You’ll catch glimpses of it in an abundance of memorable San Francisco-set films. 

A Victorian perched on the corner of a quiet intersection in a psychological thriller. At the top of a steep hill overlooking the city skyline in a frenzied car chase scene. Inside a cozy café fit for a romantic comedy. 

While Potrero Hill might be a bit of an unlikely choice as far as location scouting goes, it’s easy to understand why the neighborhood has become a star in its own right — and a popular choice for Hollywood filmmakers over the years, regardless of whether the movie is actually set in Potrero Hill or not. 

“Productions can capture a residential area with a magnificent skyline in the background, combined with our very steep hills, all in one shot,” said Susannah Robbins, executive director of the San Francisco Film Commission. “It’s a visual feast to directors to be able to combine those three elements through a camera lens.” 

Peter Linenthal, director of the Potrero Hill Archives Project, couldn’t deny the neighborhood’s allure either. “Filmmakers like Potrero Hill’s SF views and relatively uncrowded streets,” he said. 

At the same time, Linenthal noted the striking abnormalities of life in San Francisco captured on film. His organization is headquartered at 298 Missouri St., where 1987’s “Burglar” starring Whoopi Goldberg was filmed, followed by 2001’s “Sweet November” with Keanu Reeves and Charlize Theron and 2018’s “Ant-Man and the Wasp.”

“What strikes me is the unreality of SF real estate in movies: Charlize’s character would not have been able to afford such a large SF apartment. Ditto with Paul Rudd as a single dad in Ant-Man,” he said. 

It’s true that North Beach has its own claim to San Francisco movie fame, but this month, we decided to feature eight of Potrero Hill’s most memorable scenes captured on the big screen. See where Roger Moore’s James Bond knocked over a gas station sign during an iconic firetruck chase and Keanu Reeves fell for Charlize Theron. 

1. ‘Venom: Let There Be Carnage’ (2021) 

Exterior shots of the Tenderloin and Grace Cathedral were captured in this sequel to Marvel’s blockbuster franchise that was filmed in February 2020, but one popular Potrero Hill spot also stood in for police station scenes: Anchor Brewing Company on 1705 Mariposa St.

A spokesperson for the brewery said the surrounding Mariposa and De Haro streets were shut down to accommodate for stunt work, including a scene with stunt doubles simulating Venom as he bursts through a wall on the third floor to escape prison. He then lands on an SFPD cruiser, resulting in a small explosion. 

“We had a good crowd of our neighbors on site for filming, and there was lots of excitement and curiosity in the air,” the spokesperson told SFGATE, adding that the “Venom” cast and crew utilized Anchor’s Public Taps for pre-production staging, talent trailers and craft services. “Many of the crew also enjoyed a pint or two of their favorite Anchor brews upon wrapping.” 

It wasn’t the first time a production crew had taken over the brewery: Arnold Schwarzenegger was in an episode of “The Streets of San Francisco” that was filmed there and aired in 1977.

“It was very cool to see some ‘movie magic’ firsthand,” the spokesperson said.  

Starring Tom Hardy as the titular villain/protagonist, “Venom: Let There Be Carnage” follows his everyday persona, a San Francisco journalist named Eddie Brock, who is writing a profile on serial killer Cletus Kasady (Woody Harrelson). Brock frequently visits Kasady in San Quentin State Prison for interviews as his death penalty sentence looms, and during their last conversation, Kasady bites Brock, causing Kasady to transform into another supervillain, Carnage.

Director Andy Serkis, left, and Tom Hardy on the set of “Venom: Let There Be Carnage.”

Jay Maidment

2. ‘Vegas in Space’ (1991)

“Barbarella” meets “Mystery Science Theater 3000” in this campy cult classic with an all-drag cast. Director and member of the legendary San Francisco drag troupe Sluts-A-Go-Go Phillip R. Ford was still a film student at San Francisco State University when he co-wrote the screenplay with drag icons Miss X, Doris Fish and Tippi, who would also star in the film as a band of intergalactic soldiers who undergo a drag transformation to infiltrate a planet of all women and secure the rare gems hidden there to save the universe. Shortly prior to the world premiere of “Vegas in Space,” Fish and Tippi would die of illnesses related to AIDS, but the film has gone on to be remembered as a landmark in queer cinema, with reunions and drag tribute performances hosted by Peaches Christ, filmmaker and “Dragula” writer Michael Varrati and Frameline Film Festival at the Clay and Victoria theaters. 

