What’s the Background?
In the 1960s and 1970s, a federally-funded urban renewal program administered by the former San Francisco Redevelopment Agency displaced thousands of people from the predominantly African American neighborhoods in the Fillmore, Western Addition and Bayview-Hunters Point areas.
In 1967, the Certificate of Preference Program (“the Certificate Program”) was created to give a housing preference to low- and moderate-income persons who were displaced by urban renewal programs in San Francisco, and this housing preference was made law in the State of California in 1969. In the decades that followed, however, the rebuilding of affordable housing in San Francisco was not adequate to provide new homes for many of the displaced persons.
To address these inadequacies in the development of new affordable housing, the Certificate Program was subsequently extended and expanded to include City-funded affordable housing programs. The building of affordable housing continues today and, in September 2021, Governor Newsom expanded the preference to include the descendants of the displaced persons, with Assembly Bill No. 1584.
Why Now?
San Francisco’s Office of Community Investment and Infrastructure (“OCII”), the successor to the Redevelopment Agency, and its Commission, have launched a renewed effort to locate and contact the displaced people, so that they and their descendants may receive a preference when applying for affordable rental and homeownership housing units in San Francisco.
Learn More
Neighborhoods: The Hidden Cities of San Francisco, The Fillmore, PBS Documentary, 1999.
“African American Citywide Historic Context Statement,” prepared for the City of San Francisco by Tim Kelley Consulting, The Alfred Williams Consultancy, VerPlanck Historic Preservation Consulting and the San Francisco Planning Department, January 2016.
Take This Hammer, PBS Documentary featuring James Baldwin on a tour of Hunter’s Point, The Fillmore and the Western Addition Redevelopment Project, 1964.
The Fillmore, PBS website dedicated to information about The Fillmore neighborhood.
The Certificate of Preference Program
The Certificate of Preference Program is administered by the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development (“MOHCD”).
For further information on the Certificate of Preference Program, please visit the MOHCD’s Certificate of Preference webpage, Maps of Displacement Addresses and FAQ.
For more information, please contact Sonia McDaniel, Certificate of Preference Specialist, Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development at sonia.mcdaniel@sfgov.org or at 628.652.5907.