By Bruce Wolfe, HANC President

HANC's monthly (except August) general membership meeting is held downstairs at the Park Branch Library, 1833 Page Street (between Cole and Shrader) on the second Thursday of the month, beginning at 7 pm.  Our meetinngs are open to the public and free to attend.

This month we will hear from District 2 Supervisor Mark Farrell (or staff), Tim Pozar of Two P Technology & Network Consultants, Chris Witteman as citizen advocate and subject matter expert as an attorney at the CPUC , Eric Brooks of Our City & SF Green Party, and Michael McCarthy, a citizen advocate, formerly with the city’s Dept of Technology and a community expert specializing in wireless and fiber networks in low-income and affordable housing. We also may have former D1 Supervisor Eric Mar in attendance who helped initiate this effort with Supervisor Farrell. 

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By Tony Robles, Housing Organizer, Senior and Disability Action

(Editor's Note:  Part of our November meeting will be a presentation and discussion regarding the effort to repeal Costa-Hawkins.  Speakers will be Lorraine Petty (active with Senior and Disability Action Housing Committee and with D5 Action), and possibly Joe Smooke (Director of the Housing Rights Committee's counseling and community organizing program for the Richmond and Inner Sunset).  Tony Robles will also be in attendance.)

Evictions and displacement of tenants in San Francisco have caused serious problems—homelessness, health impacts, people sleeping in cars and, in the most extremes cases, death.  Rampant real estate speculation has led to tenant harassment and eviction.  Fraudulent owner move-ins, harassment, Ellis Act evictions—all of these methods are employed to extricate long term tenants from their communities and homes—and to, ultimately, undermine rent control.  

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By Rupert Clayton, HANC Board

Things seem to be moving fast on the city’s nebulous project to buy the McDonald’s site at 730 Stanyan Street (between Haight and Waller Streets) and use it for some undetermined affordable housing purpose. After vague press reports in the past couple months, we now have an official announcement that the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development (MOHCD) will hold a community meeting on the project at 6 pm on Tuesday November 7, 2017 at Park Branch Library.

Clearly, many HANC members and neighbors are interested in how the site is developed. About 60 people gathered at our October 12 meeting to share ideas on possible uses and to learn what the planning and development process might look like. HANC assembled a panel to facilitate the discussion: Peter Cohen, co-director of the Council of Community Housing Organizations; Mary Howe, executive director of the Homeless Youth Alliance; and Dean Preston, from Affordable Divisadero.

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HANC's November meeting (November 9th, 7 pm) is the annual meeting of members, and the date of annual elections for HANC Officers and Board Members.  Members in good standing may vote.  Here is the slate of candidates recommended by the current Board:

President: Bruce Wolfe

Vice President: Christin Evans

Recording Secretary: Christian Vaisse

Corresponding Secretary: James Sword

Treasurer: Tes Welborn

Nominating Chair: Jim Rhoads

Membership Chair: Richard Ivanhoe

Housing & Land Use Chair: Rupert Clayton

Recycling Chair: Karen Fishkin

Merchant Liason (ex officio):          Alex Aquino

Youth Liason (ex officio): Lorelei Vaisse

Members At Large: Joey Cain, Dave Groeschel, Dorrie Huntington, Carlie LeDuc, Shira Noel

 HANC's monthly (except August) general membership meeting is held downstairs at the Park Branch Library, 1833 Page Street (between Cole and Shrader) on the second Thursday of the month, beginning at 7 pm.  Our meetinngs are open to the public and free to attend.

             On August 6, Matier and Ross of the San Francisco Chronicle reported that the City of San Francisco had made an offer to buy the site of McDonald’s at Haight and Stanyan to replace it with affordable housing. The story appeared in Hoodline the following day (http://www.hoodline.com/2017/08/city-offers-to-buy-upper-haight-mcdonald-s-build-affordable-housing).

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By James Sword, HANC Board

Sand is back in the news. You may have seen the September 25th Hoodline article titled, Sand By Me, where it was stated that SF Rec and Park (SFRPD has not been fully honest about why they have banned sand in SF parks.

The fact is that despite Superintendent Phil Ginsburg publically tweeting that sand is not banned, a group of concerned parents (including myself) have emails to the contrary.

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