Laden with kitschy stop-motion sequences and wry humor, “Vegas in Space” was largely shot inside Fish’s Victorian apartment at 422 Oak St. in 1983. However, the climactic final scene in the lair of the villainous Queen Veneer was shot at The Farm, a commune and performance space under Highway 101 at Potrero Avenue and Cesar Chavez Boulevard that ended with an eviction in 1987. Large sheets of iridescent plastic cellophane draped around the venue “create[d] the illusion of an ice palace of sorts,” Ford wrote in a blog dedicated to the making of the film, which is truly B-horror at its best. 

“This was shot in black and white and is my favorite sequence in the finished film,” wrote Ford. 

3. ‘Bullitt’ (1968)

Starring Steve McQueen, this neo-action thriller based on the 1963 novel “Mute Witness” follows SFPD detective Lt. Frank Bullitt (Steve McQueen) as his team keeps close tabs on Chicago mobster Johnny Ross. The production crew spent three months filming throughout the streets of San Francisco, but it’s the infamous car chase scene that makes this movie memorable. 

That said, most locals will find the path of the Mustang and Charger rather disorienting as they jump from Bernal Heights to Potrero Hill, racing along 20th and Kansas to 20th and Rhode Island before suddenly materializing in Russian Hill and later North Beach. In any case, the resulting sequence proved entrancing for viewers, and editor Frank P. Keller would win an Academy Award for his efforts.

4. ‘Pacific Heights’ (1990)

This movie was featured on Bravo’s “100 Scariest Movie Moments” and today reads as a bit of a tongue-in-cheek portrayal of the power dynamic between landlord and tenant. But don’t let the title fool you: The home’s exterior was actually shot in Potrero Hill, and it’s still perched on the corner of 19th and Texas Street.   

“Filming it in Pacific Heights would have been a nightmare because of all the crazy things we did in that movie,” former location manager Laurie Noll, who also worked on “The Princess Diaries,” told SFGATE. (I won’t spoil too much, but live cockroaches are involved.)

Described as the “first eviction thriller” by New York Times film critic Janet Maslin upon its release, this psychological horror film stars Melanie Griffith and Matthew Modine as a privileged young couple who decide to purchase their dream Victorian abode and move in together. It’s a bit of a fixer-upper, but they decide to renovate it anyway and become landlords, renting out the units in order to afford the place. Michael Keaton plays the nightmarish but cunning tenant who moves in, changes the locks and refuses to pay his deposit or his rent — but his behavior becomes increasingly creepy from there. 

5. ‘Dirty Harry’ (1971)

“We Potrero Hill boys, we got to stick together,” a doctor says to the titular rogue police officer played by Clint Eastwood in the first film of this San Francisco-set action franchise. A prescient signal of the conservative turn of the Ronald Reagan era, it’s a right-wing fantasy of a film laden with gratuitous bloodletting that hasn’t aged well, but undoubtedly paved the way for a slew of crime dramas that would follow in its footsteps in addition to spawning four of its own sequels. 

Several scenes, including the aforementioned exchange between Harry and the doctor, were filmed at San Francisco General Hospital on 1001 Potrero Ave., while a car chase sequence similar to “Bullitt’s” zips along Mississippi toward 20th Street (the Potrero Hill gas storage tank is visible on the horizon, though the structure has since been demolished). The final film in the series, “The Dead Pool,” also features this remote control car pursuit.

6. ‘A View to a Kill’ (1985)

Move over, “No Time to Die.” This campy James Bond classic starring Roger Moore, Christopher Walken, Tanya Roberts and Grace Jones not only boasts an iconic fight scene on top of the Golden Gate Bridge, but perhaps one of the best title sequences of any Bond film, with a quintessentially ’80s theme from Duran Duran thrown in for good measure (it would go on to claim the No. 1 slot on the Billboard Hot 100).  

