San Francisco, a town long known for its diversity, and liberal politics, elected a black mayor for the first time in 1996. Yet, one year after his election, the administration of Willie Brown is vigorously pursuing policies that are pushing members of the mayor's most loyal constituency out of town. PNS corespondent Peter Byrne is publisher of the San Francisco Investigator, a monthly newsletter which examines city politics and finance. He has worked as a consultant and organizer in public housing for ten years.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Stylish and energetic Willie Brown has drawn attention across the nation as the first black mayor of this diverse city. Behind the scenes, however, his administration pursues a program that is contributing to the exodus of black residents -- part of a process that some observers call the "whitening" of San Francisco.

The story of the city's Hayes Valley housing projects offers a telling window into what's going on. A year ago, the projects were off-limits to outsiders, two square blocks of contested turf in the retail drug wars.

Today, there are holes in the ground where the projects were, and 300 black families have been blown out of town. Real-estate prices on neighboring blocks have gone through the roof, and privately-owned town-houses are planned for the site.

Public housing is disappearing from San Francisco, and the city's social and economic structure is being transformed as poor people of color move to towns 10 to 50 miles away in search of jobs and affordable housing.

Since 1970, San Francisco has lost one-quarter of its black community: 25,000 people. They have been pushed out by the high costs of living in one of the world's most beautiful cities -- low apartment vacancy rates and a dearth of space for new construction have kept rents among the highest in the country.

But the exodus also reflects a political decision to cut San Francisco's public housing stock.

This is not a purely local decision. Rather, the city is implementing a national policy. In 1995, the federal department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) proclaimed, "The single most pressing problem facing America's cities today is the concentration of poor people, particularly poor minorities." Now "de-concentration," a term first coined by a Rand Corporation consultant in the early 1980s, has become the catchphrase of both housing policymakers and developers as inner-city housing projects are eradicated.

The story has a particular twist in San Francisco. Brown won his narrow victory with the help of an unprecedented turn-out of black voters. Yet his administration has undercut the pressing housing needs of his most loyal constituency.

Some 60 percent of San Francisco's black population lives in subsidized housing -- and that housing is on increasingly scarce and valuable land. So the national agenda of urban deconcentration fits hand-in-glove with the City's growing need to house burgeoning numbers of high-income professionals.

Hayes Valley tenants were lured into approving redevelopment plans and leaving their homes with promises of jobs and a chance to move back in when new units were built. But the jobs -- in demolition and construction -- never materialized., And the finished project site will have at most 117 public housing units to replace the 294 units that were on the site. In short their "temporary relocation" turned into permanent displacement.

Some former Hayes Valley tenants say the city's Housing Authority deliberately allowed their buildings to fall into utter disrepair. In fact HUD, instead of forcing the Authority to properly police and maintain public housing developments, waited until living conditions had become unbearable, then injected $100 million to demolish and rebuild this and two other projects. Meanwhile, the developer of the site pays only a $1 yearly rental for use of the land, and is forgiven $350,000 in property taxes each year as well.

During the Bush administration, HUD Secretary Jack Kemp promoted "resident empowerment" in public housing, and Home Ownership for People Everywhere (HOPE) programs pumped millions into "resident management councils." The idea was for public housing tenants to assume on-site property management responsibilities. HUD would pay tenants instead of Housing Authorities to maintain and operate their own communities through democratically-elected boards.

The program collapsed, largely due to the intransigence of 3,000 local housing agencies, who correctly viewed real tenant power as a threat to their jobs. Some 400 resident councils were funded, but only one was ever allowed to manage a project.

Under Clinton, HUD shed the rhetoric of empowerment and fired up the bulldozers, transforming HOPE into a juggernaut (demolishing 30,000 inner-city public housing units across the country in just two years).

Tenants of Bernal Dwellings in San Francisco's Mission District learned from witnessing what happened to Hayes Valley tenants. They formed an alliance with a consortium of neighbors and local developers, and after dozens of community meetings, the coalition presented a professional architectural and financing plan to the Mayors Office and HUD. Tenants were to oversee and benefit from the redevelopment process, from design input to working on construction crews.

Mayor Brown killed the proposal. Two hundred Bernal Dwellings families were summarily evicted in January. Most left town in search of new lives, though some were relocated to other housing projects, to await another HOPE-sponsored eviction.