Though there are many contenders, the distinction of dirtiest street in San Francisco belongs to St. George Alley. It lies at the cusp of North Beach, flanked by cigar clubs and expensive paella restaurants, a swank cosmetology school, and the Academy of Art — all signs of ballooning wealth in the city. But the alley itself is strewn with bunched-up napkins, beer bottles, a discarded towel warmer from a barber shop, ominous puddles, and worse things besides.

St. George Alley illustrates, for those willing to visit it, that a city harboring the world’s most advanced companies is still plagued by the same problems that beset medieval Europe. The worst urban conditions befoul the footpath of the most well-heeled residents. The inability of the city to adequately solve the Great Waste Issue is yet another way of getting at just who, exactly, the city is for. So get comfortable: The conversation over the economic shifts in San Francisco has included luxury high-rises on Market Street, cafes and boutiques on Valencia, evictions all over town, and toast. Now, to complete the circle, we must discuss toilets.

Or, really, public restrooms. Which, like housing, are the canary or the barometer or the inkblot telling us how the city feels about the people in it.

The prospect of a truly democratic, general-purpose toilet has long eluded city officials. Utilitarian, New Deal-era restrooms were designed for everyone, followed by similar visions for one true People’s Toilet. San Francisco being San Francisco, things have since gotten weird. The green, bunker-like JC Decauxs have been monopolized by drug addicts; older facilities have been padlocked; restroom-construction costs have skyrocketed as only S.F. construction costs can. And now, of course, tech start-ups have come along to disrupt the peeing industry.

Dolores Park’s current renovation will include a Parisian-style pissoir where the IPA-infused waste of park-goers can be funneled back into an eco-friendly irrigation system. Meanwhile, a urinal in the Tenderloin that feeds into a bamboo garden will endure the harshest tests a urinal can face. Increasingly, San Francisco’s public restroom demands are getting innovated, tricked-out, and reconceptualized beyond the stainless-steel-and-concrete dreams of early-20th-century utopians. And at long last, libertarian ideals of total bowel deregulation and complete personal bladder authority (beyond the reach of government plumbing) have been achieved by sharing-economy services like New Orleans-based start-up Airpnp, which allows residents to rent out their bathrooms for up to $10 a pop.

Of course, like everything else in San Francisco, it turns out that potties have long been lashed to political debates. In a city that’s constantly reimagining itself, a restroom isn’t just a place to pee, after all. It’s part of a larger dialogue about who owns the public space. It’s a piece of architecture that’s at once public and intimate, where the landed gentry have to squat right alongside the city’s poor. “I think as you see a more stratified city, obviously the restrooms are gonna become more politicized,” former Supervisor Chris Daly says, remembering years of public-restroom football in City Hall.

For at least a decade, bathrooms have stood in for the city’s anxieties about homelessness, public utilities, and the changing economy. They’ve created fault lines and frenemies, they’ve cost untold millions of dollars. (The tab for this year’s renovation of a particularly infamous Portsmouth Square lavatory comes to $1.13 million). They’ve become porcelain tea leaves through which we can analyze the city’s development, and proxies for all of its battles. Scoff or turn away at the door, but it’s undeniable: Toilets have been markers for civilization since long before even the venerable coffee bar, and understanding the city now is just a flush away.

An amateur historian could infer volumes about any San Francisco epoch by analyzing its restroom architecture. Most of the barracks-style johns in neighborhood parks were built during the Depression by a labor force employed through Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration. Most of those structures were concrete, and utilitarian, though a few had decorative adornments. Frank Triska, a former Recreation & Park volunteer who sat on the department’s (ridiculous, though inevitable) Restroom Task Force in 2009, says one playground bathroom in the Sunset District stood out for craftsmanship, with its arched doors and tiled roof.

“It has sort of a cottagey look,” Triska muses. “The others look like bunkers where you’d store war material.”

Restrooms of an older vintage were built to last — one need only look at the two “Public Convenience Centers” on the Great Highway, which date to a pre-WWII era when words like “outhouse” and “water closet” were too profane to put on public signage. Though they didn’t hew to any particular aesthetic movement, Triska says, most had sturdy masonry and ceramic or porcelain fixtures. The ones by the Great Highway are impressively large, with Ionic columns built into their facades and high ceilings that bathe the interior spaces with natural light. They are tiled like the floors of a Vermeer painting, with the actual facilities — several urinals and some toilets — clustered in one corner to make the room look even bigger.

Owing to the politics of the time, these marvelous citadels were possible because they were substantially cheaper than today’s bathrooms. San Francisco’s top-down government structure of the early 20th century wasn’t encumbered by democratic ideals, or edicts to serve everyone, or directives to incorporate community input in the design. The city didn’t have to meet disability law requirements or hire well-compensated union labor, or pass muster with both the Park commission and the Arts commission. Old-school construction process lacked utopian pretensions. But then, it didn’t need to accommodate a cacophony of opposing views.

Nearly a century later, politics and city bureaucracies have transformed dramatically. Rising maintenance costs shuttered many bathrooms, while disproportionate social services led to a boom in the homeless population. There were fewer public restrooms to accommodate a greater need for them. St. George Alley and other unfortunate streets bore the brunt.

The economics of toilet design had to change.

In 1995, San Francisco hammered out a deal with a French advertising company, JCDecaux, to furnish 25 self-cleaning toilets along the downtown corridor. Squat and olive green, they promised to cheaply meet the city’s utopian aspirations. Anyone could pump in a quarter, open the door, use the toilet, and watch as the machine sealed itself shut for a mysterious 60-second cleaning cycle in which the JCDecaux hosed all its surfaces and blasted itself with disinfectant.

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In a city bedeviled by change, the French toilets seemed like a miracle. Tourists, homeless people, and shoppers on Market Street would all pee in the same hole, and JCDecaux would deputize its own maintenance crew to clean up every morning. The French company charged nothing for its boxy toilets, which resembled big oil drums or artillery bunkers, because they also served as advertising kiosks. The company rented that signage and pocketed the revenue.

But it didn’t take long for a foreign toilet with lofty aspirations and good business sense to fall into ill repute. The JCDecauxs became known as “20 minute hotels” for prostitutes and drug users. Vagrants slept inside; addicts wedged knives beneath the doors to keep cops from getting in.

