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by John Eller
On Dec. 22, three days before Christmas, long time community and faith leader, anti-violence advocate and city employee Pastor Yul Dorn received an eviction notice.
“Despite repeated attempts over the last year to get Mayor Lee and his housing department and staff to help address documented evidence of a next wave of displacement of the remaining Black community, Mayor Lee continues to stand with banks, real estate interests and luxury developers,” stated Bayview leader Vivian Richardson.
“Pastor Dorn is a case study in who should be helped and how the City that he works for and dedicated his life to continues to ignore the displacement crisis.”
On Oct. 20, over 60 Bayview ACCE members, mostly long time Black San Francisco community residents, attempted to meet with San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee to deliver a housing plan to preserve the dwindling San Francisco Black community and ask once again for his help with 20-year city employee, Fillmore pastor and second generation Bayview resident Pastor Yul Dorn.
Last Saturday, over 70 residents held a holiday caroling action and delivered a follow up demand to stop further displacement of the Black and Latino communities with a down payment to stop displacement.
These actions build on more than a year of effort to address the over 3,000 privately held loans and short term modifications that will eventually lead to the next wave of displacement.
“Pastor Dorn is a case study in who should be helped and how the City that he works for and dedicated his life to continues to ignore the displacement crisis.”
Pastor Dorn’s case is an example, where Chase Bank misapplied his payment, bungled his case and then sold the home to a speculator, Quan He. Despite legal attempts and evidence, Chase Bank has refused to buy the loan back.
Pastor Dorn and his wife have raised their family in the home since 1995. He is pastor of Emanuel COGIC and a chaplain at the San Francisco Sheriff’s Department.
Yul also was at the table when planning and launching the Department of Public Health Crisis Response Team now (CRS) that provides on scene psychological first aid to families who fall victim to homicide in San Francisco, serving as a liaison between the police department, coroner and the public. In this capacity, Mr. Dorn helped families access services from the District Attorney’s Office, mortuary and cemetery. He has worked for the city for over 20 years.
His wife, Theresa, is also a Bayview native. She works part time as a crossing guard at a local school, George Washington Carver Elementary. They have put both of their children through college. The loss of his home wouldn’t just displace Yul and his family; it would strip the family of their retirement.
On Tuesday, Dec. 22, Pastor Dorn received an eviction notice and is being told to leave by Jan. 6, 2016.
The community is calling on Mayor’s Housing Liaison Jeff Buckley, who knew about the case over a year ago, to delay the eviction until Chase Bank and Quan He, the speculator who bought the home, can meet with the city to come up with a program to buy the home back.
Bayview community members are calling Jeff Buckley from the Mayor’s Office on his cell phone at 415-845-9053 to ask him to step in and make sure to stop the eviction of Pastor Dorn until Quan He and Chase Bank can work out a just solution that keeps Pastor Dorn in his home.
The community is calling on Mayor’s Housing Liaison Jeff Buckley, who knew about the case over a year ago, to delay the eviction until Chase Bank and Quan He, the speculator who bought the home, can meet with the city to come up with a program to buy the home back.
“The Mayor’s plans are vague solutions to a real problem,” says Pastor Yul Dorn. “We have seen many of our Black families leave San Francisco – priced out, pushed out. And the mayor’s plan doesn’t go far enough keep working families, and especially Black families, in San Francisco.”
In September, Mayor Ed Lee unveiled a five-pronged plan to address housing affordability in San Francisco. However, many residents don’t believe that the mayor will stand by his promises and that most of his plans don’t do enough to keep working class families and Black residents in San Francisco.
“We’ve lost over 12,000 Black residents from San Francisco in the last 15 years,” says Belinda Rollins, “and we’re losing more and more folks every week. Homes in the Bayview are selling for $800,000-$900,000 and Black folks are making an average of $29,000 a year? We need to fight to stay until there’s a real plan to keep us here.”
ACCE members are demanding bank accountability and a clean slate program for public housing residents in addition to more aggressive changes to the mayor’s housing plan.
John Eller can be reached at jeller@acceaction.org.