In the film, Bond (Moore) tracks down Max Zorin (Walken) and May Day (Jones), who are responsible for crafting microchips that release adrenaline in racehorses, though Bond fears the technology could be used for something far more sinister. Knowing their leading competitor in the microchip industry is Silicon Valley, the villainous duo plots to destroy the area by inducing an explosion beneath the lakes in the Hayward and San Andreas faults.

An iconic sequence follows Bond and state geologist Stacey Sutton (Roberts), whose family oil business Zorin attempts to buy out for the sake of his sinister scheme. When Bond and Sutton sneak into San Francisco City Hall to secretly review his plans, the police get involved, and the pair evades them by jumping onto a fire truck and careening through downtown San Francisco, knocking over the Chevron sign where the McDonald’s on 16th and Potrero stands today. 

7. ‘Sweet November’ (2001)

Long before Keanu Reeves flung himself off Embarcadero skyscrapers in the soon-to-be-released “The Matrix Resurrections” or dated Ali Wong in “Always Be My Maybe” he appeared alongside a fresh-faced Charlize Theron in a 2001 remake of the 1968 romantic comedy “Sweet November.”

We see Potrero Hill front and center in several scenes: the exterior of Sara’s apartment is at 298 Missouri St. (where the Potrero Hill Archives Project is today) on the corner of 18th, and the couple is seen wandering into the now-shuttered Daily Scoop ice cream parlor nearby, which was made to look like a produce stand and convenience store. They also dine nearby at Farley’s, where you can still stop in for a cup of coffee. 

Linenthal said he decorated a model boat and a skateboard for the film, and remembers that Keanu Reeves bought some reading material at Christopher’s Books during production. He also recalled a particularly funny anecdote: 

“​​A friend came over and wondered who the woman sitting on my front stairs was,” he said. “It was Charlize Theron.” 

Directed by Pat O’Connor, the tear-jerker of a film follows the unlikely romance between robotic ad executive Nelson Moss (Reeves) and free-spirited dog groomer Sara Deever (Theron) who cross paths while taking a test at the DMV. Afterward, she suggests a dubious proposition: that he come live with her for the month of November in order to shed his workaholic ways and ultimately learn how to appreciate the simple pleasures of life. The pair fall for one another, but little does Nelson know, Sara is hiding a secret that will change everything.

8. ‘The Joy Luck Club’ (1993)

In this film based on the best-selling novel of the same name by Oakland-based author Amy Tan, the shared home of couple Lena St. Clair (Lauren Tom) and Harold (Michael Paul Chan) — still at 610 Rhode Island St. — is cold, industrial and gray, and seems to mimic their detached relationship. 

This coming-of-age drama traces different generations of Asian American women, weaving together multiple story lines from the past to present day that examine their complicated relationships and cultural differences. Once married to an abusive husband in China, Ying-Ying (France Nuyen) only wants the best for her daughter, Lena, who is unhappily married herself to her boss from her architecture firm, Harold. He cares more about tallying Lena’s expenses than being a good husband to her, which frustrates Ying-Ying.

“One million dollars, and the walls are still crooked,” she laments to her daughter of the modern interior. Later, as Ying-Ying stands in the guest bedroom alone while Lena and Harold argue, she thinks to herself, “All around this house I see the signs. My daughter looks, but she does not see. This is a house that will break into pieces.”

However dismal, the architecture of the three-bedroom, 1.5-bathroom home was inspired by the Kronos House, where cellist Joan Jeanrenaud once lived.  

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Aura set, dial tone drone (2014). See sound at KADIST San Francisco. Seeing Sound is curated by Barbara London and produced by Independent Curators International (ICI). Photo: Jeff Warrin

KADIST, an art organization founded in Paris that promotes interdisciplinary work, is exhibiting in its gallery 20th Street Seeing Sound, a mixture of sound and video art. Curated by Barbara London, a sound art advocate since the 1970s, the show debuts in San Francisco before traveling internationally. Three different modes of contemporary sound art are presented in three rooms.

The dial tone drone by the London artist Aura Satz from 2014 is shown in the front room. The piece is so mundane that it could easily be overlooked: two armchairs positioned on either side of a phone stand. Visitors are invited to take a seat and pick up the rotary phone that is playing a recorded conversation between the innovators of electronic music Pauline Oliveros (1932-2016) and Laurie Spiegel (* 1945). The chat can also be accessed from any device by dialing 833-764-1221.