“I’ve actually seen shit on the floors,” a homeless vet named Peter Skelley says, rattling off the other iniquities he’s witnessed in those shiny European johns: people cooking up dope or shooting heroin.

Granted, his horror stories pale in comparison to a JCDecaux maintenance man at Fifth and Market streets, who easily recalls the worst thing he’s seen: “A dead body. From a drug overdose.”

The JCDecaux toilets have come to represent a form of cheap civic beneficence — a way for San Francisco to feel it was aiding its downtrodden at a time of budget austerity. And their structures convey as much: big, can-shaped bunkers with glossy panes for advertisers.

It only took a small margin of the population to ruin the democratic restroom model for everybody else. But, as is often the case in San Francisco politics, that small sliver wielded a lot of influence. Toilets quickly came to illustrate all manner of livability issues, and the utopian dream of tourists sharing clean, cottagey space with their homeless counterparts withered away. The restrooms of San Francisco had failed as a utopian experiment; they were commandeered by a small minority but inaccessible to the masses.

And still, the streets grew fouler.

Erstwhile Supervisor Chris Daly never asked to become a stalwart for public defecation, but in 2002, he became a defender of shit-by-association.

“It wasn’t a position I wanted to defend,” he says, recalling how he landed on the wrong side of the public poop debate, and how it soiled his subsequent political campaigns. Daly felt he had no choice. Another former supervisor, Tony Hall, had drafted a comprehensive plan to combat homelessness downtown, which included an ordinance against defecating in public.

“You couldn’t even walk along any of the downtown streets without smelling urine,” Hall says, explaining that the city had padlocked many of its neighborhood restrooms to cut costs and save manpower — even if, as Hall argued, it costs just as much to power-wash the streets.

Restroom austerity begot filthier streets, Hall notes, but it was hard to crack down on the itinerant defecators if you weren’t giving them a place to do their business in the first place. Daly certainly wasn’t having it.

“He would push back on anything that counted as discipline for the homeless,” Hall says, recalling that the two supervisors eventually compromised, and co-authored an ordinance with then-Supervisor Gavin Newsom. It included a fine for anyone caught copping a squat, and a provision requiring the Department of Public Works to keep up-do-date web listings of available restroom facilities.

“If you give [the homeless] a place to go, they should use it,” Hall surmises. “And if they don’t, they should be penalized. It’s an affront to people using the public streets.”

Robert Freedman, a 50-year-old homeless man in SOMA, might say it’s not so simple. Freedman’s worst call-of-nature calamity happened last year, in the dead of night, in an alley on Natoma Street. He’d just finished relieving himself when a beat cop sneaked up behind him.

“He said, ‘Clean up that shit or you go to jail,’” Freedman recalls, his eyes narrowing angrily. “I said, ‘How am I gonna do that? I don’t got a broom or nothing. And he said, ‘Use your shirt.’”

Freedman’s altercation with the cop occurred just blocks away from the coin-operated JCDecaux toilet at Powell Street. But in a neighborhood where the public toilets are just squalid enough that most homeless people say they’d prefer to pee between cars, it didn’t seem that shocking. During the day, Freedman uses the bathrooms at Hospitality House Sixth Street Drop-in Center, one of several Hospitality Houses scattered throughout the Tenderloin. But those close at 5 or 7 p.m., he says, and at night he has fewer options. Freedman stuffs wads of toilet paper in his pockets, just in case.

“It’s obviously an issue not only for the homeless people, but for people watching the homeless defecate in their doorways,” Hospitality House’s development director Daniel Hlad says, adding that he and other service providers have no way to fix the problem. “We can’t stay open 24 hours,” Hlad explains. “If we had unlimited funding I’m sure we could. But given our current capacity, this is what we can do.”

Eventually, Hall and other politicians managed to persuade the city to reopen many of its park restrooms, which helped curtail waste problems while shunting the burden over to San Francisco Rec & Park. Thus, another agency with limited resources was dispatched to manage the city’s most well-trafficked and wretched lavatories. Hall deemed it a common-sense decision, but he recalls that some Rec & Park bureaucrats cried foul. They didn’t have enough personnel to beautify johns that might have languished since the Depression, let alone clean up the ones serving high-density areas like Portsmouth Square.

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In 2008, the department, already saddled with a $2 million dollar backlog from deferred maintenance costs — and run-down facilities throughout the city — sent perky mailers out to the residents of San Francisco, each featuring a map of the city dotted by 35 stars and a picture of the new bungalow-style john that city officials installed in the Panhandle in 2007. The Panhandle potty included a shingled roof, skylights, open-air grated doors, and forest-green tiled trim — and at $531,219 cost nearly as much as a small house in the Excelsior. Plumbing renovations, ADA enhancements, and union construction all contributed to the overall tab. Scrutiny from multiple city agencies ensured that the new john would be a utility, an equalizer, and a thing of beauty, all wrapped into one costly package. It was a harbinger of the times.

The mailer, proudly displaying the new utopian crapper, exhorted voters to pass ballot Proposition A, the $185 million parks bond that earmarked $11.4 million for bathroom renovation. Voters obliged, perhaps not realizing that restrooms cost as much as residential real estate in San Francisco. The Panhandle john was no outlier.

The new crop of restrooms in San Francisco are well-maintained and fabulously expensive, though a $531,000 privy might not shock a citizenry already numbed by $4 toast and $5 drip coffee and exorbitantly priced boutiques on Valencia. They’ve come to symbolize a strange cultural moment for San Francisco, when the city’s long-held do-gooder sentiments are butting up against its obsession with high-tech gadgetry, and its desire to garnish everything — even toilets — with aesthetic frills.

Nouveau restroom design in San Francisco might best be encapsulated by the new Dolores Park rehabilitation project, which will serve tens of thousands of weekend loungers on 16 acres of lumpy, manicured grassland. For anyone who’s spent a weekend drinking on those sun-dappled hillocks, the line snaking behind the park’s concrete clubhouse is a familiar sight. Add to that a tried-and-true law of human behavior — that the urge to pee in a bush rises with the amount of beer consumed. Such circumstances have led many a well-preened citizen to indulge his baser instincts.

