the rise and fall of Mission Housing

There was a bittersweet event last night, titled "The Rise and Fall of Mission Housing". It was an attempt to look back on the achivements and failures of Mission Housing Development Corporation over the period of about 1990-2003, through the eyes of its staff, its tenants, and its allies.



Mission Housing has been a leader in supportive housing in San Francisco, and over the 10 year period from 1993 to 2003 built or rehabbed something like 1500 units of affordable housing, much of it supportive. The organization followed a three-fold plan: Build housing, provide support and services to the folks who needed it, and build community both in and around the housing. This plan was incredibly successful, not only in the housing that Mission Housing built, but also in the surrounding community.

Unfortunately, the Mission Housing board of directors has decided that it's too much work to continue to build and run supportive housing, and now they're going to build mixed-income housing, much of it to sell, rather than rent.

To make this historic shift, they've had to purge the staff of many of the people who made MHDC the leader that it has been. Many of those very people spoke last night about the reasons the organization was so successful, and they pointed out that it consistently scored high on development bids precisely because they combined housing development with the other parts of their work. Apparently, tenant coordinator positions have been reduced from an average of two per supportive housing site to fewer than one. This will obviously have a seriously negative effect on the "supportive" part of the equation.

What might be the biggest consequence of Mission Housing's demise, however, might be the loss of organizing capacity in the Mission, and the East side of San Francisco. During the height of the anti-gentrification movement, Mission Housing staff members--and to some extent, tenants--formed a large part of the backbone of the Mission Antidisplacement Coalition. MHDC, as the largest community-based organization in the neighborhood, had the capacity to allow folks to spend serious time organizing around issues like stopping the destruction of small businesses and instituting a community-based planning process.

The sweet part of the meeting came from the commitment that was still apparent in the room. Mission Housing Development Corp. may have abandoned the fight for a better, more equitable neighborhood, but the folks who worked there, who live there, and their allies in the community have not.