During the 1960’s and 70’s, a wide variety of nonprofit groups emerged to provide services to, and advocate for, low-income and/or politically disenfranchised communities. Today, many nonprofits borne from grassroots struggles have million dollar budgets and spend little time advocating for progressive change. Nonprofit staffs often include so few people with track records of working with the neighborhood or constituency they serve that groups are “community -based” by virtue of address alone. A nonprofit sector that once professed “to let the people decide” now ignores community input and maintains, a la General Motors in the 1950’s, that what’s good for them is what’s good for San Francisco.
Last Thursday night’s Planning Commission hearing saw Mid-Market residents come out in droves to oppose Redevelopment Agency control of their neighborhood. But an array of nonprofit groups—including TNDC, TODCO, SFOP (which does not even pretend to have a connection to the area), and Lutheran Housing —endorsed Redevelopment.
What led these nonprofits to promote action strongly opposed by the low-income people they claim to want to help? Three basic reasons: nonprofits increasingly believe they know what’s best for the poor, they focus solely on their clients rather than what is best for the broader constituency and they are overly focused on making money.
Let’s start with the “Nonprofit Knows Best” attitude that is all too often displayed.
Craig Adelman, who works for a private developer but is TNDC’s representative on the Mid-Market PAC (there is one community development seat while commercial property owners have ten seats), attacked the tenants who came out to the hearing for “fear mongering” because they linked Redevelopment with displacement and demolition.
Why was Adelman angry? Because the people for which he claims to advocate disagreed with him. Aside from the historical record supporting the tenants’ fears, Adelman was exhibiting a form of nonprofit elitism that calls to mind Saul Alinsky’s famous comment that
… if you consider our low-income communities as underprivileged nations, they come in and set up their agencies as colonial outposts, treating us as though we were in the Congo.
Some describe this as a “top down” perspective. Many nonprofit staff now affect the same arrogant, condescending attitude toward those they serve that was once seen by community activists as confined to government workers; it was the perceived insensitivity of such workers toward the poor that led activists to push for nonprofit, “community- based” service organizations in the first place.
The mission statements and fundraising appeals of these nonprofit groups talk about tenant empowerment and building better communities. But nonprofits then proceed to ignore tenant input on how to build such communities, leaving tenant “empowerment” as simply part of their fundraising pitch.
Significantly, not a single tenant housed by any of these pro-Redevelopment nonprofits spoke in favor of Redevelopment at last Thursday night’s hearing. The fact that these nonprofits did not see even a need to bring out tenants to justify their stance shows how little nonprofit leaders care about even keeping up the appearance of accountability to the “community” they claim to serve
Nonprofits also take stances at odds with the interests of low-income people because they confuse helping specific clients with serving the needs of the broader constituency.
The nonprofit housing groups who endorsed Mid-Market Redevelopment stated that their ability to get money to house the poor was critical to maintaining the neighborhood’s economic diversity. Nonprofit theoretician Calvin Welch captured this view perfectly when he concluded that by funding nonprofit housing in Mid-Market, the Agency was acting in opposition to the area’s gentrification
Let’s examine this thesis.
According to the Agency’s own figures, it would fund 506 new or renovated affordable units during the next thirty years. Would these 506 nonprofit units really make any difference in limiting gentrification when the Planning Department projects the construction of 3300 new upscale condos for the area?
Residents of the neighborhood resoundingly said No. When you consider the Agency’s huge economic incentive to promote the most upscale development possible on Market (since that increases their tax increment and hence their budget), the anti-gentrification impact of these 506 units would be virtually nil.
But the nonprofits were not focusing on whether low-income people as a whole would benefit from Redevelopment. They simply reasoned that Agency money would enable them to house some people, and acted accordingly.
That’s why you did not see TNDC or TODCO or the other pro-Redevelopment housing groups lift a finger to stop the threatened demolition of 360 rent controlled units at Trinity Plaza: since the Trinity tenants were not housed by these nonprofits, their fate, and that of the Mid-Market neighborhood, was seen by them as irrelevant.
The failure of some nonprofit housing groups to fight gentrification at Trinity Plaza helps explain why such groups have a credibility problem when they start posing as allies of the poor. Had Trinity tenants followed Welch’s advice and counted upon the Redevelopment Agency and nonprofit housing groups like TODCO and TNDC to defend them, they would have been out on the street long ago.
And keep in mind that the mayoral administration pushing Mid-Market Redevelopment vetoed the anti-demolition legislation that would have prevented evictions and preserved the housing. Adelman and his colleagues should consider this fact when they wonder why area tenants distrust city government’s ability to protect them.
In fact, none of those nonprofit groups supporting Mid-Market Redevelopment work to stop tenant displacement or evictions anywhere in San Francisco. For all the protests over Ellis evictions and the like, the only nonprofit housing group that is routinely there to defend tenants is the Chinatown Community Development Center—TODCO is nowhere to be found despite the plethora of speculator evictions in its home turf of SOMA.
The third and perhaps most important reason that nonprofit housing groups bucked the community’s wishes to back Redevelopment is the desire for money.
Since Bush took office and the dot-com economy crashed, San Francisco’s nonprofit sector has faced tough times. Many have responded by putting many corporate people on their Boards and staying away from advocacy that could jeopardize funding.
San Francisco has long been a nonprofit mecca, starting a political deal struck back in the 1970’s that resolved activist grievances in exchange for government funding for community services. It would not be an exaggeration to say that the chief demand of San Francisco’s progressives is “more money for services,” and the budgets of the city’s nonprofits routinely exceed seven figures.
None of the nonprofits that testified for Redevelopment are financially hurting. But they nevertheless saw a chance to make money the easy way, through the Redevelopment Agency, rather than having to prove to the Mayor and Board of Supervisors that increased general fund dollars should go for affordable housing.
(Not that this would be too difficult, given that all eleven Board members endorsed the 2004 affordable housing bond and the Mayor has aggressively fought to increase general fund spending for supportive housing)
The motto “It’s all about the Benjamins” is only supposed to apply to entrepreneurs and for-profit businesses. Community-based nonprofits are supposed to act on behalf of social justice and the greater good, but as groups become disconnected from their base and need funds to expand, following the money becomes easier to justify.
Depend on nonprofit housing groups and city government to stop gentrification? That’s a bad joke. The only time many nonprofit groups fight for “the community” is when doing so does not challenge the incumbent Mayor, and does not risk them losing money.
And these twin circumstances are rarely found in San Francisco’s current anti-gentrification battles.
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