INSIDE
Short Cuts Pg. 2
JUNE 2025
Op-Ed: Television Ads Pg. 3
Caltrain Railyard Transformation Pg. 4
Rec and Park Fined for Felling Trees Pg. 6
Starr King Principal Retires Pg. 11
Serving the Potrero Hill, Dogpatch, Mission Bay and SOMA Neighborhoods Since 1970
History: Real Estate Redlining on the Hill Pg. 13
FREE
Homeless Families to be Sheltered at Downtown High School B Y TA M A L A M O T TA
At the end of June, a shelter for families with children enrolled in San Francisco public schools, located at Buena Vista Horace Mann (BVHM) School, will move to Downtown High School for three years while BVHM is being renovated. The shelter will house 20 families, up to 60 people, from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. during the academic year and be available 24 hours a day in the summer. Families can stay up to 90 days with the possibility for extensions. The school
auditorium will be used for meals; the gym for sleeping, with another small area employed for case management. Families will have access to bathrooms and showers. “Public school to become a flophouse,” worried Vermont Street resident Lewis Epstein. Mission Action, formerly Dolores Street Community Services, will run the shelter and help families navigate the housing, welfare, employment, health, and education systems. The initiative, which has housed families in 96 of San
YMCA Opens in Dogpatch
Francisco Unified School District’s 126 campuses, started seven years ago as a partnership between BVHM, the District, Mission Action, Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing (HSH), and former District 9 Supervisor Hillary Ronan. Last month roughly 200 people attended a two-hour meeting to discuss the shelter held at Downtown High School. Presentations were led by HSH Deputy Director for Communications and Legislative Affairs Emily Cohen, Downtown High School Principal Todd Williams, Buena Vista Horace Mann Principal Claudia Delarios-Moran, and Nick Tannler, a school social worker. Cohen pointed to a rising rate of family homelessness in San Francisco. Data from the 2024 Point-in-Time Count indicates a 94 percent increase in families without permanent shelter since 2022. Downtown High School, which was originally constructed as an elementary school, has an enrollment of just 103 students, with a 16 to one studentteacher ratio. Ninety-six percent of the
student body is composed of non-white teenagers, with 72 percent considered economically disadvantaged. “Teachers and all school members are in full support of the program,” said Williams. “Kids were acting out and couldn’t focus at school,” Moran explained about the origins of the shelter program. “I had the idea to house homeless families to help the children…The immediate response was that it was temporary, and it did create a pathway out of homelessness”. “Drug use in our family shelter is not a big issue,” said Cohen. “This is an issue we might see in some of our other programs, but not as much on our family side, but drugs are not allowed to be used on the premises, but if somebody does come in high, we’re going to work with them. It’s a case management issue. We’re going to try and connect them to recovery services”. “In the seven years that we’ve been
BY MARK STEENSL AND
mined that Apex Development was an outlier; only six percent of the sites – 38 total – presented risks that warranted further inspections. Two months later, a follow-up memo identified actions taken at specific sites to clear fire hazards and detailed further changes, such as better site inventory database maintenance, more vigorous inspection schedules, and tighter response times to safety violations. Caltrans expanded that list of new measures in a November 8, 2024 memo, adding prohibitions against flammable materials at any site, and increasing the liability insurance coverage requirement from $5 million to $20 million. “These changes were made to protect the safety of the traveling public and critical infrastructure,” said Christopher Clark, a Caltrans spokesperson. Kevin J. Barry, a metalworks owner with a yard under the 280 freeway near 25th and Iowa, received what he said was an eviction notice in December. Since then, he’s gotten additional communications from Caltrans that seem to indicate he doesn’t need to vacate the lot if he obtains additional insurance coverage. Barry estimates his annual premium could increase by as much as $50,000. But he’s willing to pay it if it means he
FAMILY SHELTER continues on page 11
Property Leased by Caltrans Subject to More Scrutiny, Higher Insurance Coverage
Last month the YMCA of Greater San Francisco officially opened the Dogpatch YMCA at Crane Cove with a ribbon-cutting ceremony and daylong celebration. PHOTO: Courtesy of YMCA
Shortly after midnight on November 11, 2023, a fire broke out under the Interstate-10 freeway in downtown Los Angeles. The ensuing inferno damaged more than 100 support columns; at least nine of them severely enough for officials to close a two-mile stretch of the freeway, causing major disruption for the 300,000 motorists who use it daily. In the immediate aftermath, the Governor’s Office declared a state of emergency. The Biden-Harris Administration provided $3 million for repairs. Investigation into the fire quickly revealed a cascade of connected causes, including an encampment of unhoused people. Multiple safety violations were identified involving hazardous materials stored by Apex Development, the company leasing the property from the California Department of Transportation through the Airspace and Telecommunications Licensing Program. Thanks to around-the-clock work by clean-up crews and engineers, a week later the span was declared safe for travel and re-opened. But the incident served as a wakeup call to state officials. The Governor’s Office ordered a review of all 601 sites leased under the Airspace program. In a memorandum issued on November 22, 2023, Caltrans said it’d deter-
CALTRANS continues on page 11