SFCLT Seeks Purchase of 285 Turk in Heart of Tenderloin District

With over $9 million of financing secured, SFCLT is only $780,332 short of securing this property for low-income San Francisco residents!

The purchase of 285 Turk by San Francisco Communit Land Trust (SFCLT), located in the heart of the bustling Tenderloin neighborhood at the intersection of Turk and Leavenworth, will convert 40 units of speculative rental housing into permanently affordable housing. The building is currently home to 30 households, 95% being Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC).

In 1985 the City allowed 285 Turk to be taken out of the Rent Stabilization Ordinance (RSO) because the owner at the time invested in rehabilitation of the building. This loophole in RSO was subsequently closed, however the building remains currently out of rent control. This means that tenants in the building are doubly vulnerable to displacement through unchecked rent increases because they lack the security of rent control.

In the last 3 years tenants have been subject to annual rent increases as high as 10% and many long-term tenants have become severely rent burdened since an average of the residents are at just 30% adjusted median income. Without the intervention of land trusts like SFCLT to purchase these properties, residents like those of 285 Turk will be imminently displaced from a city experiencing an unprecedented mass displacement of black and brown families due to rapid gentrification.

Executive Director of SFCLT Saki Bailey said about this project, “The longer-term goal of the 285 Turk project is to form, with BIPOC leadership, a Limited Equity Housing Co-operative (LEHCs) to not only promote neighborhood stability and prevent displacement, but also to improve the distribution of wealth to BIPOC communities through limited equity home ownership and asset building by tenants.

LEHCs historically have offered important ownership opportunities to those of low income and communities of color who have been kept out of the homeownership market as a result of the astronomical cost of housing in San Francisco, as well as by racially discriminatory zoning and lending practices.”

You can make a difference in stopping displacement and contribute to creating permanently affordable housing and ownership opportunities for the residents of 285 Turk!

Help us make our goal by donating through our website: https://sfclt.org

To find out more about this project please contact: Keith Cooley, Director of Asset Management, 415 480-0397, kcooley@sfclt.org