MEDA leads effort to create one-stop service center for Mission residents

By Fernanda Silva
Some of the most respected community organizations in the Mission District are joining forces to create a one-stop service center for medical, legal and financial services at a former furniture store.
If all goes well, the services will be offered at 2301 Mission St. at the beginning of next year. The project will facilitate the provision of basic services to the community in the Mission, and it will also help to improve and increase the longevities of these organizations. This is because, organizers say, the Mission District’s soaring rental rates not only have affected families but community organizations as well.
“The project will bring sustainability to the organizations, and better services without any lease threatening,” said Luis Granados, Financial Director at the Mission Economic Development Agency (MEDA).
MEDA, the lead organization of the project, is in escrow to purchase the $5 million, three-story building, which housed National Furniture Liquidator. The project will bring together Caminos, the Central American Resource Center (CARECEN) and the Mission Asset Fund.
MEDA has for over 34 years provided Latinos in the Mission with financial advice and home loans. Carecen, which has been around for almost 10 years, provides basic dental and medical services, legal immigration services such as political asylum, student visas, and naturalization amongst other issues, and a free tattoo removal program. Caminos offers a computer training program that serves about 350 women a year, and computer repair services at low cost to the community, to about 400 to 500 clients a year.
In addition to improving services, Granados said that the joint project will help to address the rent issue facing most non-profits. By purchasing the building will result in lower rents and insulate the groups from future threats to their leases.
“One issue is not only displacement of residents from the community, but also non-profits,” said Laura Valdez, executive director of Caminos. “Our organizations are in danger of having to move out of the Mission.”
According to the St. Peters Housing Committee, between 1998 and 2002, the Mission District had the highest eviction rate of all San Francisco neighborhoods.
As an example of how expensive rent can be in the Mission, Valdez said Caminos spends approximately $100,000 per year for its three separate locations. Under the new proposal, they would pay $85,000 per year with the possibility of a future partial purchase of the property after 5 or 7 years of being part of the lease.
“Space in the Mission is extremely limited and rents are rising, so the opportunity for the organizations to become collective owners of the building will encourage their long-term stability. We believe this center can become a community asset, meeting a range of needs and ensuring that critical organizations can be located near the communities they serve,” said Gloria Bruce, by email, a program fellow in Community Development at the San Francisco Foundation, which has partnered with MEDA, CAMINOS and Mission Asset Fund for many years.
“People talk about how difficult it is to go from one office to the other,” Granados said. “The building is right in the Mission corridor, so it will make things easy to the community.”
The 21,000 square-foot building will also hold a reception desk and a couple of conference rooms.
Valdez said that MEDA is providing$500,000, towards the purchase, along with other donors such as the City of San Francisco. According to Ana Perez, executive director of CARECEN, a large part of the funds have been raised in the name of the project itself, which may include a total of five to seven, organizations.
“MEDA has been extremely collaborative, and we all have principals and values that we all share,” Perez said when asked about any possible conflict between the organizations once they share the same address.
As to which organization will have more control Gonzales insisted that power, and control are not the point of this project. Instead, it’s, but yet longevities of the organizations, and the work that will be provided to the community.
“I think it is true that MEDA will maintain more control, but at the same time we are putting this out to benefit the community,” Gonzales said. “ And, I think people are starting to understand this now.”