As a result, parts of the city’s most park for the most upwardly mobile residents smell like some of the alleyways downtown.

“Public urination has been a significant problem along the western edge of the park,” Rec & Park project manager Jake Gilchrist says, explaining that the clubhouse restrooms were too small and remote to accommodate people who hang out in the southwest corner by 20th and Church streets, affectionately known as the Gay Beach. Many of those folks were peeing on the Muni tracks.

Park caretakers are determined to rectify that problem.

Over the next several months, Recreation & Parks will lavish some $12.4 million on amenities for the area, part of the 2008 parks bond. The list of enhancements includes new tennis courts, new irrigation systems, and new, intelligently outfitted restrooms to replace the ones in the clubhouse, which will soon be razed.

The two 1,300-square-foot bathrooms set to go up on either side of the park offer enough restroom real estate to fit 31 toilets, park officials say — 14 for women, five for men, eight urinals, and four unisex stalls.

But the park’s most talked-about piece of toilet architecture will crown the top of the hill. Called the “pPod,” it’s a stark, minimalist structure modeled after the Parisian pissoir — nothing more than a drain hole and modesty panel to hide the user’s mid-section. The panel, composed of 2-inch mesh screen rather than corrugated steel, will harbor vines and trellising plants, turning the pPod into a thing of (relative) beauty. It’s the next stage in bathroom evolution and, like its forebears, tells us a lot about who we are now.

In fact, the pPod illuminates S.F. cultural sentiments even more than its bigger, costlier contemporaries. It’s the iPad of urinals — sleek, ascetic, indomitably practical and, new to the S.F. restroom vision, equipped with features that match the city’s environmental sensibility (peeing back into the earth) and its Francophile aspirations. San Francisco has a long history of poaching concepts from the French: After the Gold Rush, our scrappy city tried to repackage itself as “The Paris of the West;” more than a century later, then-mayor Gavin Newsom promised to turn a newly gentrified Market Street into our own Champs-Elysees.

Incidentally, the pissoir will likely be a more flattering form of imitation. Bucking another trend, it’s a cheap $15,000.

Only one other futuristic San Francisco toilet could possibly upstage the pPod. Called the “PPlanter,” it’s a wonder of science and urban planning: part toilet, part bamboo garden, outfitted with pipes that pump urine and faucet water into an airtight tank, clean it through a bio-filter, and feed it to the plants. Engineers from Oakland’s Hyphae Design Laboratory pilot-tested the idea last year on Ellis Street, near the back entrance of Boeddeker Park in the Tenderloin (which, as any San Francisco resident can attest, is ground zero for toilet R&D). They hope to launch a new iteration this year in partnership with the North of Market/Tenderloin Community Benefit District, and a proposed budget of $160,000 for the entire project — mostly deriving from grants.

The next phase, officially christened the Tenderloin Ecological Toilet Project, will comprise a toilet, two urinals, a sink, a wheelchair ramp, and vines or trellising plants — all configured to fit within two parking spaces. Its gray-water flushing system will erase foul odors while its foliage will add a “beautification element,” according to Susie McKinnon, associate director of the community benefit district. McKinnon compares the Ecological Toilet Project to parklets that have popped up around San Francisco, converting paved streets or parking spaces into greenery. It’s a waste repository with bold aims. Its components — all wrought from scavenged industrial materials — apply high-minded ecological ideals to primordial human behaviors for those who need it most.

It transforms pee into garden mulch. Its elaborate title bespeaks a noble calling.

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In a city obsessed with innovation — app-based car services, Airbnb hotels, bridges that double as art projects — it’s little surprise that someone turned toilets into architecture. These new crappers mirror the city’s preoccupations with environmentalism, social good, and urban renewal, infusing the most basic human need with a raison d’etre. A PPlanter is the kind of thing you could field-test in the Tenderloin and then exhibit on the Playa at Burning Man.

That said, it’s unclear whether these high-concept water closets can withstand all the abuse that’s beset the JCDecaux boxes. Bathrooms are “site-specific,” and heavily influenced by their environments, Gilchrist says. A pissoir might serve as a hipster urinal in the Mission District, and a crack den when it’s redeployed in the alleyways downtown.

The city’s most imaginative and cost-effective bathrooms may not be able to serve everyone. They might not even be able to serve a segment of the population that needs them most. But in San Francisco, the toilet finds a way.

At midnight on a balmy Saturday in September, Doniece Sandoval stepped in the shower for the first time in five days. A handsome woman with elegantly arched eyebrows and platinum-streaked hair, she’d spent the better part of the week in shower abstinence, relying on body wipes and store bathrooms. Sandoval devised a demonstration to drum up support for her mobile shower project, Lava Mae, which rehabs old Muni buses and turn them into roving lavatories for the homeless.

Last year, Sandoval secured her first scrapped bus from the SFMTA and launched a $75,000 crowdfunding campaign to gut and retrofit it. As word got out, more donations came in. Now, Sandoval’s first bus is parked in a maintenance yard in Sacramento, where workers are installing two washrooms with showers, and a seat for people to change their shoes and socks. Sandoval hopes to debut it in the Mission and Bayview districts this spring, pumping in water from fire hydrants, cleaning it with a disinfectant, and draining it back into the catch basins in the streets. She still needs about $75,000 to finish the rehab, at which point she’ll ask SFMTA to donate three more junkers.

If the Lava Mae pilot works out, Sandoval hopes to raise enough money to put three more buses on the road. Neighborhoods famous for their fetid smells would suddenly be awash in public restroom infrastructure — which, Sandoval says, would spare those streets that have suffered so many years of abuse.

“There are 25 JCDecaux public toilets in the city, and as wonderful as it is to have them, they have problems,” she says. “People sleep there, they don’t lock, people get caught inside if they don’t leave in time for the [automated] cleaning.” San Francisco has a poop problem, Sandoval continues, but the homeless aren’t the ones at fault. “You just have to imagine how degrading it is for someone, when nature calls and they don’t have a place to go.”

Or their place to go is a side street. St. George Alley, the filthiest street in San Francisco, is a by-product of a political system that hasn’t found a true utopian solution. Maybe because there is no single People’s Toilet.

