Jon Jacobo (Community Activist)

Last week I got to interview Jon Jacobo, a community activist and a native of San Francisco’s Mission District, at La Victoria Bakery & Cafe on 24th Street. Our main topic was gentrification here in the Mission District of San Francisco. We spoke about the changes in the community, his role in the city, the importance of voting, and enjoyed some fantastic coffee.

Q: Who are you? Role?

My name is Jon Jacobo and I am the founder and Co-President of the Latino Young Democrats of SF, also the Vice President of Membership of the Latino Democratic Club (a 35 year institution in SF)

Q: What does the Mission District mean to you?

The Mission District to me specifically… is home. Or safe haven. It represents community. It’s the district that I was born in. To me there’s a special attachment of being a native of this particular area. My grandmother lived a few blocks away from where we are now (La Victoria Bakery & Cafe), some of my fondest memories are from here. So for me it’s like a piece of home.

Q: What is gentrification? Displacement?

Gentrification is: when a lower income neighborhood, typically in an urban environment, becomes a more desirable place to live.

Example: People from suburban areas come to these areas with their wealth. What that (their wealth) does is come at odds with the wealth there is currently, which slowly changes the dynamic of the neighborhood.

Displacement is: When the people of these lower income neighborhoods are impacted to the degree where they have no choice but to leave what they’ve known their whole lives.

Q: The district is rapidly changing, no one thought it would happen this quickly, why do you think this is?

I think that it’s the perfect storm. And I also want to make a distinction - there’s gentrification and then there’s hyper gentrification, which is what the Mission District is going through because it’s the perfect storm. SF has always been a place that has had wealth, it’s an international tourist attraction. When you mix that with the job opportunities from Silicon Valley and neighborhoods like the Mission that have historically been undervalued (such as prime weather, accessibility to transit & freeways) it becomes the perfect place for more people to come in.

Q: How has gentrification affected the Mission District?

Residents?

Starting with the residents, since the year 2000 there’s been 8000 Latino families that have been displaced from the Mission District. From 1990 until now we’ve lost 11% of the Latino population that lived in the Mission. Looking at the demographics of it, they are very tilted and refer to one particular group of people, which happens to be Latinos.

Business?

When you get into how it’s affected business, there’s winners and losers. That’s just what gentrification is. There’s people that say that it’s great because they’re typically on the winning side and there’s people that despise it because they’re on the losing side. There are businesses that have benefitted from gentrification and there are businesses that have not, particularly in the PDR (Production Distribution and Repair) section which can be mom and pop Tire Shops or Furniture stores.

Rent?

Rentals are another thing. Your average two bedroom apartment in the Mission District can run you up to $4200, something that in the 1980s would probably cost you $900. That itself will catch anybodies attention, throughout the country. The prices are insane and that’s what leads to the displacement of your typical families. The  median income for people in the Mission District used to be $37,000 which has now risen to at least twice that. A lot of the Latinos that came here to seek refuge cannot find jobs that pay them enough to live here. So rents rise and they get pushed out.

Q: Would you say there has been a cultural shift in the community?

I would say that there has been. Since before my time, this community has been a long standing Latino community with over 48% counting for the Latino population. The demographics are changing and the people you have moving in here now are not your typical family (or individual). A lot of the people who are coming in now are the young work force (21-32 year old crowd).

Q: How can we as a community fight to preserve our neighborhood?

I think that’s one of my favorite questions, because I believe it’s on the more important ones. I think that to preserve a community it takes a community. It’s a gathering of minds, beliefs, and people. From that ideas develop. A great example of trying to preserve a neighborhood was Proposition I, which called for a moratorium on luxury housing for 2 years. Essentially stopping some of the big developments in the Mission that were disproportionately displacing Latinos and working class families. I think that it takes efforts like that. I think that gentrification is something that is inevitable but it is something that can be done with morality.

Q: Do you believe unity is important for a community?

Without a doubt.

Q: How can voting help the community?

