Our History

Our legacy businesses have helped build the rich cultural and social fabric on 24th Street. Since the beginning, we have worked with the local community and responded to their needs.

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In May 2014, because of our advocacy, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and the Mayor officially established the Latino Cultural District as a response to gentrification and displacement. Our task since then has been to determine the neighborhood’s vision for the Latino Cultural District.  Our vision, mission, goals, governance, and programs were established through this public and inclusive process.

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In the 2014 San Francisco’s State of the City Address, Mayor Ed Lee highlighted the urgent need for action to address the negative side effects of the city’s booming economy: Our neighborhoods are revitalized, and new construction is all around us, but some still look to the future, anxiously, and wonder whether there’s room for them in a changing San Francisco... This rising cost of living, the financial squeeze on our city’s working families and middle class – these are the fundamental challenges of our time, not just for our city, but for great cities around the world.

 

In 2014, the Calle 24 Latino Cultural District Resolution was passed by the Board of Supervisors as a collaborative effort between the Calle 24 Merchant and Neighbors Association now Calle 24 Latino Cultural District Council, Mayor Ed Lee and District 9 Supervisor David Campos. The resolution recognized what had been for decades the Latino cultural center of San Francisco’s Mission District- “El Corazón de la Misión.”

 

While the step towards recognizing geography as a cultural district emerged in 2013, this effort began in the late 1990s under the leadership of then-Supervisor Jim Gonzalez in response to gentrification. His successor, Supervisor Susan Leal, and the 24th Street Revitalization Committee explored the creation of a “Cultural Historic District,” but the idea went dormant without tools for implementation. Interest in establishing a cultural district for lower 24th Street reemerged in 2013 with the neighbors’ and merchants’ association – known as “Calle 24 SF” – taking the lead in partnership with the Mayor’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development through a new mayoral initiative, Invest In Neighborhoods. The initiative looked upon building on the unique strengths of each of San Francisco’s commercial districts to promote economic vitality. For Calle 24, that meant recognizing the existing cultural assets and character of the neighborhood as part of the Latino history of the City.

 

The Calle 24 Latino Cultural District resolution led to the formal creation of the Cultural Districts Program in 2018, which would adapt the framework of Japantown’s Cultural Heritage and Economic Sustainability Strategy and included five pre-existing districts, which had been leading cultural heritage preservation efforts: Calle 24 Latino Cultural District, Japantown Cultural District, SoMa Pilipinas Filipino Cultural District, Compton’s Transgender Cultural District (now Transgender Cultural District), and Leather and LGBTQ Cultural District. True to form, San Francisco’s community and City leaders raised the bar, accelerating the implementation of their vision and deepening the coordination between City Departments and communities. There was a collective realization that to ensure progress in cultural stabilization, a toolkit of economic, zoning, educational, marketing, and planning approaches appropriate to safeguarding living heritage needed to be developed.

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Community Process

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A planning process was initiated to get the community’s input about how the Latino Cultural District should be governed and how it should serve the community. Through a competitive process, consultants were hired to facilitate the planning process, engage community stakeholders, and gather input through a number of data collection activities including community meetings, one-­on-­one interviews, focus groups, and a review of other cultural district plans.

 

The objectives of the planning process were:

• To gather community input about the Latino Cultural District’s purposes, strengths, opportunities, challenges, targeted strategies, and governance;

• To review best practices employed by other ethnic enclaves (e.g., Little Tokyo, Fruitvale, Japantown) and

• To draft a final report with findings and recommendations.

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The top priority that emerged from our process is housing. Hundreds have seen their neighbors become displaced or homeless. Families who have lived here for decades, workers who built this city, artists, teachers, and community leaders who have contributed to making this a safe, desirable neighborhood live in fear of displacement.

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It is a community priority that we exist as a living cultural district, not just a colorful tourist destination.

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The Latino Cultural District process was funded and supported by the City and County’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development.