This dissatisfaction is what’s created the split: On one side are entrepreneurs like Sandoval, who want to repurpose old institutions like Muni buses into the toilets for the homeless; on the other is Airpnp, the Louisiana-based restroom-sharing start-up that infiltrated San Francisco.

Airpnp, a company modeled after the room-rental service Airbnb, allows residents to rent out their private restrooms via a website. Thus far, listings have cropped up for an apartment bathroom in the Marina, whose owners regale their clientele with incense sticks and old copies of Popular Science magazine ($5 per squat), and a pair of bathrooms in Oakland with copious supplies of Cottonelle tissue ($3). An Airpnp at 20th and Guerrero had to remove his listing because he got too many calls.

“It’s like Uber,” Airpnp co-founder Max Gaudin says, explaining that the current, primitive system is just a website that broadcasts local toilets-for-hire, but the next phase will feature a mobile payment app. In essence, it will privatize a system that’s long been the domain of public agencies, offering San Franciscans with smartphones and credit cards the chance to enjoy a new adventure in urinating.

Peeing on a bus, in bamboo, or in some entrepreneur’s flushable goldmine: The range of options has never been wider, or weirder, or more telling of the fact that the city’s heart follows its bladder. As the toilet economy keeps blossoming from its New Deal origins, better, stranger, costlier (or cheaper) models will evolve. Cultural divisions will deepen. More private homeowners and entrepreneurs will commandeer what was once a public utility to serve rich and poor in the way that unites us all. You can already recognize the city’s various dialogues in the bathroom options being installed throughout its neighborhoods.

That’s something to think about, the next time you’re standing in line with your legs crossed: You came for simple relief, but the room itself can never rest.

The post Occupied: San Francisco: Understanding the Metropolis By means of its Bogs. Sure, Actually. | Archives appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

In Spanish

On the morning of April 18, 1906, a massive earthquake struck San Francisco, California. Although the quake lasted less than a minute, its immediate effects were catastrophic. The earthquake also sparked several fires around the city that burned for three days and destroyed nearly 500 city blocks.

Despite a quick response from San Francisco's large military population, the city was destroyed. The earthquake and fires killed an estimated 3,000 people and left half of the city's 400,000 residents homeless. Help arrived from across the country and around the world, but those who survived faced weeks of difficulty and hardship.

Survivors slept in tents in city parks and the Presidio, stood in long lines for food and had to cook on the streets to minimize the risk of further fires. The San Francisco earthquake is considered one of the worst natural disasters in US history.

Congress responded to the disaster in various ways. The House and Senate appropriations committees approved emergency aid for the city to pay for food, water, tents, blankets and medical supplies in the weeks after the earthquake and fire. They also provided funds for the reconstruction of many damaged or destroyed public buildings.

Other congressional responses included requiring the House Damages Committee to address claims from property owners seeking reimbursement for destroyed property. For example, the committee received complaints from the owners of several saloons and liquor stores whose stocks of alcoholic beverages were destroyed by police officers to minimize the spread of fires and the risk of mob violence. In the days following the earthquake, officials destroyed an estimated $30,000 worth of intoxicating liquor.

The Senate Committee on Public Buildings and Grounds reports on damaged buildings in San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose and estimates of repair costs. The Senate also passed a resolution requiring the Secretary of War to transmit to the Senate a copy of a report on the earthquake and fire. The U.S. Army's relief effort report and accompanying captions are now in the records of the Senate Printing Committee.

The following images are records from the U.S. Senate, National Archives from Records Group 46:

Similar resources:

1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire Documents about the aftermath of the earthquake from our archive in San Francisco.

When an American city is destroyed How the U.S. military became the “first responder” and assumed responsibility when an earthquake struck San Francisco a century ago.

Aftermath of the San Francisco Earthquake, 1906 in the National Archives Catalog Photos and documents about the aftermath of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake have been digitized and relate to the San Francisco earthquake and fire.

Hetch Hetchy environmental debates Between 1908 and 1913, Congress debated whether to make a water resource available or preserve a wilderness when the growing city of San Francisco, California, proposed building a dam in the Hetch Hetchy Valley to ensure a steady water supply. Located in Yosemite National Park, Hetch Hetchy Valley was protected by the federal government, leaving Congress to decide the valley's fate.

Other documents presented

The post San Francisco Earthquake, 1906 | Nationwide Archives appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

Alex Tourk wants to build 2,000 tiny homes for San Francisco’s homeless population. And he wants your help to get it done.

The political operative turned public relations specialist is teaming up with the citizen volunteer organization RescueSF to get this idea off the ground, The Examiner has learned. The newly formed nonprofit is calling itself MyOwnLockandKey.org. the goal? Increase transitional housing options and get the homeless off the streets.

Tourk, who ran point on Project Homeless Connect for former Mayor Gavin Newsom, knows the landscape and he’s banking that his history of running campaigns and building political coalitions will help move the plan forward.

He’s going to need all that experience and then some, because this idea is going to run into some serious hurdles.

First off, where are you going to put all these tiny homes, also known as modular housing units in the homeless advocacy world? Tourk says he’s identified 50 parcels of land across San Francisco that could house modular housing, owned by The City, state, federal government and private entities, such as religious organizations.

I asked where these parcels were, and he told me they’re spread across San Francisco. And that’s where it’s going to get interesting.

As we all know, people feel strongly about homelessness. They want something done. But they don’t want it done in their backyards. Tourk says he has an answer. That’s where you come in. Over the next 20 months, Tourk and RescueSF plan to “organize a broad citywide coalition of 25,000 San Franciscans to support bringing modular/tiny home transitional supportive housing projects to sites throughout the City.”

Good luck with that. And I mean it. If anyone can pull it off, it’s probably Mr. Tourk. He’s a driven organizer. He could sell the Pope dope. Part of the plan will be to hold 500 house parties across The City, where neighborhood supporters could gather their friends to hear the pitch.

“I could be pollyannaish here, right? There could be people who are like, ‘What are you talking about? … Get them out of my neighborhood,’” said Tourk. “But you know what? I want to inspire people. That’s what true organizing is. It’s like selling a vision and getting people to buy into it. This idea that you’re going to keep dumping people in the tenderloin, in the Bayview, and this is going to somehow solve homelessness, just because it’s out of sight out of mind. If we really want to solve homelessness, we really want to make a dent in it, we all gotta participate, one way or another.”