In the recording, Oliveros and Spiegel discuss sound and art over the incessant roar of a dial tone. Their conversation is a kind of introduction to the rest of the exhibition and offers the viewer concepts and language around sound-based art. “Our body is a form of mediation,” says one of the discussants, referring to the effect of sound on the mind, a statement that serves as the thesis of the exhibition. The portability of the piece questions the influence of the place on the experience of art. How could interpretations change if you listen to the recording while walking on the beach instead of sitting in the gallery?

The second room contains Music Stands, 2019 by New York composer Marina Rosenfeld, an ensemble of sculptural music stands, acoustic panels and microphones. Cables snake across the gallery floor from the microphones to a mixer. A laptop connected to the board is equipped with software that picks up clippings of clay in random order, mixes them and spits them out again. Navigating through the installation and listening to your own movements and words is a sonar-like experience. The interaction with the piece creates an increased self-perception of the observer’s own body, as his presence in the room is reinforced by the loudspeakers.

Muted Situation # 2: Muted Lion Dance, 2014, a seven and a half minute video by Hong Kong-based artist Samson Young, can be seen in the gallery’s projection room. The film shows a group of dancers performing the traditional Chinese lion dance, which is usually performed during New Years celebrations and weddings. The backdrop is a black box theater with the emphasis on the costumed performers. The conventional percussive accompaniment is noticeably missing and is replaced by a recording of the rhythmic steps of the dancers and the heavy breathing from their lion costumes. The soundtrack of the dancers’ exertions gives the piece a visceral quality and makes the audience hypersensitive to their own indolence as they watch the work.

Each of the pieces was based on a collaboration when it was created, with the viewer becoming a part of that relationship. The staging of the exhibits promotes dynamic engagement – sitting, walking – while each work orchestrates movements with sounds and directs the visitors’ awareness to their own bodies.

Seeing Sound runs through July 24th at KADIST San Francisco, 3295 20th Street.

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It was December 14, 1955, and Estelle West was running out of options.

The 65-year-old widow anxiously wrung her hands as she sat alone in a San Francisco jail cell, awaiting her fate. She had been repeatedly ordered by police to give up her two-story abode on San Bruno Avenue so the city could make way for construction of the 101 freeway over Potrero Hill. Her property on the steep, rocky cliff would be razed, but that was the least of West’s concerns. 

What she truly dreaded was the fact that she would have to give up her cherished pets: an abundance of goats that not only provided her primary means of income with their milk, but were also like family to her. 

Goats from City Grazing munch on the grassy outskirts of the Potrero Hill Community Garden in May 2021.

Courtesy of the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department

West did everything she could to prevent that from happening. 

She wasn’t the only longtime resident of Potrero Hill forced to give up their property, but it was her refusal to give up the goats until she could find safe new living quarters for them that captured the public’s attention. In the four years leading up to her arrest, West’s face had been plastered all over the pages of local newspapers, including the Chronicle, the Examiner, and the now-defunct San Francisco Bulletin. Collectively, they touted her as the “Goat Lady of Potrero Hill,” amusedly following her saga to preserve her home and protect her bleating companions.

Goats from City Grazing munch on the grassy outskirts of the Potrero Hill Community Garden in May 2021.

Courtesy of the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department

To own a flock of goats in the neighborhood wasn’t all that unusual at the time, according to Peter Linenthal, director of the Potrero Hill Archives Project. In the early 20th century, Potrero Hill was a rural, working-class neighborhood where residents tended to cows, chickens and goats living at their properties after they returned from their jobs downtown. 

West, however, owned a burgeoning flock of 18 goats, eight cats, and two parakeets. She adored the sprawling view her home on Potrero Hill had to offer, and felt at peace as she watched her flock nibble upon the grassy slope.

Predictably, her demise began with complaints from neighbors, who weren’t quite as enthusiastic about West’s hillside menagerie as she was. They frequently complained of the smell to anyone who would listen — their friends, the police, the city health department — in addition to lamenting the goats’ inclination to munch on their prized flowerbeds. 