Another one of my favorite questions! I am a huge proponent of voting. Voting can make or break any community, any city, any state, and any country. There was an interesting article that just came out on KQED that I posted on my Facebook a few weeks ago that talked about voting and who votes. To summarize the information, the people who vote are the older, wealthier white community that make decisions for the working class communities of color. Voting is incredibly important because who you elect into office makes decisions for you day in and day out. The most important elections that affect your life day-to-day are the ones that determine who become your board of supervisors and your local city mayor. They can set ordinances that impact your life directly, whether it’s raising the minimum wage, putting moratoriums on housing, or restricting ellis act evictions. So voting in the ballot box, is one of the few ways to spark mechanisms to protect you or defend a greater community. It’s crucial.

Example: Presidential Election of 2012

Barack Obama won the state of Florida by 73,000 votes. There were 850,000 Latinos that were registered to vote that did not show up at the ballot box and did not cast a vote. If 74,000 of them had been upset and voted against Obama it would’ve tilted the election and possibly the entire Presidential Race.

Examples such as this show you the power that we have as a community to be able to make a difference.

Q: How can we motivate people to get out there and vote?

I think that it’s like the sale of anything. You create a message (your product) that caters to your audience. Using social media to dispel any assumptions and show the reality of what’s happening is incredibly powerful. I’m currently working on the Latino Voter project, which has been around for about 2 years, and it involves trying to get more Latinos to register to vote. With social media what we can do is market it right. How do we do that? We talk about Donald Trump and the anti Latino rhetoric that he’s displaced. And we talk about the 8,000 Latinos that have been displaced in the Mission.

We engage with our audience via social media with topics that relate to them.

Q: Is social media essential?

Yes. You go where the people are. And the people go on social media.

Wherever the people are we shall be.

Q: What would you say are the pros and cons of gentrification?

We see restoration of parks and buildings increase, public transit gets better, and brings more business. So those are some are some of the definite pros. When it’s not done with moderation, in a more careful manner, it can be very devastating. I think just using the statistic of 8,000 Latino families since the year 2000 being displaced shows you from a moral standpoint why it’s very disturbing. This is something we have to do in moderation.

Q: Do you believe gentrification is a bad thing?

Anything in moderation is okay. Anything in excess is not okay. Gentrification managed with the right principles can be okay.

• Most people look at gentrification as being a bad thing, how do you think we can change that?

When we’re talking about the people in the Mission District it’s very hard to convince them of a message that says gentrification can be a good thing. Because of the very unequal way that hyper gentrification has affected this area. But speaking to a broader audience, and not just your people all the way to the left, the best way to say this is that gentrification when done responsibly can bring great benefits to the communities. It can increase the infrastructure of the community, improve your public transportation, increase funding for schools, renovate parks, those are some of the pros. I think just like voting the right marketing technique might be the way we can change that. But because of politics there are a lot of people that might not buy into that. Someone can tell you yeah that’s all fine and dandy but I’m getting evicted from my house.

Q: Final thoughts?

My final thoughts are if you are complaining, if you are moaning and groaning and you’re not doing anything, then what are you really doing? Get up. Get out. And do something. Organize. Go to community meetings. Register to vote. Read blogs. Get on the internet. Distribute videos. Political videos or news articles that you’ve read and share it with your friends. Spark conversation and create interest. Because whether you care about politics or any of these things it doesn’t matter, it’s gonna mess with your life at one intersection or the other so long as you live within our society. If you wanna move out into the woods that’s not a national park? Maybe at that point it won’t matter. Get active. Get involved.

Jon was very excited for this interview and was eager to share his thoughts about what’s currently happening here in the Mission District. Our hope is that this will spark conversation, educate and inform, and spread awareness on current events and what you can do about them.

For more on gentrification, preserving culture, and a human perspective, visit Vienticuatro on social media.

- Ricardo J. Orellana

Facebook: vienticuatro

Twitter: @vienticuatro24

Instagram: @vienticuatro?