Nun Lays Siege to Presidio as Answer to Housing Crisis

Sister Bernie Galvin looks at the Presidio, the nation’s newest and most costly national park, and sees the solution to San Francisco’s chronic housing shortage.

Scattered across the onetime Army fort’s historic slopes are homes ranging from the elegant mansion once inhabited by the camp commander to the peeling Wherry apartments that served the enlisted ranks. All told, there are 1,900 units--enough, Galvin argues, to make a huge difference in a city where the vacancy rate hovers at 1% and rents are among the nation’s highest.

“There is suffering in this community because of this crisis in housing,” said the 64-year-old Galvin, who lives and works among the poor in the city’s Tenderloin district. “Other cities have housing shortages, but we’re the only city in the nation that has the solution right at our own front door.”

The Catholic nun’s crusade has become a public relations nightmare for the seven-member board President Clinton appointed to run the first national park given a congressional deadline for becoming financially self-sufficient.

Trust members say most of the park’s housing must be rented at market rates to help raise the $35 million a year needed for the park to pay its way.

But Galvin and a coalition of community groups have put a measure on the June 2 ballot that requires the city to “encourage” the Presidio Trust board to preserve its housing and rent it to San Franciscans of all income levels.

Opponents warn that the measure’s passage would infuriate Congress and jeopardize $25 million a year in federal funding for the sprawling 1,480-acre park, which sits at the mouth of San Francisco Bay.

Congress has set a 15-year deadline for the Presidio to pay its bills, and will cut back funding unless the board does everything possible to produce revenues, warns Rep. Nancy Pelosi.

“I don’t want Congress to think that the elected officials who fought for this don’t understand the commitments we made about the Presidio,” said Pelosi, a San Francisco Democrat who spent eight years persuading lawmakers the Presidio should become a national park. “We made commitments that it would be a park and that we would try to move to self-sufficiency.”

The Presidio board, backed by Pelosi and California Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, unveiled plans last week that it says would transform the park into a city within a city. Under the plan, businesses would be able to rent both commercial property and homes in the park for many workers.

The annual revenues from those leases will pay for amenities and services for the 8 million people each year expected to visit this oasis of eucalyptus groves, close-clipped parade grounds, red-shingle-roofed clapboard buildings, beaches and breathtaking sea views.

“Our vision is that 15 years from now the Presidio will look very much the same as today,” said James Meadows, the board’s executive director. “All the historic buildings will still be there, the forested areas will be there and be enhanced. You will have a national park and a vibrant community within that park that generates enough revenues to pay for its operations.”

The plan has drawn sharp criticism from Mayor Willie Brown, who has joined a majority of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, church groups and neighborhood organizations in support of the ballot initiative.

The mayor objects to provisions to demolish 466 Wherry apartments and set aside just 100 units for low-income renters.

If the ballot measure known as Proposition L passes, Galvin acknowledges, it has no legal authority over the Presidio Trust, which is a federal agency. But she hopes the measure would embolden city officials to refuse to expand bus lines to carry visitors to the Presidio and to end mutual-assistance agreements with Presidio emergency forces.

“They [the board] should be very careful that they themselves do not jeopardize the future of the Presidio by refusing to negotiate,” she said.

Galvin, who spent decades as a labor and community organizer before moving to San Francisco four years ago “because I needed a rest,” first thought only of saving Wherry housing for some of the city’s 10,000 homeless people.

She has since broadened her campaign, saying she wants to preserve all the Presidio’s housing for San Franciscans of every income level.

Two years ago, she began leading sit-ins at the park. The nun and hundreds of other demonstrators have been dragged six times from Wherry housing and arrested on suspicion of trespassing as they protested the demolition of apartments. Galvin doesn’t think she’s seen her last arrest at the Presidio.

“It is the epitome of the arrogance of power that seven individuals can come into this community and ignore what is happening here,” she said.

Brown said Sister Bernie’s argument is a powerful one.

“I am not advocating that the Presidio become a public housing project,” the mayor said. “I have not suggested at any point that we use the trees out there for firewood. But I think the financial plan should not be designed to deny the opportunity for all people to have access to the facilities.”

Some Fear Plan Will Derail Park Funding

Pelosi calls Galvin and the coalition of San Francisco groups and politicians fighting to secure low-cost housing in the park “well-intentioned” but misguided.

“I would compare my credentials on helping the homeless and the poor in San Francisco with any of them,” she said. “The Presidio is not an appropriate site for housing the homeless.”

Her colleagues were never enthusiastic, Pelosi said, about turning the Presidio into a national park after it was declared surplus by the U.S. Department of Defense. From the start of the fight, she said, Congress was determined that it would not pay for the Presidio to meet San Francisco’s needs.

“Congress was clear that the limited resources available for national parks were never intended to alleviate housing shortages in San Francisco,” Pelosi said. “We were successful because we had a plan, a vision about what the Presidio would be, that it would be a great national park.”

Founded by Spanish explorers, the Presidio served as a fort for more than 200 years, although no shot was ever fired there in battle.

Even when the Presidio was headquarters for the 6th Army, San Franciscans enjoyed jogging and driving through one of the few city sites that feels expansive. It offers some of the best views of the bay and the Golden Gate Bridge, which soars from the Presidio’s grounds to the northern peninsula.

Despite the spacious feeling of the old fort’s grounds, there are about 5 million square feet of leasable commercial and rental property here.

The trust plan sets aside 100 units for low-income tenants--graduates of a federal program called Swords to Ploughshares, which trains and employs homeless veterans.

The trust’s financial plan calls for demolishing Wherry housing in phases over 30 years and returning those grounds to open parkland. Meadows, the trust’s executive director, said a city proposal to lease the housing, renovate it and rent it to people with incomes between $10,000 and $40,000 a year would not generate enough money. San Franciscans should never forget that the park now belongs to the nation, said Toby Rosenblatt, chairman of the Presidio Trust board.

“I find it really regrettable that we have a small group focused on only one issue--homeless housing--willing to drive their issue to the detriment of federal support for this park when we have people all over the country who care about this national park,” Rosenblatt said.

Meadows said the board’s housing proposal is a critical part of the plan. Renting base housing at market rates “would generate $14 million a year of the $35 million needed to operate the Presidio and put reserves in place.” He said the group would keep about 1,600 units available for rent at rates of $1,400 a month and up.

Such rents, Galvin insists, would shut out all but affluent San Franciscans.

“They say they want to build a city within a city,” she said. “Well, they are building an elite city within a city.”