At the time, West was viewed by many as an obstacle in the path of progress, but Linenthal explained she and many other residents who had to sell their properties were bitter because they didn’t feel they got what they deserved for the value of their homes. In 1951, when West was initially offered $3,950 for her residence — about $39,651 adjusted for inflation — she fed the writ of possession to one of her goats. Her reasoning was that she wasn’t selling her home; rather, the state was taking it away from her. 

“Estelle’s story is a sign of change in Potrero Hill, I think, from the natural hills to development. The value of property is still a big issue in San Francisco, and the fact that she was forced out and that this is still going on must be why her story resonates with so many people,” said Linenthal. “That, and I think people are surprised it was over the goats back then.”

Goats from City Grazing munch on the grassy outskirts of the Potrero Hill Community Garden in May 2021.

Courtesy of the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department

Ultimately, West insisted that she and her animals were staying put. But after multiple demands from the city health department, she relented, agreeing to sell the majority of her flock — which proved to be a disaster.

That spring, the first prospective buyer arrived, offering West $150 for all 18 goats, but the purchase fell through when the customer was unable to catch the ornery animals. A few days later, another interested party showed up and began to load the goats into his truck, but when he offhandedly mentioned to West that he was a butcher, she refused to let them go. 

An unnamed Colma resident eventually purchased the majority of the flock, leaving West with Mamie and Elise — goats she couldn’t bear to leave because they were pregnant, even though the date of her eviction was looming. A Mission District ballet teacher, Alberto Feliciano, agreed to purchase the pair to deliver to a friend living on a farm in Santa Clara County, but brought them back hours later, explaining that his friend was sick and that West would have to take them back.

Her refusal to abandon the remaining hoofed duo — which soon doubled when the newborns arrived — was what landed her in a San Francisco jail cell. West was arrested for keeping an unsanitary home and illegally maintaining more than two goats in a single household, and given the option to either stay there for 30 days or pay a $150 fine, which she claimed she could not afford. There she sat, desolate, until a woman burst through the front door of the facility, holding a copy of the newspaper in her hand.

It was Anita Frances Roddy-Eden, a former dancer at the El Rey Burlesque Theater in Oakland who introduced herself to police as the former wife of Manhattan socialite Tommy Manville. Outraged by West’s arrest, she demanded that the police release her immediately.       

Police captain Mike McConnell simply shrugged and said that she could take West with her, but that she’d need to pay her $150 fine first. With a whisk of her mink coat, Roddy-Eden pulled out her purse, counted out the proper number of bills, and promptly left with West in tow, who sobbed and announced that it was the most wonderful thing to happen to her. 

“Ex-Stripper Rescues Pet-Lover from Jail,” read the headline in the Chronicle the following morning. 

It was a rescue for the ages, but West’s removal from her home was imminent. Days later, she was forced to leave, never to adopt any goats or live in Potrero Hill again. Her home was demolished. West moved to a new place on 16th Street in the Mission District, where she stayed until her death on May 19, 1984. She was 98 years old, and in her obituary was remembered for her younger years as a waitress, a ballroom dancing instructor, and a poet. Though she never met him, West was also discovered to be the cousin of James Butler Hickok, better known as legendary outlaw “Wild Bill.”

But the “Goat Lady of Potrero Hill” may have been her most notorious title, and her legacy continues to live on in the neighborhood today.

Goat Hilda de Anchovy of Goat Hill Pizza fame, photographed by the Potrero View in 1979.

Courtesy of Peter Linenthal/The Potrero Hill Archives Project

Perhaps the most visually prominent example of this is a 46-year-old pizzeria on the corner of Connecticut and 18th Streets. Goat Hill Pizza founder Philip De Andrade said it was the community’s rural history and the story of West that inspired the name of his restaurant. After it opened in 1975, it seemed fitting that they have a pet goat living in the back lot of their establishment, who soon became a neighborhood mascot and a local legend: Goat Hilda de Anchovy. 

