Demolition of Alice Griffith Homes Dominates Newsom Forum

Before the event, housing activists held a press conference to protest the insincerity of the Mayor’s Town Hall forum, as well as the City’s plans to demolish the Alice Griffith Homes. Under this proposal, the City would give the land to the Florida-based Lennar Corporation and build a new parking lot for the 49ers (who have threatened to leave San Francisco.) “This meeting does not represent the neighborhood,” protested Lisa Gray-Garcia of POOR Magazine. “Community voices in the Bayview are being systematically displaced. Low-income people and communities of color are being kicked out.”

“Lennar,” said activist Willie Ratcliff, “does nothing but move around the country and lie, and give money to politicians. If you want to keep living in this City, you gotta stand up and fight.” While the City claims that there will be one-for-one replacement for all units demolished, public housing residents have heard such claims before – such as Valencia Gardens in the Mission District. With Lennar having reneged on plans to build 400 rental units in Hunters Point, it was not surprising that the neighborhood would once again question the company – and the City’s -- sincerity.

The activists then marched into the Whitney Young Center – but police officers would not let them bring their signs inside. At the beginning of the Forum, four of them stood up and interrupted Mayor Newsom, chanting “we shall not be moved.” They were quickly whisked away, as the Reverend Amos Brown yelled at them for being disrespectful. But while the protesters did not stay for the rest of the two-hour forum, the issues that they had raised went on to dominate the rest of the meeting.

More
http://www.beyondchron.org/news/index.php?itemid=4187#more