OK, say you get the neighborhoods to buy in. Who’s going to provide the services needed? You can’t just give somebody a cabin and wish them luck. They’ll need services… and security.

Tourk believes The City is flush with cash (it is) and there are “a bevy of supportive services” available (um, not really). And he’s looking at the controversial nonprofit Urban Alchemy as a possible security solution.

OK. What about all the other nonprofits in town? The homeless industrial complex can be pretty territorial. Everyone wants to keep their piece of the funding under their own roof. On that front, Tourk figured the Coalition on Homelessness and the San Francisco Building Trades and Construction Council would be his biggest opponents. Both groups have traditionally opposed modular construction in favor of permanent housing.

But so far, Jennifer Friedenbach of the Coalition remains open to the idea and Rudy Gonzalez with the builders union is relatively supportive. Tourk says there are 1,300 union members who could benefit from building the 2,000 units proposed.

Funding may prove the biggest obstacle to MyOwnLockandKey. Tourk originally wanted to create a ballot measure that would make it possible to redirect some Prop. C money. (You know, the initiative that taxes the rich to help the homeless in SF) But that didn’t look politically expedient. Instead, his group wants to put this proposal in front of the Board of Supervisors and let them find the money. This could be Tourk’s Waterloo. Or Hamburger Hill. Many a dream has died in Room 250.

But this past week, the dream took a step toward reality. Not only is the group up and running, but they held a little party to kick things off. Tourk gathered a couple dozen of the biggest names in San Francisco’s homeless advocacy community at Civic Center Plaza to listen to his pitch and take a group photo.

“I picked this spot for a reason. And it really was three of them,” Tourk told the crowd. Turns out, George Moscone campaigned against the scourge of drugs and homelessness in the Plaza back in 1975. In 1988, this was ‘Camp Agnos,’ a homelessness tent encampment. And in 2004, Tourk and Judith Cain launched Project Homeless Connect on the same spot, spurring Tourk to say, “It made me realize that maybe my organizing skills were for something bigger than just electing politicians.”

“About a year ago, I met Mark (Nagel) and Laurie (Brooke), and these guys are doing amazing work at Rescue SF. They’re able to articulate a missing rung on the housing ladder, which is your transitional supportive, modular, tiny home construction. They are officially working with me as a policy arm of this foundation to help make sure we’re doing this appropriately, thoughtfully, with data and analysis. So again, today’s the beginning.”

Tourk points to existing, similar programs in Los Angeles, Oakland and Mountain View as his North Star. Not surprisingly, there were plenty of cheerleaders for his idea in the crowd at Civic Center Plaza.

“We’re very supportive of his idea,” said Brooke, co-founder of Rescue SF. “Having Alex come on board with his campaign experience and messaging experience, this could really take it to the next level.” She and her co-founder, Nagel pointed to an existing site at 33 Gough as their pilot.

The Examiner’s Sydney Johnson reported on the opening of that location, revealing that the site currently holds 30 cabins, with plans to expand to 70.

“Each unit is carefully and fashionably designed with details such as living plants, bookshelves and artwork, and features a bed, air conditioning, a desk and electricity,” Johnson wrote. “Bathrooms, showers and an eventual computer lab are all part of the development, which will get a wrap-around mural before the opening of all 70 units later this spring.” Generally speaking, residents would live in these cabins for months, rather than years. They’re intended to be a stepping stone rather than a permanent solution.

But the site also only has a temporary lease. The developer wants to build on the site. That’s why movable units are important in this plan, Tourk argues.

“It’s about time that somebody really did something, stepped up and helped,” said Gwendolyn Westbrook, executive director of Mother Brown’s Dining Room, a social service group that runs a safe sleeping site in the Bayview. “Transitional housing is what they need.”

Here, here.

It was a lovely, sunny day in San Francisco. There was a feeling of hope in the air. Many of these people have been fighting on behalf of the homeless for years and years. And they’re not going to quit.

As I walked away from the gathering, I passed the safe sleeping site run by Urban Alchemy near City Hall. Many of the sites appeared empty inside the fence. Across the street, dozens if not hundreds of people milled about in search of a fix.

They seemed a lot more interested in heroin than housing.

Editor’s note: The Arena, a column from The Examiner’s Al Saracevic, explores San Francisco’s playing field, from politics and technology to sports and culture. Send your tips, quips and quotes to asaracevic@sfexaminer.com.

Tiny homes for homeless individuals at 33 Gough St. serves as a prototype for the kind of sites a new non-profit called MyOwnLockandKey.org hopes to build. (Craig Lee/The Examiner)

A group of homeless advocates and non-profit organizers gathered in front of City Hall on Thursday, March 2, 2022, to listen to Alex Tourk’s pitch to launch a transitionary housing non-profit called MyOwnLockandKey.org. Tourk, pictured at the center in a white shirt, chose the spot for symbolic reasons. (Photo by Mitch Tobias)

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The post EXCLUSIVE: 2,000 tiny houses proposed for San Francisco’s homeless inhabitants | Archives appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

Last Sunday — San Francisco’s October day on record — seven neighbors were spotted at the intersection of 31st Avenue and California Street. Brooms in hand, they were trying to sweep rainwater that flooded the intersection down the street and into storm drains.

They stopped the flooding, but didn’t save the water. That’s because, despite having some of the nation’s most ambitious policies on sustainability, San Francisco still loses most of its potentially reusable rain water down the drain.

It’s a problem. gov. Gavin Newsom recently issued a proclamation extending a statewide drought emergency, which gives the State Water Resources Control Board authority to ban wasteful water practices. On Monday, after the storms cleared, California’s two largest reservoirs were only 22% and 26% full. And while about four inches of rain fell in downtown San Francisco last weekend, the majority of it flowed into the sewers and out to sea.

“As the climate crisis worsens, there is no doubt that increased water reuse and recycling from all sources, including rainwater when it’s available, will be necessary for our survival,” Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, who has been particularly vocal about the issue, said in a statement.

Despite the amount of water wasted, San Francisco’s policies are ahead of most other cities in the state. Residents are reimbursed for rainwater cisterns installed on their property, large developments are required to install water recycling systems, and a stormwater collection project that will irrigate most of a new park in Russian Hill is underway. Since 2012, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission has encouraged water reclamation, establishing a voluntary program to encourage large-scale water reuse systems by establishing clear guidelines for developers and establishing water quality standards.

