F I R S TP R E V922NEXTLAST

At Home in the Tenderloin
As you travel through the Tenderloin it's easy to see the neighborhood as a unorganized collection of poor people living in a hopeless situation. Prior to the 1980s that certainly was true, the Tenderloin's forty blocks experienced 40% of the city's drug overdoses and there was no community or no social structure. But in 1980 one event changed that. That year Ramada, Hilton, and Holiday Inn all announced plans to build large tourist hotels in the neighborhood. The area's residents soon discovered they were being forcibly evicted from their apartments and residence hotels.

Without any place to go and with no political clout, the neighborhood formed a grassroots coalition to fight the forced gentrification. Years of protests and political activism finally led to a compromise where no residence hotel was allowed to be converted into tourist use and the hotel corporations agreed to subsidize low-cost housing and fund community projects. While far from a total victory, the concessions were unprecedented nationally and marked a sea change for the Tenderloin.

The results from the 1980s hotel fight was the creation of a number of Tenderloin housing and political groups looking out for the neighborhood. This has led to benefits such as the Heart of the City Farmer's Market which allows residents a chance to buy fresh fruits and vegetables, the construction of two parks, an arts and workshop space, a community center, and even a neighborhood theater. While these changes have yet to solve the area's many overwhelming problems, there is today hope that the Tenderloin might see a better day.
[ MAP H-13 ]