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San Francisco – Pillar of Bayview Hunters Point and San Francisco’s Black community Espanola Jackson was presented with the Human Rights Commission’s National Fair Housing Award on Thursday, April 24, at City Hall. She had been nominated by the NAACP, and the commission confirmed the nomination at its meeting March 27. The award is presented in April in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Congress passed the federal Fair Housing Act in his honor 10 days after his assassination on April 4, 1968.
The award states: “The Human Rights Commission of the City and County of San Francisco recognizes Espanola Jackson for her advocacy for the rights of tenants, the elderly, families and persons with disabilities. A relentless champion for the people, Ms. Jackson is best known for leading struggles for affordable housing in San Francisco’s Bayview Hunters Point. This award is a tribute to her and her leadership against housing discrimination and for tenants’ rights.”
When presented with the award in front of an audience of friends and supporters, Ms. Jackson offered her definition of fair housing: “It’s housing discrimination when there’s no such thing as affordable housing for people making less than $40,000 – down to no income. We must look at what workers are actually making when we plan for affordable housing.”
Right now, she said later, San Franciscans have an unprecedented opportunity to end that discrimination. “People need to vote Yes on Prop F because it means true affordability for working class people in San Francisco.” Ms. Jackson is a leader in the movement to pass Proposition F, the Bayview Affordable Housing Initiative, on the June 3 ballot.
She is well remembered as one of the strong women who formed the core of the Joint Housing Committee, the citizens’ watchdog group over the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency when redevelopment came to Bayview Hunters Point in 1967. In 1974, as a member of the Executive Park Committee, she supported affordable housing for working class people in San Francisco.
All developers of affordable housing who are truly responsible and responsive to the community win support from Espanola Jackson. Her strong preference, however, is for San Francisco-based builders who hire local workers. “That means the money stays in San Francisco,” she says.
Twenty years ago, she played an active role in the resident management movement for residents of public and subsidized housing, “where tenants were supposed to be able to own and operate their housing developments” under federal law. “But it still hasn’t happened,” she said, adding that “tenants should have first rights to purchase their development and revitalize their area.”
“Today,” she said, “residents of all the housing developments that are targeted for demolition should be in charge of the renovation or rebuilding of their housing.”
