Suzanne's Mom's Blog

Photo: Ian C, Bates.
If everything goes as planned, San Francisco arts organizations will help revitalize parts of the city and then benefit from a neighborhood resurgence without fear of skyrocketing rents.

People increasingly recognize the power of artists and arts groups to improve the economic health of a community. That’s one reason why we keep seeing stories about government efforts to support artists or at least give them a place to work.

Zachary Small wrote for the New York Times about the nonprofits spearheading the latest approach in San Francisco.

“The small house on Russell Street where Jack Kerouac worked on On the Road in the 1950s now has an estimated value of more than $1.7 million — far beyond what any respectable Beat poet could have paid for two bedrooms in San Francisco. Not far away, Janis Joplin’s one-bedroom pad in Haight-Ashbury would rent for some 20 times what it most likely went for in the late 1960s, according to property records. And the studio where the photographer Dorothea Lange worked near San Francisco’s Union Square now has a price tag higher than what most artists these days can afford. In 2017, the space sold for nearly $2.7 million.

“If these artists were around today, it’s unlikely that they would recognize the neighborhoods they helped to define. In the years since the tech industry moved into the area … the artists who turned downtrodden streets into desirable enclaves have been priced out of their neighborhoods.

“But to produce their best work, many artists depend on cities as arenas of creative cross-pollination. And cities, it turns out, need artists, who give them cultural cachet, heighten the quality of living on offer and promote economic growth.

“So in a region where many young artists struggle to afford rent, much less purchase property, nonprofit leaders have pursued a potentially transformative idea: What if they could curb gentrification by subverting the traditional rhythms of the real estate industry? Trading financial gain for lasting impact, several older artists have donated the houses they bought decades ago to community land trusts, legal entities that can break the cycle of displacement by ensuring properties are handed down from one artist to another at affordable prices.

“Last year, for instance, a 79-year-old artist in Oakland, Calif., bequeathed the bungalow she purchased in 1978 for $22,700 to a program called Artist Space Trust run by the nonprofits Northern California Land Trust and Vital Arts. When the artist dies or moves out, the home, which is now estimated to be worth more than $1 million, will be converted into a so-called split title, allowing the trust to hold onto the underlying land as it sells the house to another artist at a below-market price. Artist Space Trust will put the proceeds from the sale toward buying additional properties.

“ ‘These properties are permanently removed from the speculative market for real estate and will never return,’ said Meg Shiffler, the director of Artist Space Trust, which was founded in 2023. ‘When one of our homeowners decides to leave, the property returns to the trust, and through a selection process, we can place another artist or family.’

“Similar programs are unfolding across the Bay Area, and not only for housing. The Community Art Stabilization Trust, for instance, is purchasing buildings abandoned by tech companies during the coronavirus pandemic and, following the land trust model, is converting them into low-rent work spaces for arts groups. …

“In the 1960s, it was [New York’s] SoHo, the formerly industrial neighborhood south of Houston Street where artists illegally squatted in lofts, which had been vacated by factories leaving Manhattan to be closer to modern ports.

“The lofts’ high ceilings and reinforced floors suited early residents like the video artist Nam June Paik and the painter Chuck Close, whose works could reach monumental scales. The artists could pay meager rents — between $50 and $125 a month — to landlords who otherwise had empty buildings. They beautified their spaces; many outfitted them with basic plumbing and lighting. …

“ ‘Economic revival historically starts with artists,’ said Rafael Mandelman, the president of San Francisco’s board of supervisors. ‘The challenge is that if they are successful, it leads to increases in cost and prices for the people who made that happen.’ …

“What is happening in San Francisco suggests that artists have learned from the history of gentrification. And many of the nonprofit organizations helping artists acquire properties through land trusts or below-market deals have plans to expand nationwide.

“ ‘This is a unique moment where we could be the most active player in the real estate market,’ Ken Ikeda, the chief executive of the Community Arts Stabilization Trust, said recently, as he walked through a downtown building on Market Street.

“The building, which the nonprofit has purchased for $7.3 million … looked down on Sixth Street, one of the city’s most troubled corridors, marked by overdose treatment centers, homeless encampments and, frequently, armed police officers.

“If everything goes as planned, the arts organizations set to work in the building will help revitalize Market Street and then benefit from the downtown resurgence without fear of skyrocketing rents. The Community Arts Stabilization Trust will see the value of its portfolio increase and continue to develop affordable spaces for arts groups.”

More at the Times, here.