Delayed community room access fuels frustration in San Francisco's Outer Sunset

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- A long-promised public meeting room next to a new affordable housing development in San Francisco's Outer Sunset remains locked more than a year after the project was completed, frustrating neighborhood residents who say access was never supposed to depend on outside conditions.

The roughly 750-square-foot meeting room sits beside Shirley Chisholm Village, a 135-unit affordable housing complex near 43rd Avenue. Community members say the room was meant to serve as a shared space for gatherings, events and town halls open to the broader Sunset District.

"We're not stupid. We're not asleep. We're going to act and act until we get our meeting room," said Kathy Howard, a longtime community activist.

The housing complex occupies the site of the former Francis Scott Key School, which was later converted into Playland at 43rd Avenue Park.

Although the development represented a major change in the neighborhood, residents largely supported the project.

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"For the most part, people supported the affordable housing and understood the need, especially for teachers," Howard said.

The inclusion of a publicly accessible meeting room helped win that support. Shirley Chisholm Village was completed in April 2024, but the room designated for community use has remained inaccessible. Howard demonstrated the lack of access during a recent visit, stopping at a locked door.

When asked if she had ever entered the space, she responded, "No, I've never been in there."

MidPen Housing, the project's developer, said public access depended on securing a nonprofit tenant to occupy and manage the space. Lyn Hikida, speaking for MidPen, said community use was always tied to nonprofit involvement.

"I think there was. There will be a nonprofit inside and the community will be able to use it," she said, after being told residents disputed that understanding.

Video from a 2021 virtual community meeting shows Sunset Youth Services, a local nonprofit, announcing plans to take on that role.

"We will be in that space as the lead tenant and taking care of and scheduling the community space," a representative said during the meeting.

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Howard said residents were never told access was conditional.

Sunset Youth Services later withdrew from the plan. Gordon Mar, who represented the district as a San Francisco supervisor at the time, said on Thursday there were no such conditions discussed.

"Of course, this publicly accessible community room was very much part of the discussion but never was it understood to be contingent on an arraignment with the nonprofit that would operate it," Mar said.

MidPen said opening the room independently was not feasible. Hikida explained that the space must be separately insured and managed.

"To understand affordable housing and how it's financed and regulated, this building is a separate space from the affordable housing over there. It needs to be separately insured, managed, maintained. There are utility expenses here and that can't be covered by the public funds that are used for affordable housing," she said.

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Last week, MidPen announced it had secured a new nonprofit tenant, CASA, a children's afterschool art program. The group plans to use the room for offices and community events.

When asked how evening community meetings would work, a CASA representative said, "Yes, eventually our plan is to move to a keyless entry. Like, once we get to know our neighbors and have established a relationship with them, we can do a keyless entry but for at least the first year we're going to have staff here the whole time that there are any rentals happening."

Howard said accessible public spaces are critical.

"They are essential, I believe to citizen participation, especially right now with everything that is going on in our country. We need public meeting rooms," she said.

Outer Sunset residents say they are cautious but hopeful that the new partnership will finally unlock the space promised to them years ago.