>> san francisco from trendy restaurants to coffee shops and. a thriving city.

there is search such a demand r housing it's not cheap. the average rent for a 2 bedroom is $1,900. if you earn minimum wage that is nearly five full time jocks. jocks -- jobs. it's home to the well think ovet people in america. while gender ification forces people out of their areas. >> i was born and raised in the bay area and back in the day go you want to go meet the people you have to cross golden gate. and now all of the people moved into across the golden gate have crossed the bridge. here is jamal. he says i have seen my beautiful

san francisco change completely. literally a different city and devoid of the spirit that made it wonderful. matt says i'm a software engineer and imenjoying it. and then there is andrew that is filfillphilosophical. gender ifcation. here is a mobile home for rent in palo alto for $2,200 a month. it's not an onion article and the most awesome home of all time. >> a lot of people are trying to stay in the mobile home parks in palo alto because the school district is amazing joining us on science is gabriel metcalf. he is the director of spur.

in our google hang out is jennifer friedenbacch. andnd iin the hang out maria isa housing rights organizer for just cause. gabriel it's all about supply and demand. as is the case when this happens in most steve. do you think there is something that is going on that is thank e to san francisco that makes it difficult to find affordable housing? >> i think we came by this problem honestly, the we are telling with it are first it's a great city. and second our regional economy is generating a ton of jocks. jocks -- jobs so it's a nice problem to have. the third reason it's our own fault. we have not allowed s so very mh

housing t to be built in decade. a lot of demand to live here and a constrained supply because of our own choices. the inevitable results is sky rocketing prices it's a really bad situation. the down sides of this far out weigh the up sides, although there are both. there will not be an easy solution. but there are things we can do that i hope we can talk about soon. >> one. down sides, jennifer, is about 6400 homeless people living in the area. how are they being impacted by the increasing genderfication. >> they are being joined by a lot of their neighbors. we have a lot of lands lords taking advantage of the situation and evicting people ilillegally and sometimes legaly and we have more and more people that are becoming homeless for

the first time. you are talking about people that are one day in their home and in an affordable housing situation and it may be rent controlled and then it no longer is. and they find themselves on the street. on the street, doubling up with people and garages and in their cars and a variety of places and the folks that are portioned to- forced to live on the street more genderfication happens. they don't like to city people of coo color in front of their houses and they call the police and the police come and they have to respond and they take the people to jail. it's a brutal situation right now even toted to the extent whe the city has sweeps going on every morning at 4:30 am accompany the by duw trucks who

are spragu spraying people downm the middle of the night. check out my website. it says welcome to the jungle the largest homeless camp is right in the heart of silicon valley. you have yahoo and larry page he is home and the silicon jungle. >> i'm afraid that the rising rent costs are going to drive people out to the suburbs and here we have a residential of the bay area. it's joey. >> my name is joey and 93 years ago my great grandfather moved from i had lee an i italy and hl drestaurant here and it's been going for 93 years and my father got into the business and as of this year under i unfortunatelyt

under. my father has been out of work since then and it's been hard on my family. >> marimaria let's talk about te longterm effects this is having on the residents of san francisco. can you hear me? >> it creates a come pleadl com. we have seen people that have lived in the neighborhoods for t20 or 30 years being pushed out so other people can move in. there was a resent article that clearly the tric trickle down economics. if we depiction up a fix up a ne are going to some how benefit all of the residents of that neighbourhood. and that it's about dealing with

the poverty or the safety issues in working class neighbourhoods of color we know that trickle down economics don't work for working class people of color or any working class folks. the same with genderfication, sure the neighborhood may look different or feel safer, but it doesn't feel safer for people that have to move away. it document feel safer for someone that got a notice to evict and this have no idea where they are going to go. and it doesn't solve mid o any e root causes of the instablity of housing or crime or none of those things. >> i'm going to pause you there. i have to get to a break. bruce you live in a popular gethtr -- tweet us your thoughtr

the break. when we come back activist rapper is going to join us to tell us why he is asking people to wake up. ♪

generalitiry if ication next, tune into live news at 8 and 11 >> i'm john seigenthaler and here's a look at the headlines.. >> infomation changes by the hour here... >> our team of award winning journalists brings you up to the minute coverage of today's events... then, at 9 and midnight. america tonight goes deeper with groundbreaking investigative coverage of the nation's top stories... >> a fresh take on the stories that connect to you... >> live news at 8 and 11 eastern followed by america tonight on al jazeera america there's more to it.

