Representatives from companies including Twitter, Zendesk, and Spotify addressed the committee at Thursday’s meeting. Also present was Hospitality House, a Tenderloin drop-in center, employment and shelter program and art studio for the neighborhood’s poor and homeless. Hospitality House has been around since 1967, when its primary outreach was to queer youth, but now serves other demographics as well.
“We used to get hundreds of applications for available positions,” Hospitality House’s Alan Manolo said as he addressed the committee. “Now we only get a small handful. This is due to affordability.”
Manolo said that the non-profit organization has seen many resignations from staff who can no longer afford to live in the city.
“The people who left love Hospitality House,” Manolo said. “Some staff have used our programs. Just last week we had four staffers resign, one is moving out of state.”
Others, Manolo said, commute to work from far reaching but more affordable locales such as Stockton or Antioch. He also pointed to the city’s cultural shift.
“I moved to San Francisco in 1986,” he said. “I loved the city’s sense of bringing in people who’ve been ostracized. There was a sense of funkiness, but that’s ended.”
Manolo noted that in recent years he’s become aware of his race and skin color as the City changed. “For the first time people are treating me like a second class citizen,” he said.
Some tech company employees at the meeting shared Manolo’s sentiments. Spotify’s Mo Tracy informed the committee that she was leaving Spotify for a better-paying job. “I’m concerned for the cost of living and with saving for my future,” she said.