She and her eventual offspring, Bucky and Loretta, soon developed a cult status within San Francisco. Children begged their parents to visit the restaurant so they could feed the animals through the fence, and the goats’ presence even captured the attention of Chronicle columnist Herb Caen. His article about the goats prompted a visit from the San Francisco Department of Public Health, which permitted Goat Hill Pizza to keep Hilda, Bucky and Loretta as long as they weren’t interfering with food preparation — and that the restaurant wasn’t a front for an unlicensed dairy. 

Goat Hilda and her kids Bucky and Loretta.

Courtesy of Peter Linenthal/The Potrero Hill Archives Project

Goat Hill Pizza’s popularity skyrocketed in the 1980s, leading to its eventual expansion into the back lot where the goats had been living. This meant that the newly touted resident goats of Potrero Hill would have to find new homes once again, much to the public’s dismay. In June 1984, dozens of members of the community marched down Arkansas Street as part of a protest to “Save the Goats,” though De Andrade remembers the atmosphere as more of a celebratory one: a tribute to the full-time ambassadors of the neighborhood pizza parlor. 

To this day, Hilda’s likeness is printed on every box of pizza delivered by the restaurant.

Potrero Hill residents Gail Wetmore and Loris Lipski lead a parade down Arkansas Street to protest the removal of Goat Hill Pizza’s unofficial mascots in 1984. 

Courtesy of Peter Linenthal/The Potrero Hill Archives Project

Yet another San Francisco organization continues to preserve the legacy of Estelle West, even bringing goats to the same hillside where her herd once grazed years ago. 

Often mistaken for “the goat lady of San Francisco,” Genevieve Church is the executive director of City Grazing. She’s eager to rattle off random trivia about the animals: their rectangular-shaped pupils help protect them from predators. Their body temperature stays at a consistent 103 degrees Fahrenheit. They have an unusually higher metabolism than other animals. She also tells me they love cameras, and sometimes they love people more than they love other goats. 

“They have social cohorts within the larger group, they develop friendships, some break off from their families. They’re a lot like people, and that’s what fascinates me about them.” 

Church has been at the helm of the Bayview nonprofit promoting sustainable lawn care since 2012. Facilitating her operation is a herd of nearly 100 goats who visit approximately 70 sites throughout the Bay Area each year, tromping through gardens and backyards as they munch on morning glory, fennel and other invasive plant species to foster the landscape and aid in fire prevention. 

Generations of goats: These are some of City Grazing’s newest adoptees.

Courtesy of Genevieve Church/City Grazing

During our conversation on a sunny May afternoon, she tells me the hardworking animals have wrapped up their most recent project: grazing on the outskirts of the Potrero Hill Community Garden, where Estelle West’s herd of city-dwelling goats previously resided.  

Church herself wasn’t expecting to fall into the vocation of goatherding, but feels proud that her nonprofit is playing a role in keeping the city’s legacy of goats alive. The way it happened, she said, “was almost by accident.”

Church moved back to her hometown of San Francisco from Seattle in 2012 after her marriage ended, and her glass-blowing business went under due to the economic recession. Starting back at square one, she was looking for a career change and happened to stumble upon a Craigslist ad to care for 40 goats in Bayview. It seemed to be the ideal transition for Church, who lived on a cattle ranch growing up and has always held a fondness for animals. 

City Grazing goatherder Rochean Chapman holds Lurin.

Courtesy of Genevieve Church/City Grazing

Today, the goats of City Grazing respond to calls at the likes of UC Berkeley, UCSF Mount Sutro, and several residential locations. (Church informs me she can’t disclose where those are because the presence of the goats frequently draws a crowd.) The goats will start their annual grazing project in the Presidio on June 9, gradually moving up the hill toward the top of the Lyon Street Steps.

“They’ve brought so much joy to the community and into my own life,” she said. “And their impact in the long-term has been astounding. We’re seeing a return of native plant species and topsoil development in places like the Presidio. The vegetation is changing and we’re seeing a real change in what’s growing here.” 

I ask Church how she feels about the comparison to West, and her enthusiasm doesn’t wane. 

“It’s an absolute honor to carry the torch of this awesome goat legend,” she says. “We love that we’re keeping this tradition of goats in the city going, and we’ve found a way to do it [where] the city allows us to stay. I couldn’t imagine myself doing anything else.”

