once again to expand the civil and economic
rights of citizens and engage residents in the political process. The
history of public housing in San Francisco offers insights into how to
approach contemporary housing reforms and social movements.
Introduction
chapter abstract
The introduction presents an overview of the book. The introduction focuses
on some of the book's main questions about what public housing meant for
San Francisco residents and presents the book's major themes, concepts, and
arguments. There is also a discussion about how the book contributes to
some of the more important historical themes of urban and welfare state
history in the twentieth century. The introduction presents an analysis of
liberalism as it relates to public housing, the welfare state, and the
economic and civil rights of citizens and suggests ways for the reader to
start thinking about these larger issues before moving into the narrative
of the book.
1Progressive Era Housing Reform
chapter abstract
The first chapter describes the city's working-class neighborhoods that are
considered for housing reform during the first half of the twentieth
century. The chapter also places the city's reform community-its members,
knowledge production, and policy visions-within a larger community of
housing reformers in the Atlantic World interested in the labor question.
Prompted by the social problems generated by industrial capitalism and
urbanization, reformers began to rethink how urban housing and planning was
done. Breaking from classical liberal economic ideas, transatlantic
reformers proposed an expanded role for all levels of government in the
economy. As was common in other parts of the world, San Francisco's housing
reformers also used a combination of social science research and moral
suasion to pass government building codes and zoning laws. They failed in
their attempt to create public housing in part because they failed to
inspire the city's workers and tenants.
2The San Francisco Housing Authority and the New Deal
chapter abstract
t examines the influence of the Great Depression and the New Deal on San
Francisco's housing and job needs and how federal housing officials drew on
popular movements, four decades of social reforms, and a change in
liberalism to guide the expansion of government housing policies. The 1937
United States Housing Act, along with expanded state legislation, permitted
San Francisco's residents, including nonwhites, to participate in the
creation of the San Francisco Housing Authority (SFHA), which in turn
allowed them to build government housing and provide jobs. The SFHA was not
a democratic agency or free of racism, but its policies were more inclusive
than pre-New Deal housing reform efforts and more responsive to the general
welfare than private landlords. From the discussions of the SFHA purpose,
the city's residents began to think in new ways about housing, civil and
economic rights, and liberalism.
3Public Housing, Race, and Conflicting Visions of Democracy and the State
chapter abstract
The chapter examines the war years when the SFHA housing program expanded
not only its housing stock, but also its social services at its projects.
Urban planners, housing reformers, and labor unions across California began
promoting a larger role for public housing authorities in local and
regional economic development, achieving full employment, and in expanding
economic rights for citizens. The 1948 United Nations General Assembly
declaration on civil and economic rights and the 1949 United States Housing
Act reflected the growing discussions around these ideas, although in the
United States, postwar affluence, the real estate lobby, and the red scare
dashed support for enlarging federal public housing and the welfare state.
Along with these developments, the chapter follows the growing civil rights
movement and how it targeted public housing for integration and ending
racial discrimination.
4Prosperity, Development, and Institutional Racism in the Cold War
chapter abstract
The chapter outlines the city's housing and neighborhoods most affected by
wartime demographic changes and by the tenant selection of private
landlords and SFHA staff. The chapter focuses on the ways civil rights
activism and the Cold War influenced the SFHA program. Civil rights
activists forced the SFHA to desegregate its housing, and the civil rights
struggles illustrated the ways housing intersected with economic rights and
identity formation. The politically chilling Cold War climate also led many
housing officials, like many New Deal liberals, to abandon the idea of
expanding government programs to ensure employment and housing, and this
shift came at a time when private redevelopment projects became a priority
at the federal and local level. The quality of some public housing in San
Francisco began to deteriorate in the 1950s, contributing to tenant
organizing and activism in the following decades.
5Something to Help Themselves
chapter abstract
The chapter examines how the shortages of good jobs and housing and racial
discrimination provided fertile ground for tenant mobilization. Taking the
idea of participatory policymaking to heart, public housing tenants
organized tenant unions at the project and city level. SFHA policies
continued to demonstrate how the power built on race, class, and gender
privileges stymied participatory policymaking as SFHA tenant attempts to
participate in SFHA achieved mixed results. Tenants and allied civic
organizations fought federal cuts to government housing and urban renewal
projects. Tenant activities sometimes spilled over into surrounding
communities as renters in private housing joined hands with public housing
tenants in a variety of campaigns. Significantly, this part of the book
deepens our understanding of the traditional narrative of the 60s by
including the social activism of tenants and challenging the stereotype of
public housing tenants as part of an urban underclass.
6Out of Step with Washington
chapter abstract
The chapter focuses on how tenants tried to expand their rights through the
SFHA and other public agencies. Tenant leaders, who were primarily women,
drew on the resources of the SFHA and other public institutions to nurture
their tenant organizing. The city's tenants organized for more public
housing, useful jobs, and social services. For a short time, tenants even
demanded control of public housing funds and SFHA policymaking. Although
their desire to fully democratize their housing met opposition, tenant
efforts resulted in reforms that made policymaking more inclusive. Their
growing influence came at a time when the SFHA program, like many social
welfare programs, suffered from federal budget cuts. Federal housing
policies began to move away from funding government homes to private sector
solutions, and this shift hurt the quality and scope of the city's public
housing and tenant organizing.
7All Housing Is Public
chapter abstract
The chapter highlights tenant responses to federal cuts in social programs,
another wave of urban redevelopment, and rising housing costs. To SFHA
tenants, government housing continued to offer not just housing but a host
of programs aimed at ensuring a degree of economic security. That housing
and those programs allowed tenants to maintain a sense of community. But
non-SFHA tenants also turned to the government program in their struggle
for housing security. In these ways, the SFHA continued its role in the
daily lives of the city's residents. The SFHA's declining resources aligned
with the rise of the New Right and the power of neoliberalism to cut
federal housing funds further. Tenants continued their struggles over
housing. Not everything was oriented around struggle. Public housing
tenants expressed their creativity and identity through art and community
projects, thus reinforcing their identities through culture, place, and
struggle.
8Privatizing the Public in the Dot-Com Era
chapter abstract
This chapter examines how demand for housing, cuts to the SFHA program, and
federal legislation influenced the direction of housing trends in the city.
As housing costs soared, landlords skirted tenant rights and evictions
rose; many residents unable to keep or secure housing joined the homeless
population or left the city. Some residents resisted and fought for housing
rights in an era of gentrification. This housing crisis was not unique to
San Francisco. Across the country, tenants were squeezed out of
neighborhoods as wages failed to keep up with urban housing costs. Housing
legislation continued to shift resources and support to private sector
housing solutions rather than public housing. By the twenty-first century,
the SFHA was losing its place as the largest affordable housing landlord in
the city.
Conclusion
chapter abstract
The conclusion highlights the key points and themes of San Francisco's
housing history and connects those insights to a national and international
affordable housing shortage and income, wealth, and racial inequality. The
conclusion also proposes recommendations for thinking about public housing
as a program that could be used once again to expand the civil and economic
rights of citizens and engage residents in the political process. The
history of public housing in San Francisco offers insights into how to
approach contemporary housing reforms and social movements.