Read about 285 Turk Street here and here, a housing development preserving 40 units of affordable housing in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district, recently acquired by the San Francisco Community Land Trust (SFCLT).
Before SFCLT’s purchase, the building was not under rent control, leaving tenants vulnerable to exploitation and displacement when the building went up for sale on the speculative market. The tenants, the majority of whom are POC and include many immigrant families, organized and asked SFCLT for help. With a $4.5MM loan from the Self Help Federal Credit Union and a $3MM loan from the Bay’s Future Fund--one of the Partnership for the Bay’s Future (PBF) Family of Loan Funds--SFCLT was able to secure the building in order to ensure that the building will remain affordable for decades to come. The longer-term goal is to support the tenants in forming a Limited Equity Housing Cooperative and then turn over to them control of operations and management of the property. The tenants will also be provided with a 99-year lease that will not only allow them total agency over their own housing, but ownership over real estate they can pass along to the next generation.
“This is exactly the kind of support PBF’s Family of Loan Funds was created to provide,” says Cindy Wu of Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), which manages the funds. “Because banks – regulated depository institutions --are limited as to the size of the loan they can make, there are certain deals that can’t move forward due to gaps in funding. PBF was happy to be able to take a second-lien position, help support these tenants, and make sure this preservation deal went through. This is a great example of what is possible.”