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San Francisco’s latest project to close the much-discussed digital divide is the anticipated launch of free wireless Internet service for residents of the Sunnydale and Potrero public housing areas.

The city halted plans in 2018 for an ambitious project to provide fiber-optic broadband service to all residents and businesses that would have cost more than $ 1 billion. Instead, priority was given to free access to selected affordable residential areas.

The Sunnydale and Potrero public residential areas are now to be equipped with wireless access by the Department of Technology.

The San Francisco Housing Authority Commission unanimously approved the $ 1.2 million project that it will fund with its funds on Thursday. It includes the installation of the network and maintenance by the department through June 30, 2023. The project is subject to final approval by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The installation of the wireless access takes six to eight months. Work begins initially in Sunnydale, where 563 units are occupied, followed by Potrero Terrace, where 301 units are occupied. 609 young people live in the units in grades 3 to 12.

Both locations will be demolished and rebuilt over several years as part of the city’s HopeSF initiative in order to offer the locations a mixture of affordable and marketable living space.

“This Wi-Fi network is intended to serve residents of the existing units during the rebuilding,” said Linda Gerull, director of the Department of Technology, the San Francisco Examiner in an email.

In the past few years, the lack of home internet access for an estimated 100,000 San Francisco residents has been highlighted as a significant equity failure, but the COVID-19 pandemic only exacerbated the need.

“In the face of the pandemic, there is a strong need for reliable internet connectivity to access distance learning and other key online services,” Cindy Gamez, procurement analyst with the San Francisco Housing Authority, told the commission. “The agency wants to work with the Department of Technology to deliver this much-needed Wi-Fi service.”

In April 2018, The City published a report on digital equity based on focus groups in six public housing areas and work centers that found “Affordability is the most cited challenge”.

“Internet and computers are too expensive for many public housing residents and labor customers, resulting in low subscription and ownership levels compared to the city average,” the report said. “Only about half of the participants have an Internet connection at home, less have a desktop or laptop computer. Instead, most rely on mobile devices and data plans for connectivity. “

The Sunnydale project costs about $ 670,000. This includes installing fiber optics at five locations and setting up a wireless bridge connecting the 50 buildings on the site. The Potrero site is designed similarly and costs $ 346,000.

It would be an open network with an expected speed of 50 megabits. The signal is accessed through people’s devices without the need for additional devices in their homes.

In addition to WiFi, the commission agreed to allocate up to $ 300,000 in grants to the Mayor’s Office for Housing and Community Development, which will be shared equally between the two locations.

Brian Cheu, community development director for the mayor’s office for housing and community development, said the Sunnydale grant will be given to a nonprofit to focus on tutoring and academic skills building for school-age children with a goal of 120 weekly to serve. The Potrero scholarship would go to a nonprofit that serves approximately 30 young people each week to focus on “mental health problems that a number of young people are going through”.

Cheu said they plan to provide the grants for services for a year once the Wi-Fi network is in place, to “try to grab people at the time when the excitement is highest and able to.” be to maximize their connection with them. “

The digital divide is attracting renewed attention from the board of directors, which on Tuesday adopted a resolution adopting recommendations from the Task Force on Economic Recovery report calling for earmarked annual funding for the expansion of fiber optics into affordable residential areas.

Gerull, head of the Department of Technology, told the Housing Authority Commission on Thursday that, since launching the Fiber to Housing program in 2018 to help reduce the digital divide in affordable housing, in collaboration with the Mayor’s Office of Housing and the Local Internet provider Monkeybrains have around 7,300 devices connected to broadband or Wi-Fi.

“The need is much greater than what we have concluded so far,” said Gerull. “There are around 30,000 units and households that need to be connected together in affordable locations.”

The resolution introduced by Supervisor Ahsha Safai calls on Gerull’s department to submit a report by June 1 stating an estimate of the cost of connecting affordable housing to single occupancy hotels and “a literature review of the past 20 years of efforts by The City ”is presented to close the digital divide. “

“The city has been trying to bridge the digital divide for more than two decades,” Safai said at a recent board committee hearing. “The city has not yet started to really bridge this for our weakest.”

Safai said he intends to create “a multi-faceted plan that will end the digital divide”.

jsabatini@sfexaminer.com

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