In 2015, state Sen. Scott Wiener, a San Francisco supervisor at the time, authored legislation mandating the establishment of those water reuse systems in new developments over 250,000 square feet. Just last month, an ordinance authored by Mandelman expanded that requirement to new developments of 100,000 square feet or more. Mandelman’s office told The Examiner that the legislation “more than doubles” the amount of water reused.

There are several types of rainwater that can be reused, with varying degrees of filtration and treatment. Gray water is lightly contaminated water that has been used once and is now considered waste, like water that goes down the drain from a shower or after washing one’s hands. Stormwater is water from rainfall that drains off a land area or has crossed surfaces like roads and driveways. Rainwater, the cleanest of these types of reusable water, comes directly from the sky and at most slides off a non-contaminating surface, like a roof. This water can even become potable with basic filtration.

Harvesting that rain water, in its most basic form, is simple. Water must be funneled through clean gutters or PVC into a storage vessel, like a cistern. Then the vessel must be connected to a plumbing system with filtration, treatment and pressurization systems in place that are applicable to the water’s intended use. People collecting rainwater at home typically need only a basic filtration screen and a hose. Those with a green thumb can also make use of stormwater at home by reshaping gardens to funnel and divert water for irrigation.

“It’s just common sense,” says Laura Allen, who has written several manuals on household filtration systems and is a founding member of Greywater Action, which educates people on the topic. “People care about the environment, they care about the water, and they see this water coming down and know we should be utilizing it in the best way, but they don’t always know how.”

In commercial settings, the systems can become more complex, but follow the same model. Filtration systems often include multiple stages of treatment and disinfection, as well as pressurization so the water can be used for things such as flushing toilets. Developers and engineers working on these projects must complete applications with the PUC, the Department of Public Health, and, in some cases, a permit application with San Francisco Public Works. Application fees and engineering reports are also required.

In other words, the city’s regulations still come with a good bit of bureaucracy.

Sherwood Design Engineers, headquartered in San Francisco, is a leading firm on the West Coast taking on the challenge. His projects include restoring the banks and removing retaining walls around Strawberry Creek at the UC Berkeley campus. It also is behind the integrated water management plan for a highly-publicized, mixed-use community development in San Francisco’s India Basin.

Its renovations at Francisco Park are particularly noteworthy. It has built a world-class stormwater catchment system that will store 500,000 gallons of water and almost fully irrigate the park. In addition to the project’s immense size, it also has metaphorical value: the park itself was once a massive reservoir dating back to the 1850s that had been abandoned for nearly 80 years. The project reintroduced a useful water source.

Left: A rain capture system in Francisco Park in the Russian Hill area is being installed.

“At Francisco Park, we actually made use of a decommissioned drinking water reservoir,” said Amelia Luna, a senior project manager at Sherwood. “The City is leading the nation in promoting and passing regulations for onsite reuse of alternate water supplies like rainwater and stormwater,” she added.

Still, one of the most consequential ways to encourage rainwater reuse in San Francisco may be through boosting awareness around how to do it at home. In 2005, San Francisco made it legal to disconnect downspouts from the combined sewer system to direct rainwater to gardens or cisterns. The water can be used for outdoor irrigation, decorative fountains and car washes, for example.

“If everyone even had a rain barrel at their buildings, that would be a lot,” Allen said. “It’s about awareness and feeling connected to our water.”

Greywater Action lists dozens of resources on its website for setting up a home irrigation system, and leads workshops and presentations. SFPUC customers can be reimbursed for up to $100 spent on each of a property’s first two rain barrels, or up to $350 spent on a cistern holding up to 5,000 gallons. Interested residents must fill out an application on the SFPUC website.

According to the SFPUC, households that gather rainwater can collect 600 gallons of water for every 1,000 square feet of roof for every one inch of rain. On a day like Sunday, that means the average two- or three-bedroom residence in The City could have collected 2,400 gallons — enough for about 240 five-minute showers.

virwin@sfexaminer.com

The post After the storm: How San Francisco makes use of rainwater | Archives appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

San Francisco native John Tellez remembers when he could take BART to the end of the line for just 60 cents, a bygone era when he could more easily afford to live in The City and work as an in-home caregiver for his grandmother in Daly City .

But after his grandmother passed, Tellez had to find new work on top of bearing the loss of a family member. Construction jobs helped him get by, but the rising cost of living ultimately left him homeless for nearly four years.

These days, Tellez is back on his feet and doing what he loves: helping others live safely and comfortably at home. Not only that, but the 57-year-old is heading back to school to take his real-life expertise as an in-home care provider to the next level with training to become a certified nursing assistant.

“I like helping people. You know, it’s like karma. One day I might need help again myself,” said Tellez, who now works with clients in San Francisco’s shelter-in-place hotels, many of whom request working with him due to shared experiences with homelessness.

Tellez is one of five inaugural cohort members for a pilot program between City College of San Francisco, University of California, San Francisco, and Homebridge, a San Francisco-based, in-home caregiving provider that serves older adults and individuals with complex health and behavioral needs.

On a typical day, Tellez meets with clients such as a stroke survivor living in a Japantown shelter-in-place hotel, where he assists with everything from running errands, to changing bedding, to administering medications and helping the client move safely about.

It’s the same type of work that Tellez did while supporting his grandmother and more recently as a trained in-home caregiver at Homebridge, where he has now worked for two years. But now, those hours are helping him earn a new credential and higher earning potential in his next job, which he hopes will be at a nursing home or hospital.

The program, which is funded by the San Francisco Office of Economic and Workforce Development and the Metta Fund, provides free on-the-job training to in-home supportive service workers at Homebridge and clinical training with UCSF, culminating in a certified nursing assistant certification through City College of San Francisco.

The 15-week fully accredited course started in September. It includes 10 hours of weekly instruction through CCSF plus a clinical practice requirement of 100 hours at UCSF Health.

In-home health services are a vital cog in San Francisco’s health care network that helps keep extremely low-income residents in their own homes, providing both a sense of independence and keeping the hospital and emergency room beds open for patients with other immediate needs.

