On November 18, 2024 join KOHO, the New Community Leadership Foundation (NCLF), Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development (MOHCD), and the Office of Community and Investment and Infrastructure (OCII), and Lynx Insights for an evening of sharing about how Urban Renewal effected the Japantown and Western Addition areas. Hear stories from our community, the work lead by NCLF and the investigators looking for the families who were displaced, and the City agencies with an update of the Certificate of Preference Program as it lives today.
11/18/24
6-8pm
KOHO Creative Hub, 22 Peace Plaza, 2nd floor (above Daiso)
6:00p Light dinner for those who rsvp
6:30-8:00p Program
The first house was bulldozed in 1953, kicking off “Western Addition Project A-1.” 28 blocks were demolished for the Geary Expressway: a submerged six lane boulevard facilitating the downtown auto commute from the Richmond District, which effectively cut Nihonmachi (Japantown) and the (Historically Black) Fillmore in two. Eight thousand residents were displaced and 6,000 units of low-cost housing destroyed. Only 2,000 new units were built, and only one third was affordable housing.
In 1963, a second redevelopment plan for the Western Addition was announced. Phase A-2 encompassed nearly 60 square blocks, affecting more than 13,000 Fillmore residents. By now, with much of the neighborhood under redevelopment, many of the businesses and nightclubs began to move to other neighborhoods or closed altogether.
By the time the bulldozers fell silent, 883 businesses had been closed, 20,000 to 30,000 residents displaced, and 2,500 Victorian houses demolished. - Oscar Perry Abelo, Next City’s senior economic justice corespondent
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