TODCO Archives
The Yerba Buena Center Redevelopment Project was approved by the city of San Francisco in 1964 to demolish Third Street’s “Skid Row” and to build a new convention center. To fight back, in 1969 the poor and elderly tenants living in its dozens of run-down residential hotels and apartments organized as Tenants and Owners in Opposition to Redevelopment (TOOR) and vowed: “We Won’t Move!” TOOR filed a federal lawsuit demanding decent relocation housing that brought the redevelopment project to a halt for four years.
Despite bitter political attacks against TOOR, the City and Redevelopment Agency were legally forced to provide four sites in Yerba Buena Center for new housing to replace demolished residential hotels and provide City Hotel Tax funds to finance their development. This came at a time when the idea of neighborhood-based housing development organizations – instead of public housing and charity groups – was new. TOOR became TODCO (Tenants and Owners Development Corporation) in 1971, San Francisco’s second, nonprofit, “community-based housing development corporation.”
The TODCO archives is an extensive and one-of-a-kind collection of materials that span the 30-year history of Yerba Buena Redevelopment project’s development and community litigation. Many of the items in this archive have never been available previously in digital form, and are an important part of the history of the neighborhood.
Latest Posts
Cartoon – November 1983 – Yes on M
Author: Meyer
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News Article – 1983 – Growth-limit measure divides city’s leaders
Author: Growth-limit measure divides city's leaders
Newspaper: Other
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Editorial – September 1983 – City Hall’s Pre-emptive Strike Against Prop M
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