But the training initiative comes at a time when San Francisco is facing a serious shortage of in-home service providers coupled with an aging population, creating the perfect storm for unmet hospital bed demands and rising homelessness.

“If you can’t survive well at home, you could lose your housing,” said Mark Burns, executive director of Homebridge. “You can’t keep the place clean and can get evicted. You could have too many emergency health experiences, end up in the ER more, and can’t help yourself at home. So you could end up in a nursing home, but there are not even enough beds.”

Older adults make up the fastest growing age group in San Francisco. By 2030, The City’s Human Services Agency estimates 30% of the population will be 60 and older.

There are currently about 25,000 people who receive in-home care and 23,000 caregivers, according to the San Francisco Human Services Agency. Demand for in-home care recipients has grown by about 5% annually over the last two years, a trend that’s expected to continue unless workforce patterns shift.

“There’s a huge need and a huge gap. As you can imagine, it’s a really tough job,” said Kelly Dearman, executive director, of disability and aging services for SF Human Services Agency. “It’s not just about recruiting anyone, but we need people who speak various languages ​​and can meet a variety of needs.”

In-home care is a cottage industry relative to other medical practices. In many cases, these caregivers are family members who are paid to take care of a relative full-time.

Clients who can’t afford to manage their own services, or don’t have a family member who can support them, can find in-home caregivers through San Francisco’s in-home supportive services caregiver registry or through Homebridge. (To ask questions or to apply for in-home supportive care services, San Francisco residents can call (415) 355-6700 or find out more here.)

Veronica Diaz-Gracida and John Tellez, pictured at Homebridge, are taking classes to become certified nurses. (Kevin N. Hume/The Examiner) Homebridge is a San Francisco-based, in-home caregiving provider serving older adults and people with complex health and behavioral needs. (Kevin N Hume/The Examiner)

But in-home support services typically pay minimum wage salaries, making it harder for caregivers to live in San Francisco and work a physically and emotionally demanding job.

Across the city, 65% of in-home service providers are women and 34% are men, according to the Human Services Agency. Black and Latinx women make up a large majority of in-home caregivers in San Francisco and beyond.

“People who work in that industry are predominantly immigrants and women of color, people who are often taken advantage of for working long hours with low pay,” said Burns. “Our goal is to move them to a place like Laguna Honda where starting (salary) is closer to $25-$26, and (they can) experience more growth in pay scale there.”

Veronica Diaz-Gracida, another program participant, has been working as an in-home caregiver for the last four years. She decided to do the program once she saw a chance to move up in the medical field, an opportunity she hadn’t considered when fees and regular work responsibilities were in the way.

“I don’t want to worry about whether or not I can pay my rent, or how I can take care of my kids and work at a job that’s a good fit for me,” said Diaz-Gracida, 32, who lives in the Mission.

Throughout the pandemic, home and community-based care workers have been first responders to older adults and people with disabilities living at home in isolation. By offering more opportunities for advancement within the field and training to move on to other medical professions, Burns and Dearman believe more people will be interested in taking on these jobs.

“This is how we get people in the door,” said Dearman.

Diaz-Gracida has goals beyond a bigger paycheck in mind. She hopes her children will see her studying and discover opportunities they could pursue, too.

“I tell my kids, ‘Every day, I had to learn new things,'” Diaz-Gracida said, adding that she plans to show them the campus once she starts her clinical training at UCSF. “I want to show them that if you want something, you have to work for it.”

sjohnson@sfexaminer.com

The post Increasing in-home care as San Francisco’s inhabitants ages | Archives appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

Given the end of athletics in the county, the Daily Journal decided to dive into our 20 year old archives to bring readers some of our favorite stories over the years.

DEC. Sep. 4, 2007 – Soccer is a physical game. On Monday, the boys’ soccer teams from South San Francisco and Capuchino took that premise to a new level. The players had to be on the defensive the whole game because they would be blown up if they didn’t protect themselves.

Elbows and feet flew, players pushed, pushed and grabbed. Tough tackles that verged on fouls were part of the game, but in the end the visit to South City prevailed with a 3-1 win to stay undefeated this season.

“We haven’t been in a game like this all year,” said Anthony Dimech, South San Francisco coach. “We played good football. Today it was a dogfight in the park. It was nice to see my boys keep their heads. It is good to have this experience. “

Both teams almost got hit in the middle of the first half when a Capuchino striker apparently got an elbow in the head. He went to the defender of the offending warriors and gave him a two-handed thrust in the chest. Several members of both teams flew in, but no further damage was done.

It seemed that the rest of the game was being used to get revenge. The Mustangs were looking for a repayment, and the Warriors returned the favor when they got it.

“This is usually a physical game,” said Capuchino manager Rod Kovacevic of the Mustangs’ game against South City. “[Nonleague] or league, it seems like a little more rivalry, even more so than Mills, which is really a rivalry. It always becomes a physical match. That was as long as I can remember – 10, 11 years. “

When the teams decided to focus on football, it was the warriors who did better. They controlled midfield, which allowed them to vary their attack – they could either build their offensive with multiple passes or send long through passes to strikers who ran at the top.

Capuchino, on the other hand, struggled to tie the passes together, so he took the more direct approach to goal.

“South City played better. They controlled the midfield. It was difficult for us to regain midfield, ”said Kovacevic. “That’s why they had more chances.”

The Warriors (6-0) took a 1-0 lead 15 minutes before the start of the game. The ball rolled along the midfield and a Capuchino player waited for the ball to roll past him so he could turn the field up. Instead, Jose Perez stepped forward and stole the ball. After a few taps, he sent a perfect pass that hit Aldo Castro in one fell swoop. He carried the ball deep into the end of the Mustangs and hit a perfect shot over the goalkeeper’s head and just under the crossbar from about 25 yards to give the Warriors a 1-0 lead.

This advantage lasted until half time, but a few minutes after the start of the second half, Capuchino (3-4) had a golden chance on the track. Nick Medina got his head on the ball at a corner at the far post. The South City goalkeeper tried to hit the ball clearly, only to let it bounce off his fist and get back to his goal. One of the warrior’s defenders headed the ball off the line and the crisis was averted.

