All District 11 supe candidates say neighborhoods underserved
The northeastern tip of San Francisco’s Mission Street is known for tech startups, pricey restaurants and the Millennium Tower, the sinking highrise full of multimillion-dollar condos.
If that’s San Francisco circa 2016, the southwestern section along Mission Street might as well be another town in another decade. There, in the Excelsior and OMI neighborhoods, rundown mom-andpop stores and old-school cafes still in operation are the lucky ones. Others have shut down altogether because of high rents and sit boarded up with graffiti-covered plywood.
The five candidates on the November ballot for District 11 supervisor are seeking to replace termed-out Supervisor John Avalos. All of them repeat the same themes: It’s time for City Hall to pay attention to the oft-neglected, workingclass part of San Francisco where the booming economy has brought higher rents and home prices, but not much else.
Gerson Chavez, who works at Mission TV Watch and Jewelry Repair on the Excelsior’s main drag, said city workers seem to appear in a snap if a customer’s parking meter runs out, but don’t wipe down graffiti. And there’s not enough police presence either, he said. Still, the rent on the worn little shop keeps climbing.
“The owner already said if it keeps going up, he’ll close it in three years,” he said, noting the owner is already paying $3,000 a month. “I’ll be out of a job.”
Two longtime District 11 residents, Kimberly Alvarenga and Ahsha Safai, are the front-runners in the race and say they’ll tackle the affordability crisis that is making life in the district increasingly out of reach for its longtime residents and business owners.
On paper, the two share a lot in common. They both have young children. They’re both political directors for unions within the Service Employees International Union, although Alvarenga is on leave to run for office.
They both have long ties to the city’s political establishment. Alvarenga’s previous job was district director for then-Assemblyman Tom Ammiano.
Safai previously worked in the Public Works Department and the Mayor’s Office of Community Development and held a seat on the Housing Authority Commission before Mayor Ed Lee remade the commission because of its ineffectiveness in overseeing the severely troubled public housing agency.
But the candidates also have differences. Alvarenga, a staunch progressive who talks a lot about equity, points to Ammiano and Rep. Barbara Lee, for whom she interned, as her role models. Raised by a single mother from El Salvador in the Holly Courts public housing development in Bernal Heights, she attended City College and boasts endorsements from the local Planned Parenthood, Sierra Club and teachers union.
Safai has a more moderate political bent and counts forwhich mer Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis, a professor of his in college, as his mentor. Dukakis officiated Safai’s wedding. Safai was born in Iran and moved to the United States with his mother when he was 6. His father, a planner and architect, still lives in Iran. Safai attended Northeastern University and MIT, worked in the administrations of former Mayors Willie Brown and Gavin Newsom, and has endorsements from U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Newsom and Attorney General Kamala Harris.
Both front-runners want to help District 11 residents economically. Alvarenga said City Hall has helped families qualify for first-time home loans, but housing prices have become so far out of reach the loans don’t help. She wants to make the loans bigger, as well as extend park clubhouse hours, start a community benefit district along Mission Street and open a district office so residents don’t have to travel to City Hall.
“I will have an approach that’s new, collaborative and independent,” she said.
Safai said his biggest recent accomplishment was helping to secure funding so the Mission Child Care Consortium, serves 250 low-income families, could buy its building. He wants to focus on kids and families and extend child care and preschool opportunities.
“When I tell people about things I’ve done directly for their district, that’s what seems to resonate really well,” Safai said.
Interviews with several residents and workers in District 11 found complaints about the nuts-and-bolts of any neighborhood: a growing problem with homelessness, overflowing trash cans and illegal dumping, too little police presence, too little parking.
“It smells so bad,” said Mirtha Baltodano, a mother of three boys who was eating tamales at Yo Soy Cafe Guatemalteco on Mission Street in the Excelsior. She said homeless people sleep in doorways and leave behind feces and puddles of urine.
“I had to call the police to pick up a guy who was sleeping and drunk. I have kids, you know?” she said. “They didn’t come. They pay no attention to it.”
Renard Monroe is the program director and founder of Youth First, an after-school tutoring program. He’s lived in the OMI — the Ocean View, Merced Heights and Ingleside neighborhoods — since 1994 and is raising three children with his wife.
“This is the most underserved community in San Francisco,” he said, noting he’d like to see more money for education, job training and senior services. “We’re not in the heart of the Financial District, but we are in the heart of San Francisco.”