NIMBY Watch: The Marina Wants to Stop Foster Kid Housing Project
Just when you thought the Marina could no longer surprise you with unyielding tastelessness, it ups the ante. Take, for example, the neighborhood's recent effort to stop a proposed plan for housing "aged out" foster care children. See, when foster kids reach 18, they are turned out on their own -- a difficult transition for anyone, more so for young adults without parents -- and San Francisco wants to help by providing transitional housing in the Mariana. Helpful, right? But the plan is being "met with a wall of resistance" by some Marina residents.
According to KGO, "the City of San Francisco wants to put two dozen kids who are either aging out of foster care or others who are at risk for homelessness at the King Edward II Inn, a bed and breakfast in the Marina."
"We have concerns on how this facility is going to interact with our neighborhood," John Millar, president of the Marina Community Association, explains to KGO. While Millar questions everything about the project (from the $9 million financing to LEED), let's face it: the real issue here is the kind of people said housing will bring into the tawny neighborhood -- namely, 18-year-old young adults who are at-risk for homelessness.
Trent Rohrer, director of the Department of Human Services, says, "I think the neighbors are fearful we'll be placing individuals there who are criminals, who are drug abusers, who are active alcoholics, who are a blight on the neighborhood, and that's simply not the case."
Mayor Newsom, who supports the project, says that the rhetoric coming from the opposition disappoints him deeply.
"You say we want to share the responsibility of integrating a social services safety net in all our diverse neighborhoods. They say that's great," Newsom fumes. "Then, you actually do it and they say that's unconscionable. Who are these people? Well these are people like you and me."
District supervisor Michela Alioto-Pier opposes the place since the building is not accessible for the disabled and -- get this -- is lnear a hotbed of drug dealing and prostitution. (Lombard and Scott, where the King Edward II Inn is located, is a seedy red light district?!)
Leaping. Lizards.
Read more about it here. Watch a news segment below.