$100 million for General Fund
$100 million for Five Year Plan
$200 million for mixed use rental housing (seniors, artists, workers, mentally disabled, recently incarcerated, single parents)
$100 million for mortgage loans, especially for purchase of modified SRO hotel rooms with life estate titles for the chronically homeless, thus ending homelessness overnight
$100 million for job training
$ 100 million for micro and macro loans to entrepreneurs
$100 million to establish the David Blackwell STEM Institute (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math)
$100 for land and real estate acquisition
$100 for reentry assistance to displaced former residents of Oakla
Notes on the Marvin X Tour of San Francisco on MLK, Jr. Holiday, 2017
After attending San Francisco's MLK, Jr. celebration at the Yebra Buena Arts Center, Marvin X gave a group of people a tour of San Francisco, beginning at Fisherman's Wharf. He noted that tourism is a multi-billion dollar industry in San Francisco, the most beautiful city in the world! Yet the only Black representation at Fisherman'se Wharf are brothers performing as robots covered in silver spray paint! "When I used to hustle here as a dope fiend in the 80s and 90s (true I used to make $400.00 per day selling the homeless paper at $20.00 per donation, and true the young brothers used to make $200.00 to $300.00 per day) but this doesn't compare to the billions other ethnic groups (Italian, Asian, Latino, et al.) make.
His tour then went to North Beach with its plethora of Italian restaurants. He recalled how he grew up in West Oakland with its plethora of Black owned businesses. He noted the history of the North Beach literary tradition with the Beatniks. He dropped his tour persons at City Lights Bookstore, after telling them it was the most important bookstore in the world. As per Black people, Marcus Books has that honor despite their Negrocities (Amiri Baraka term).
He informed his tourists they would be leaving North Beach to enter China town, noting Stockton Street is the main street. As he drove down Stockton Street, he told her passengers to look at the bustling economic activity with stores packed with customers even unto the street. One passenger noted a Walgreen's but Marvin told her, "Yes, it's a Walgreen's but it's a Chinese Walgreen's! Another passenger noted the banks such as Wells Fargo. Again, Marvin X said, yes, but it's a Chinese Wells Fargo.
He departed Chinatown through the Stockton Street tunnel to arrive at the apex of SF's commercial shopping center, Union Square. He informed the passengers he used to control street vendors in Union Square like Malcolm X used to control Harlem. "At one point I had fifty mostly white vendors working under my non-profit papers in Union Square, making thousands of dollars per day. When the SFPD would demand their papers and the officers saw they were my papers, the SFPD officers would turn beet red in disgust that a "Nigger" had this much power in Union Square, as they said about Malcolm controlling Harlem, "That's too much power for a Nigguh." So the SFPD busted me on a daily basis at my own stand at Market and Powell, at the Cable Car turnaround. They came daily to harass me under the color of law but no lawyer would take on the SFPD. Their attorney, Laeewrence Wilson, told us in the recess of a court hearing, "If you beat us in court, we will go to the Board of Supervisors and change the rules," which he did, then later was busted for selling drugs out of his house, yes, the chief attorney of the SFPD, then died of AIDES after doing time in Vacaville State Prison!
I told my riders as we made a one block departure from North Beach to Chinatown, we were now making a one block move from Union Square to the infamous Tenderloin, San Francisco's multi-cultural ghetto of workers, dope fiends, sexual deviants and mentally ill, along with dealers, prostitutes, pimps and ho's from throughout the Bay Area.
I drove them by my beloved Glide Church and showed them the 16 Story building Cecil Williams got in a benefits package for the adjacent construction of the Hilton Hotel.
In spite of the TL's derogation, it has been the most successful district in resisting gentrification. Why, because the TL's non-profit organizations are unified, unlike the Fillmore, Hunters Point and Lakeview!
As it was approaching darkness and my vision was failing, I told my tourists we would resume the tour at a later date.
