Anyone who has gone apartment hunting in Berkeley knows how dire affordable living is. It’s a crisis across the Bay Area, and San Francisco stands at no exception. This is far from a recent phenomenon, one that isn’t improving quickly enough. Why does the Bay Area feel perpetually unaffordable? Throughout the course of this DeCal, we’ll explore the specific factors that cause and exacerbate the Bay Area’s housing crisis–including policy decisions, corporate impact, white flight and gentrification, COVID-19, and housing development. Particularly, we’ll focus on their impact on San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood, its resilient unhoused community, and vibrant queer history. As a group we’ll travel to the Tenderloin to experience life and community in the neighborhood. Working closely with our community partners–the passionate advocates at Faithful Fools who have been living and working in the Tenderloin for decades–we will learn to support unhoused communities. Over Spring Break we will travel to the Tenderloin as a class and stay with Faithful Fools to further explore how best to continue supporting unhoused communities both in San Francisco and at home here in Berkeley, as well as how we can apply those lessons elsewhere.

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