The Video Activist Network Home Watch Videos Ordering Resources Links

Bay Area dot.com . . . Housing Crisis . . . Video Night

Videos and Q&A on Housing and Homelessness

Thursday, June 8th, 8pm
at the Artists' Television Access (ATA)
(992 Valencia st. / at 21st)
Contact: Whispered Media
(415) 789-8484
info@whisperedmedia.org

The Bay Area is undergoing a rapid transformation as dot.com professionals are settling around the Bay Area and driving up the rents for the locals. Land Developers and Real Estate Agents have worked every legal loophole available to them to effectively increase evictions to record levels. Districts in San Francisco and Oakland that were traditionally a haven for working-class families and people of color have been especially hard hit. Many non-profits and many elderly people have been forced out. For many long-term elderly tenants, being evicted has been devastating - many die as a result.

Tonight we examine this issue and explore ways to combat the evictions and seek solutions for the homeless and the working poor.

VIDEOS:

  • Excerpts from Defend the Hood - an unflinching look at Development
    • in San Francisco's Mission District and the response of organizers such as the Mission Agenda and the SF Tenant's Union. Produced by AgitSpin Productions in association with Whispered Media.

  • On 16th Street - the people from this Mission neighborhood tell stories of evictions from hotels and apartments and what they are doing to fight it. Produced by Chris Daly and Tracy Hoare.

  • Hope Sick: The struggle to save the North Beach Housing Project

    • With rents in San Francisco at an all time high, the city and the federal government's solution to problems with public housing is to tear it down and build fewer, more expensive units. Hope Sick details the fight of the tenants on the North Beach Housing Projects to save their housing. Produced by Sasha Magee of Sleeping Giant Productions.

  • Homeless on the Hill: OCAP GOES TO OTTAWA

    • Homeless and antipoverty activists from the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty converged on Parliment Hill in Ottawa, Canada to demand action on the homeless crisis. "No longer content with easily marginalized 'meetings,' we intended to enter the so-called 'House of Commons' to confront those responsible for so much misery and death... The politicians responded with police, dogs and pepper spray. But there's not enough tools of control in this police state to stop the growing fight back..." Produced by Jonathan Culp.(12 min.)

  • New Video Clips / Meet the Realtors - A local tenant and
    • long-time resident will be holding a "Meet the Realtors" event on June 6 and we will show clips and share what happens.

    PRESENTERS

    Tenants facing eviction, tenant organizers and others from the community will be on hand for an informal update and question and answer period.

    Please come and join us for this important night. . . and . . . consider the events below

    ********* Gentrification Events Update / June 2000 ************** June 3rd . . . From: "robert haaland" Picket The Real Estate Speculators Who Are Evicting Tenants For Condo Conversions! Zephyr Realty Picket Saturday, June 3, 12 Noon Zephyr Realty, 4040 24th St in Noe Valley Zephyr Realty specializes in evictions for condo conversions. They preach the concept of DELIVERED VACANT, telling their clients in a recent newsletter that buildings are worth 20% more when emptied of tenants. Join us as we protest those who are making millions off our housing crisis - real estate speculators who get rich by evicting tenants.

    For more info, email me or call me at 282-5525. Thanks! Robert also see / http://sftu.org

    June 6 . . . Join us for a "proactive" event at 20th Street and Shotwell on Tuesday, June 6 from 12:30-2:30. Activists, videographers, tenants and performance artists will "Meet the Realtors" for their weekly broker tour at the offerred property at 607 Shotwell Street/@ 20th Street.

    Video footage from this event will be shown during the June 8 show at ATA.

    All June and Beyond FOR THE MONTH OF JUNE 2000- independent video makers, radio producers, journalists and activists will rally under the common goal of promoting social and economic justice here in the Bay Area, by exposing the pace of gentrification and its effects here. There is an Independent Media Center / Housing Issues list being set up and all kinds of media are going to be produced with the help of the Bay Area Alternative Media Network, Media Alliance and a broad consortium of media producers from far and near.

    " . . . for more information contact: Andrea Buffa, (415) 546-6334 x309, ma@igc.org or Alice do Valle, alicedovalle@yahoo.com
    and check out / www.media-alliance.org