Nonprofit building purchase preserves affordable housing

San Francisco has helped a Mission district nonprofit acquire a four-story mixed-use building in the Excelsior in order to keep rents stable for residents and commercial tenants.

The purchase was made through The City’s Small Sites program, a program administered by the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development, which helps prevent low-income residents by helping to purchase buildings that are about go on the market or are already listed.

Financing of the purchase was made through the SF Accelerator Fund, a public-private partnership that provided $13.2 million to help Mission Economic Development Agency purchase the property, according to city officials.

The property, at 4830 Mission St., was built in 1990 and therefore is exempted from rent control. Rental properties built after June 1979 — along with most single-family homes and condominiums — are exempt from San Francisco rent control.

Karoleen Feng, MEDA director of community real estate, said owners had planned to sell the building, which included 21 residential units and six commercial spaces.

Feng said the Excelsior has a large Filipino and Latino community where families have lived in the neighborhood for generations:

“It’s crucial that we buy buildings like this to keep families like them in the neighborhood.”

So far, the Small Sites program has helped purchase 26 buildings consisting of 184 units, according to The Mayor’s Office.

Additionally, Feng said MEDA will also help with repairs to the building or inside residential units once they acquire the building.

Mayor London Breed said Tuesday at a press conference in front of the residential building:

“To be able to keep six small businesses in business with affordable rent and 21 families in their homes with permanent affordable protection is absolutely amazing and is what we do best as a city.”

This is the first building acquisition through the Small Sites program in District 11, represented by Supervisor Ahsha Safai.

Safai said:

“When we have an opportunity to work with community partners and to listen and to bring a policy and program together that really works on behalf of stabilizing our community, this is exactly what that means.”

Ely Jardeleza, a resident at 4830 Mission St., said he grateful for MEDA and The City buy the building and maintain it as affordable housing:

“Me and my clan of three generations have lived in this building in the past 18 years and would be able to continue doing that because of the Small Sites program.”

Jerold Chinn

Jerold serves as a reporter and San Francisco Bureau Chief for SFBay covering transportation and occasionally City Hall and the Mayor's Office in San Francisco. His work on transportation has been recognized by the San Francisco Press Club. Born and raised in San Francisco, he graduated from San Francisco State University with a degree in journalism. Jerold previously wrote for the San Francisco Public Press, a nonprofit, noncommercial news organization. When not reporting, you can find Jerold taking Muni to check out new places to eat in the city.