Fifteen minutes into the second half, the Mustangs finally struck. Omar Castro sent a perfect pass into the center of the box after a free kick 45 yards from the Warriors’ goal. Teammate Nicholas Sanchez was there, putting a header back on top of the ball, which found the back of the net.

However, the Capuchin celebration was short-lived. Two minutes later, South City finally took the lead. Esteban Martinez moved almost the entire Capuchino defense to the left side of the field. Unfortunately, the Jaime Torres opened up a lot of space in the back. Martinez sent a long cross across the field. Torres made a few touches to control the ball and released his shot before the Mustangs defenses could recover. He shoved his shot into the right post for a 2-1 advantage.

About seven minutes later, the warriors added an insurance target for a nice offset. South City received a free kick right in front of the penalty area from Capuchino. Richard Luna sent a curling flank to the post on the far right, where Castro came in and buried it with his head for a 3-1 lead.

“There were a lot of free kicks in the game. Lots of good chances, ”said Dimech.

The post From the sports activities archives: The South San Francisco boys’ soccer workforce knocks off Capuchino | Native appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

Given the end of athletics in the county, the Daily Journal decided to dive into our 20 year old archives to bring readers some of our favorite stories over the years.

JAN. 18, 2018 – Given that the South City girls’ soccer team dominated the rain-soaked game against Hillsdale, it was only fitting that the Warriors took an important win on Thursday night.

But the fact that South City took a bit of luck – good or bad, whichever side you chose – to get the 4-3 win shows how insane the game can be.

And it wasn’t what you’re probably thinking. Despite a steady drizzle throughout the game, varying in intensity, it wasn’t a crazy water-guided jump or an unexpected jump off the grass because of the wet artificial turf at Clifford Field on the South City campus.

South City’s ultimate goal was the result of hard work. Alex Jara, a second midfielder, ran onto a through pass in the direction of the right corner flag. She carried the ball to the end line before sending a cross in front of Hillsdale gate. A South City striker and Knights defender fell shoulder to shoulder on goal. Hillsdale defender attempted a risky clearance only to get in the back of her own net 11 minutes before the game was over.

It was the perfect example of hard work that made its own happiness. The warriors dominated possession and had by far the most dangerous chances. South City had a 14-6 lead on shots, nine of which were in the picture.

“My player was there (in front of goal),” said South City coach Salvador Navarro. “If she (the Hillsdale attorney) doesn’t use it, my girl was there.”

Jara had a big game for the Warriors, scoring two goals, assisting in a third and creating the own goal.

This closing balance was an exciting game in which the teams scored six goals in the first half. It was a pivotal win for the Warriors, who finished second in the Ocean Division of the Peninsula Athletic League on their own. Both South City (5-2 PAL Ocean) and Hillsdale (4-3) came in second, trying to keep up with Sequoia in first place (5-1 went into Half Moon Bay with 0-6 on Thursday Game). .

“I am fine [the loss]”Said Hillsdale trainer Rachel Lauderdale.” Given how wet it is, I’m fine [the result]. If they played like that when it was dry, that would be different. “

Although Hillsdale had to watch and defend most of the game, he took advantage of his opportunities. The Knights managed six shots on goal, half of which found the back of the net.

“Every time they had a chance they scored,” Navarro said of the Knights.

Hillsdale’s first chance came in the fourth minute and the Knights converted. The freshman wing Aaliyah Schinaman received a pass on the right flank and ran down the sideline for a long time. Before reaching the end line, she sent a flank to the front of the gate, where the South City goalkeeper got her hands on it.

But as it did with the slippery ball for both goalkeepers for most of the day, South City couldn’t correct it, and a ricochet trickled out in front of her – where freshman striker Kathleen Siu quickly put it in the net and Hillsdale with 1 : 0 brought the lead.

It was a short-lived benefit, however, when South City missed the subsequent kick-off and scored about a minute later. Jara received a pass in the top of the box, turned and equalized.

South City would keep the pressure up, with Jara dominating upstairs, receiving passes, turning and running past defenders, either shooting dangerous shots or making dangerous crosses.

And despite the Warriors’ strong possession game, they didn’t seem as affected by the wet field as Hillsdale. “We practice a lot of one-and-two-touch in training,” said Navarro. Hillsdale regained the lead in the 17th minute and scored his second goal with as many shots.

Second defensive midfielder Ekaterini Economou rose in the defensive half, came on a steal and pushed forward. In midfield, she sent a long diagonal pass to the right wing, which Shinaman chased for a long time. She gained possession of the ball, threw herself into goal and shot a perfectly placed shot into the left corner of the net to give Hillsdale a 2-1 advantage.

The warriors came back and tied it 2-0 in the 28th minute. Jara intercepted a Hillsdale pass deep in his own end. She then went around two defenders, carried to the finish line, and sent a cross back to the front of the gate, where Fernanda Ramirez waited and once fired a diverted shot into the net.

Twelve minutes before the end of the first half there was enough time for two more goals. Hillsdale took a 3-2 lead less than five minutes later. Shinaman, who fell back on the left full-back to slow Jara, won a ball on her defense and immediately sent second striker Alyssa Nicole Cano to a 1-1 breakaway. She calmly and skillfully beat the attacking goalkeeper on the far right.

Another five minutes later, the game was tied for the third time in the half. The Warriors received a free kick near midfield. Ariana Garcia found Jara with her back to the goal up in the Hillsdale penalty area. She turned and reconsidered her shot from 20 yards to end half-time in a 3-0 draw.

In the second half, Hillsdale made a formation adjustment to help the Knights better cope with the dominance in the South City midfield. It helped slow down the Warriors, who managed just four shots after firing 10 in the first 40 minutes.

“We switched from a 4-4-2 to a 4-5-1 (by throwing an extra player in midfield) to improve a little more (defensively),” said Lauderdale.

The starting goal came with 11 minutes of play time and the Knights exerted the most consistent offensive pressure in the game to find the balance. Shinaman looked good a few times in the last few minutes – but her first shot was saved and her second chance rolled off her foot as space opened in the South City penalty area.

“It was intense,” said Jara. “[The game] went back and forth, but we kept pushing for victory. “

The post From the sports activities archives: South San Francisco women’ soccer staff earn key win over Hillsdale | Native appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.