Photo Shane Menez
In the Mission District, San Francisco’s ground zero for evictions, local artists are using their talents to creatively resist the gentrification that has displaced their friends, neighbors and colleagues. But instead of picket signs and petitions, these artists-turned-activists are armed with paintbrushes and poems.
“Putting paint on a wall is a very basic thing,” said Christopher Statton, a core organizer for the Clarion Alley Mural Project, which transformed a drug-ridden street in the heart of the Mission to a cluster of vibrant murals.
Nestled between 17th and Sycamore streets, the alley linking Mission Street to Valencia displays anti-capitalist and other political artwork, in an imaginative-yet-simple way that addresses the forces of gentrification and displacement, explains Megan Wilson, another of mural project’s organizers.
“As organizers of the project, one of the things that has been important to us is to get messages out that have a social and political consciousness,” said Wilson, who lives with Statton in the Haight district.
Their most recent mural, the “Wall of Shame and Solutions” is a message board directly calling out the ills of the city. The mural bears a list of “shames” including “SF eviction epidemic” and “corporate tax giveaways” as well as “solutions” such as “end corporate welfare” and “tax them and make them pay their fair share.”
The art of protest
Between 2009 and 2013, housing prices soared by 30 percent in the Mission, where 71 Ellis Act evictions have occurred, according to a report by the city’s budget and legislative analyst released last November.
Low-income communities have gradually been displaced as higher-income individuals—typically young tech workers—move in. Leading tech companies Google, Facebook and Twitter recently released diversity breakdowns of their workforces, which showed that their employees are largely white and male with few women, blacks or Latinos.
Artists are struggling to preserve the Mission’s rich Latino culture while being priced out of an increasingly expensive neighborhood. For 71-year-old Yolanda López, a well-known artist and social justice advocate, the reality of removal hits home. On July 12, she was evicted from her home of 40 years. In response, she held “Accessories to an Eviction,” a garage sale and visual exhibit showcasing the legal papers from her landlord and the beloved belongings that she couldn’t afford to keep.
“Being a good artist requires a certain amount of risk and there is that element of putting my name out there and the landlord’s name,” said López, who is currently fighting her eviction. “But it’s all factual… I’m just going to put them out there. There’s nothing shameful on my part. This is what I have to deal with.”
Photo Mabel Jimenez
Gentrification and culture
Alejandro Murguía, a longtime Mission resident and San Francisco’s poet laureate, refers to this wave of gentrification as the most “vicious and aggressive” in his community. When he first arrived in San Francisco in the early 1970s, he rented a large flat for $150 per month. Now, the same flat goes for an average of $2,600, according to a map by Zumper, a search website for apartment rentals.
“The great contribution that draws people to the Mission District is its culture, its murals, its ambiance,” said Murguía, who does regular poetry readings in the community. “But in fact, that is the first thing that is being destroyed—block by block, eviction by eviction. It’s part of the contradiction that’s going on in the Mission District.”
According to Murguía, artists play an important role in the Mission’s anti-eviction movement, whether capturing the struggle of the community through abstract art or documenting the people within it through short stories.
“They fall on the artists, the poets, the muralists, the creative people to address these issues because they are the issues of our time,” said Murguía. “I think many poets, many writers, many creative people are attempting through their participation and their involvement to highlight some of these issues that the mainstream media conveniently ignores.”
Making art out of life
Art is personal, explains Murguía, and tends to reflect the intimate experiences of those who create it. Likewise, López’s eviction garage sale not only called attention to the Mission’s rapid changes, but also helped her personally deal with her eviction woes.
“I think that’s one way of knitting a community: when we share our stories and see ourselves in each other,” said López. “The artwork also provides a venue for people to talk about what’s going on. … It makes [an eviction] real. It doesn’t just make it this amorphous, evil thing out there.”
While a painting or photo may not be an end-all solution to the Mission’s gentrification and affordable housing crisis, local artists insist that culture is too important to lose.
“To think that a poet or a poem can solve these issues is naive, but to think that these issues can be solved without poetry and poets and artists is equally naive,” said Murguía. “There’s definitely a role for us to play.”