Landlord wants to replace Circulo de Vida with a tech firm
By Christopher D. Cook
FEBRUARY 10, 2015 — The symbolism could not be more potent: in the heart of the Mission District, across the street from a fire that displaced dozens of Latino families and businesses January 29, a nonprofit that supports Latino families battling cancer is being pushed out of its space to make more room for a growing tech firm.
Circulo de Vida, which since 1992 has provided counseling and an array of supports and resources to low-income Latino families struggling with cancer, must vacate its offices at 2601 Mission Street (the now-infamous Bayview Bank building, site of multiple displacements and protests in the late 1990s) when its lease expires at the end of March.
“I don’t know what we’re going to do,” said Circulo de Vida’s executive director Carmen Ortiz, who founded the group after surviving her own battle with breast cancer. The families they work with are “very stressed and depressed” about the move, she said. “A lot of them refer to this center as their second family.”
Landlord Vera Cort, whose family owns numerous city properties and who displaced nonprofits and community groups from the building in 1999 to make way for Bigstep.com, confirmed that she has already offered Circulo de Vida’s 2,000-square-foot office space to Double Dutch, a popular mobile apps firm that has seen a meteoric rise since its launch in 2011.
Cort told 48 Hills that Double Dutch CEO Lawrence Coburn “has been on his knees to me the last two years, asking can you find more space for me. He has had people working in the hallways, it’s ridiculous….He’s growing the economy. I’m a business person, and I want to keep Lawrence in the building.”
Cort said she is not raising the rent for the company, but wants to give Double Dutch more space because they are growing fast and might otherwise relocate–but she confirmed the company has not threatened any such move. Circulo de Vida, she said, “will not have trouble finding another place.”
Cort added, “I feel for her (Ortiz). I’m a cancer survivor. If I had to make a personal decision, I would fill the building was nonprofits, but I’m a business person.”
But in an interview with 48 Hills, Double Dutch communications manager Elka Looks said that Cort initially tried to lease out the space to a different firm, not Double Dutch. “When she came to us, she was going to fill the space with another company,” said Looks. When asked if there was any discussion of keeping Circulo de Vida in its current space, Looks said, “When Vera presented this to us, it was presented as a done deal.”
Cort indicated to 48 Hills that there will be more displacement coming soon. “I have nonprofits with leases coming up in the next couple of years, and if [Double Dutch] needs more space, I’ll give it to them.”
If Cort does not rescind the move, Double Dutch has offered to help Circulo raise funds for its move, or temporarily use some of its space for evening meetings until it finds a new home. “It’s a heartbreaking situation,” said Looks. “We recognize their importance in the community…They do incredible work.”
Late Monday evening, Ortiz informed 48 Hills that she is in discussions to obtain a smaller space in the building. She stated in an email that Double Dutch CEO Lawrence Coburn “is offering to give up space on another floor to keep us in the building. It’s a smaller space which we are open to. We will look at it tomorrow. If it fits our needs we will accept the offer. Apparently, Vera Cort is agreeable. This would not happen without the outpouring of support from the community and the press. So thanks a bunch!! Let’s hope it works out for all of us.”
Ortiz added, “People are really rallying around us. They are already pissed off about what’s happening in the Mission, and now displacing a cancer center? It’s too much.”
On Monday, Circulo de Vida supporters launched a campaign urging public pressure on Cort and Double Dutch, stating on their Facebook page: “Email landlord Vera Cort at cortproperties@gmail.com and demand that she let Círculo de Vida stay in the building at the same affordable rent. A support and resource center for families fighting cancer is more vital for the Mission neighborhood than a corporate startup. Her history of harassing and evicting tenants for over a decade needs to stop now!”
Housing activist Fernando Marti, who worked with the Mission Anti-Displacement Coalition, recalled the Cort family as “the ones who evicted the entire Bayview Bank building before in the previous Dot Com, including the Mission Economic Development Agency, KIQI FM, and many others, to make way for Bigstep.com, which then went belly up in the dot com bust and they had an empty building for years.” Cort insisted the removals were necessary for building repairs.
Despite offers of help from Double Dutch, supporters of Circulo de Vida are pushing the company to play a more active role in getting Cort to reverse her move. On Facebook, supporters were urged to “Email Double Dutch CEO Lawrence Coburn atlawrence@doubledutch.me and call the company at 1 (800) 748-9024 FREE to demand that they rescind their offer to displace Círculo de Vida. Let them know that Mission families need this vital service and that tech companies like them who take over real estate in SF neighborhoods and drive up rents will not be tolerated.”
District 9 Supervisor David Campos told 48 Hills that his office will encourage Cort to reverse her move: “I will ask them to see if they would reconsider. It would be a huge loss for the community for them to lose that space…We can’t keep them from doing it. The only leverage we have is for the community to let them know how important this is.”
Campos linked the impending displacement to the wider trend that has swept through the mission and the entire city. “The people and businesses and groups that help to make the mission what it is, are being pushed out. It’s really tragic all the way around.”
Campos is spearheading legislation that would offer incentives for long-standing “legacy” businesses and nonprofits to remain in the city, potentially including tax rebates, long-term leases, or other inducements for landlords to retain small businesses and nonprofits rather than boot them out for more money.
Nonprofits are “the silent victims” of gentrification, said Dimas Moncada, clinical director for Circulo de Vida. Last year the city only “did it halfway” on funds to assist displaced nonprofits, ending the application process in December: “Why wouldn’t it be an open process?”
If Circulo is forced to move, client families who come from as far away as San Mateo and San Leandro, “would be hard-pressed to access our services, said Moncada. “The Mission is central for Latinos, even coming from other cities, they feel comfortable here.”
Circulo de Vida worked with 250 families last year, helping not only people fighting cancer, but entire families: “Kids see the effects when mom is losing her hair, losing weight, and can’t play with them,” explained Moncada. Low-income families “can’t stop working” even when dealing with cancer, Moncada noted. “Their bones are brittle and could break, but they have to keep working.”
Ortiz sees a deeper loss to the city as groups like Circulo—and the people they serve—are displaced. “It seems like people in City Hall are purging the city of their African-American and Latino residents. Latinos are being pushed out, I blame City Hall. They’re giving all this special treatment to tech companies.”
Just across the street, more than 50 residents (many of them low-income and living in rent-controlled units) and numerous local businesses were displaced Jan. 29 when a fire raged through the sprawling building. Next door, the new “Vida” building will reportedly rent condos for as much as $7,000 a month. “You see people in suits, taking pictures, the vultures are circling,” said Ortiz.
In the Bayview building’s windblown outdoor lobby, as a group of employees from the ninth floor (which hosts the app companies aboutme.com, bandcamp, and showyou) was exiting, I asked them if they were concerned about Circulo de Vida potentially being pushed out. “I would say no comment,” one woman said. When I asked her again, she replied, “Concerned? No, I wouldn’t say I’m concerned.”
