In S.F., few African Americans win affordable units

Johnnie Mae High lives in a ground floor, Western Addition apartment where she can’t keep the mice out. She’s tried to move — many times — but all six of her attempts to get into subsidized housing have failed.

“Every time I applied for them, they turned me down,” High said.

High is African American and her experience underscores a troubling aspect of San Francisco’s affordable housing system: Less than 1 percent of subsidized units built by private developers and sold to low-income residents between 2008 and 2014 went to African Americans. When rental units are added in, the figure rises to 4.7 percent, less than any group except “other.” Everyone agrees that’s a problem. They don’t agree on how to address it.

On Tuesday, the Board of Supervisors will vote on legislation that seeks to remedy the racial disparities, just as thousands of subsidized units are set to be built over the next few years. It would alter the citywide lottery system now in use and reserve 40 percent of subsidized units for people already living in that supervisorial district or within a half mile of the units.

Who gets housing?

The bill’s sponsors say it will give African Americans a chance to occupy new projects being built in historically black neighborhoods, including the massive San Francisco Shipyard development at Hunters Point. Critics, including organizations from the Mission District and Chinatown, counter that the legislation is a one-size-fits-all approach to an issue that needs a more nuanced solution.

The debate has raised an important question: At a time when so many people need help staying in the city, who should get into coveted affordable housing?

“You are not going to have any black people left in this town if you don’t do something,” said Cathy Davis, executive director of Bayview Hunters Point Multipurpose Senior Services. “There has to be a policy initiative on the city’s part to have more African Americans and bring them back.”

African Americans have fared better in securing city-developed units than privately developed ones, even though both depend on a citywide lottery. From 2008 to 2014, they won 23.2 percent of units developed by the city, the second highest rate behind Asians at 26.6 percent.

Latinos underrepresented

Latinos are underrepresented across the board: They won just 11 percent of the privately developed sales and rental units, while getting 5.4 of the city units, even though they represent 15.3 percent of the population.

Luis Granados, executive director of the Mission Economic Development Agency, said the legislation doesn’t do enough to help Latinos living in the Mission, where thousands have been evicted or priced out of the historically working-class neighborhood in recent years.

The legislation “pits one neighborhood against another, it pits one set of people against another,” Granados said. “I totally agree the African American community has been heavily impacted, but I think the way it’s being framed ... is actually not very constructive.”

And there would be another consequence of the measure if it becomes law.

Most of the city’s new subsidized housing is planned for South of Market in District Six and Bayview-Hunters Point in District 10, giving residents in those districts a big advantage when it comes to winning the affordable housing lottery.

That means low-income residents in neighborhoods like the Sunset and the Richmond, where few housing developments are planned, would be at a significant disadvantage because of the proposed neighborhood preference requirement.

Here’s how it works now: People apply from anywhere in the city to get into the subsidized units on a building-by-building basis. Some of those projects are developed by the city, but many are built by private developers, who are required by the city to sell or rent a portion of their projects at below-market prices.

Between 2008 and 2014, private developers built 1,326 such units and the city built 1,252. In the next couple of years, the city plans to build 2,790 subsidized units and private developers are projected to build 1,352.

Demand exceeds supply

The need far outpaces the supply. Approximately 3.6 percent of applicants get selected for subsidized housing, according to the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development.

Asians, who represent 34.9 percent of the population, have done well in the lottery system, winning 46 percent of subsidized units built by private developers and almost 27 percent of units built by the city.

Asian community organizations are very involved in encouraging and helping low-income residents apply for housing. When a lottery opens for an affordable housing project, the Chinese-language newspaper, Sing Tao Daily, places advertisements to alert Chinese residents, said Supervisor Jane Kim.

“They see it as their civic duty,” Kim said.

Just as critically, groups like the Chinatown Community Development Center help residents apply for the units.

“We would open our offices and for weeks all we would do is fill out housing applications. All of us. All hands on deck,” said Kim, who worked as an organizer there from 2001 to 2006.

In contrast, little such infrastructure has existed for the African American community, Davis said. There is limited outreach. And of the African Americans who have applied, many haven’t gotten in, which makes them believe the process isn’t fair and there is no point in even trying, she said.

“It’s a psychological leftover from what happened with redevelopment,” Davis said, referring to the city’s redevelopment of the historically African American Fillmore neighborhood in the 1950s, when between 20,000 and 30,000 residents were displaced. The trend has continued: Since 1970, the city’s African American population has declined from 13.4 percent to 5.5 percent last year.

“It doesn’t look the same. But the results are the same,” Davis said. “We are losing black people out of the city. No, they didn’t tear your house down. But what they built, you’re not going to be able to get into.”

“I lived it,” said Supervisor London Breed, a sponsor of the neighborhood preference legislation along with Supervisors Malia Cohen, Scott Wiener and Julie Christensen.

Breed grew up in Plaza East, a drug-plagued public housing project in the Western Addition that the city razed in the 1990s. But when a new subsidized apartment building opened up two blocks away, Breed said only her family and one other from Plaza East got in. Almost everybody else was Russian or Chinese.

“That was very telling for me,” Breed said. “I didn’t understand what happened and why many of the folks in Plaza East were being displaced. This was the perfect opportunity and why wouldn’t we get in?”

District preference

But critics of the legislation say it doesn’t create neighborhood preference, it creates district preference — supervisorial districts are much larger and can span multiple neighborhoods.

Gen Fujioka, public policy manager of the Chinatown Community Development Center, said not enough analysis has been done on what the impact of the legislation would be.

“Does the system need improvement? Everyone would agree that it does. The question is whether this legislation does enough,” Fujioka said. “It’s not apparent to us the district preference is going to address those barriers that need to be fixed.”

Granados, with the Mission Economic Development Agency, also criticized the legislation for a one-size-fits-all approach. “The logic behind the current proposal is weak. All neighborhoods are treated the same. Perhaps the way you think about the Mission should be really different from the way you think about SoMa.”

He wants to see a still higher percentage of subsidized units built in the Mission set aside for people who live in the neighborhood.

Meanwhile, Kim said she is worried the 40 percent set aside is too high, even though residents in her district would benefit the most. “I am willing to try it out. I am just not sure it’s going to have the outcome we want to see,” she said.

Mayor Ed Lee’s administration hasn’t taken a position on the legislation.

“We are trying to thread the needle between ensuring fair and equal access to housing units with a completely understandable desire for people to stay in their neighborhoods,” said Sophie Hayward, director of policy and legislative affairs at the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development. “The more we have worked on this, the more we have realized that’s a challenge.”

High, meanwhile, said she will keep applying to get into a subsidized unit. “I used to cry, cry. I got tired of dealing with the mice,” she said. But she holds out hope. “I just calm down and let the Lord do what he’s going to do.”

Emily Green is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: egreen@sfchronicle.com

Twitter: @emilytgreen