HUNTERS POINT RESIDENTS MARCH IN HARD HATS TO DEMONSTRATE THAT THEIR HOMES HAVE BECOME A DANGER ZONE

For Immediate Release Contact: Jaron Browne
August 19, 2008 cell: (415) 377-2822

HUNTERS POINT RESIDENTS MARCH IN HARD HATS TO DEMONSTRATE THAT THEIR HOMES HAVE BECOME A DANGER ZONE

Residents charge developer racism as rehabilitation is pushing them out of their own neighborhood.

Who: Northridge community residents and POWER (People Organized to Win Employment Rights)

Where: Northridge Cooperative Homes, 1 Ardath Ct, SF, CA 94124 (cross street Hudson Ave)

What: Residents march in hard hats to the Alton Management Company meeting demanding protection for their health and safety at Northridge Cooperative Homes

When: Tuesday August 19, 2008—10:00am. Residents will be available for comment.

SAN FRANCISCO, CA—Dozens of Hunters Point residents and members of POWER will put on hard hats and march into a meeting between Alton Management Company and construction sub-contractors who are responsible for the rehabilitation project at Northridge Cooperative Homes. Residents are demanding health and safety protection, local hiring for the construction work, and respect and accountability from the management company for a rehabilitation project they say is putting the community in harm’s way.

Since construction began nearly three weeks ago, one man fell down stairs where the railing was left loose on his stairway, and was taken to the hospital with serious injuries. Another resident had a nail from a worker’s nail gun fly through her apartment wall, nearly hitting her grandchild sitting on her couch. A third woman had her phone line severed by construction workers, leaving her and her sickle-cell affected grandson with no phone for two weeks. At the meeting with Alton Management Company, residents will present these and countless other stories and will demand that Alton protect their health and safety by relocating residents until construction is complete.

“We are wearing hard hats because right now we’re in danger even inside our homes,” said Doretha Taylor, a long-time resident of Northridge Homes. “Alton Management has turned our homes into a danger zone, and I won’t wait until one of my children is seriously injured to make sure that we are treated with dignity and respect.”

Residents’ health and safety concerns are only compounded by the fact that very few of workers at the sight live in Bayview Hunters Point. “When people work in the neighborhood where they live, they treat the neighborhood with a higher level of respect because they personally know the families and the children who will be affected,” said Claude Carpenter a long-time advocate for local hiring in Bayview Hunters Point. A second demand of residents is that fifty percent of the workers are locally hired from the neighborhood.

The debacle at Northridge Homes comes on the heels of a recently released report that sighted a 41% drop in the African American community of San Francisco since 1990. Many residents wonder why are they being treated with such hostility and disregard if the redevelopment project is truly meant to benefit the community now living in Bayview.

“We are all want to see improvements in our neighborhood, “ said Nina Donahue, a Northridge resident and leader with POWER. “But when we are treated in such a hostile manner, it sends the message loud and clear that we are not wanted here.”

Residents will carry large pictures of the conditions they have been living in and will be available for comment.
#30#