San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Homeless hotel faces resistance in Japantown
As San Francisco races to buy four properties by the end of the year for homeless housing, city officials are facing resistance in some neighborhoods, with the strongest so far in Japantown.
Many Japantown community leaders, business owners and residents are opposing San Francisco’s plan to buy a tourist hotel in the neighborhood and convert it into permanent affordable housing with social services for people experiencing homelessness.
Locals say their opposition isn’t anti-homeless, pointing out many supported using the Buchanan Hotel to house homeless people during the pandemic. But they’re worried about the demise of tourism if one of the neighborhood’s two hotels is permanently lost and critical of
what they feel is a rushed process in a historically marginalized community.
“When you start taking away those economic resources, it will choke the community,” said Paul Osaki, a resident for 60 years and executive director of the Japanese Cultural and Community Center of Northern California. “Our concern has everything to do with saving our community’s economy and the survival of Japantown’s small businesses.”
By Thursday, more than 2,500 people signed an online petition to stop the sale. During a three-hour virtual community meeting Thursday, 63 people expressed opposition to the plan, with nine in support and three advocating for a compromise. The city originally scheduled only one meeting, but announced another for Sept. 8.
Japantown isn’t the only neighborhood where residents have concerns. The Buchanan Hotel is one of four properties the city wants to buy by the end of the year to create 368 permanent supportive housing units, where formerly homeless residents pay 30% of their income in rent and receive social services such as case management.
The three other locations are in SoMa, the Mission and the Excelsior. At a community meeting Wednesday for the hotel in the Excelsior, residents were divided. One resident who lives near the hotel, which has been housing up to four dozen homeless veterans during the pandemic, said two dozen neighbors oppose the plan, concerned about an increase of syringes and trash over the past year and fears of attracting drug dealing.
Locals and nonprofit advocates largely supported the site in the Mission at a meeting Tuesday, eager to see affordable housing for youth in the neighborhood. The SoMa site meeting is scheduled for Monday.
Officials, advocates and formerly homeless people have pushed to spread out affordable housing sites to neighborhoods beyond the Tenderloin, where most unhoused and formerly homeless people live, but doing so can spark protests.
Neighborhood outrage puts city officials in a tricky position as they seize the opportunity to acquire more housing with new local and state funds to stem the homelessness crisis.
Andy Lynch, Mayor London Breed’s spokesperson, said the city is in close contact with Japantown leaders and understands “concerns about the possible economic impact.”
“We are committed to getting people off of the streets and into the housing and care they need. Doing so not only helps the people experiencing homelessness, but also the surrounding communities,” Lynch said, citing a “real need” to make sure the city is welcoming for tourists and residents.
The 131-room Buchanan Hotel, at 1800 Sutter St., is the smaller and more affordable of two hotels in the four-squareblock radius of Japantown.
After the lockdown shuttered the hotel, owner KHP Capital Partners agreed to let the city use it as a shelter-inplace hotel. According to a spokesperson for the company, the city then “came to us to explore the possibility of acquiring the hotel.”
“We viewed it as an opportunity both to help the City in its continued efforts and to provide much-needed permanent supportive housing ... and to help address the severe financial impact COVID-19 has had on our business,” the statement read.
The statement said the city assured the company it would get feedback.
The hotel has already housed many. Pamela Thompson moved in a month ago after a hospital stay. She called the food bad and the staff rude, but said it was better than a shelter. She needs permanent housing and continued medical care.
“I just want to get myself straightened out,” Thompson said standing outside the hotel Tuesday. “If the city’s going to take over, I’m going to stay.”
Unite Here Local 2, which represents about 30 workers at the hotel, opposed the plan, although President Anand Singh said the union “looks forward to working with the city and other partners to pursue solutions to the housing crisis while protecting good jobs.” A dozen workers expressed fear during Thursday’s meeting that they would lose their jobs.
Community leaders criticized the hotel owner and city leaders for negotiating a sale without community input.
Robert Sakai, who is a thirdgeneration resident and property owner, said his parents were married in an internment camp in World War II. Despite protests, the city redeveloped the area in the 1960s and 1970s, making it tourist-dependent, he said.
“As a minority community, we are continually seeming to get the short end of the stick. It angers me,” Sakai said.
Osaki said supervisors “can’t sacrifice and break their promise to one community to serve another.”
Supervisor Dean Preston, whose district includes Japantown, said he found out about the planned acquisition on Aug. 9 and “definitely heard a number of concerns” in a meeting with community leaders Monday.
“I am very invested in the success of Japantown and I am also very actively involved in trying to address homelessness in this district and in San Francisco. My office will be involved either in shepherding this proposal at the board or looking at alternative proposals,” Preston told The Chronicle Tuesday.
He stressed the continued need for community input.
Critics said the timeline was rushed and lacked transparency. Some heard about the plan only two weeks ago in an email from the city to community leaders, others from The Chronicle’s article or a notice mailed to neighbors recently.
The plan is for the Board of Supervisors to approve the purchases by the end of September and close on the sale by the end of the year. The city has not yet disclosed prices.
That tight timeline is the
Robert Sakai, third-generation Japantown resident and property owner
result of a matching state grant to create homeless housing called Project Homekey. The state will start accepting applications on a rolling basis in late September.
“We’re striving to balance the urgency to bring more housing online quickly to address the crisis of unsheltered homelessness ... with the need for a thorough community process,” Lynch said.
Opponents say Japantown is still reeling from the economic impacts of the pandemic. Richard Hashimoto, president of the Japantown Merchants Association, said about 12 out of 300 businesses have permanently closed.
Linda Mihara, who grew up in the neighborhood and whose family has run the Paper Tree store in the shadow of the hotel since 1974, said she is “really upset” by the plan and break-ins since the site became a shelter-in-place hotel — including at her business for the first time ever.
Police data for Japantown shows burglaries and larceny theft fluctuated in the months before and after the hotel was converted, with incidents rising during the winter and then subsiding. Burglaries across the city spiked during lockdown before returning to pre-pandemic levels. Mihara didn’t blame hotel residents for crimes, but said the site attracted other homeless individuals who hung around during the day or slept on the streets.
Cathy Inamasu, who has run the day care Nihonmachi Little Friends next to the hotel for 45 years, said she was “very hopeful” when the shelter-in-place hotel started “because that’s a very needed service and also helps out the hotel.”
The reality, she said, was an increase in trash, needles and feces; alcohol and drug use; and mental health crises or aggressive behavior.
“I understand that it solves a problem for the city, but it hasn’t worked for this neighborhood,” said Jon Osaki, executive director of the Japanese Community Youth Council. “It’s a challenge for an area that’s struggling to survive.”
“As a minority community, we are continually seeming to get the short end of the stick. It angers me.”