♪ barack says it's all going to be fine fine fine ♪ read between it lines ♪ when you surrender a fight ♪ remember never to lose sui sigh♪

we arwelcome back we are talking about gentrified areas of san francisco. joining us is raz districtza ha. in your video you say "wake up" who you are talking to and what does it mean? >> that song "wake up" is a call to my whole generation. this is made at a time when i was becoming more aware of what was going on in the world and i was enthusiastic about learning more and participating in it. and i looked around at my peers and i wasn't seeing the enthusiasm when it was needed. what yo are you seeing in your neighbourhoods with regard to again triif gentry if iagainstr.

i includ grew up in a mostly blk asian neighborhood. and now i have learned i have seen that so many things that we are seeing now have been in place for years. this is a planned process. it didn't just happene happen uf a sudden spring up overnight. >> of the it president son prisl complex and the war on drugs and street violence those things work the city government came up and picked up the pieces of the chaos and destruction that was happening in our neighbourhoods and they started build" righted on top of it. bruce you live in a very popular agaigentgent triipopulargentrif.

we still have the hell's age ans as our nations. neighbors they make great neighbors i wouldn't say it's g ohgentrification. we don't have sidewalks in much of our neighborhood and we don't have straigh street lights and a lot of urban green space. it's an you an urban update thas pushing south from the ucsf campus. in our neighborhood it's what don't we have and what do we have. >> have traditionally it's beenn

artist ow enclave. >> it mixes urban industrial which is where most of the development is occurring not displacing people, but displacingdisplacing warehouses. >> and we are trying to build up that housing. and we are trying to encourage affordable housing and below market rate housing. >> as we meet with local developers we ca carve out a percentage of the market. >> a lot of heated opinions on twistwister. twist -- twitter. paula diva says the city has no real plan to retain middle class working class people. sf is trying to save their identity and culture. family and artists can't pay what tech heads and trust fund beakbabies can.

you gentrify and you make it hard for people to move in. what do you have? a place where folks have no ability to move to. >> it seems a lot of people are blaming facebook and google and yahoo for the gentrification. >> do you think it's an easy scape goat here. >> i think the reason the prices are rising because our economy is generating so man so many jo. we don't have a dial that we can set for the amount of jobs you want to generate. it's better to again rate too many jobs than not enough. but it creates a we'll other set of problemses that is what we are talking about.

>> maria would what would be happening to these communities if they were left as they are. >> i think communities have away of recyclin recognizing the thit need to happen in their neighborhood. i work in the mission and it was a neighborhood that was not get" the investment it needed from the local government which is why so many communities based organization the came about to provide resources for the folks that live in these neighbourhoods. we created murals and i think the neighbourhoods that need a lot of support don't want a lot of development or need things to be better is amiss. we want to be intergal and

central to what that idea is. the idea is an old way of thinking. >> gabriel is an old way of thinking. >> i live in a neighborhood in d.c. where ten years ago you wouldn't go outside after dark because of the drugs. there were people that took big risks and invested in this community and over time other like minded people started investing and now it's a really great place to live. this certainly wasn't some sort of coo conspiracy. no this really wasn't a conspiracy. and we have a lot of people that are trying to live in the city. if you don't develop we know what happens. if you don't build new housing we know what happens. the prices go through the roof and it becomes gentrified.

>> nobody set out and said they wanted to transform neighbourhoods. i think the craf vast majority e people in the city and electioned to office would like to keep san francisco a working class community to the degree possible. but there is not an easy answer for this. >> our community has a lot of responses lisa. collin says i feel like san francisco is experiencing the last 12 years of lives in new york com compressed in two year. it's the same stuff, but more accelerated. the same story in new york city and new jersey it won't changes because real estate developers own too many politicians. >> and a al says where do people go? it changes oakland and concord, it's not just san francisco it's changing the bay area. >> hey greg give us your

thoughts on that before we go to break. >> i disagree with people that say this didn't happy accident. this didn't happy accident. you can look at the history of san francisco going auld the wade back to the 1 1916 earthquake. the plan was to transform san francisco to an elite city. under thunfortunately the work g clasworking classdon't belong i. the reasonable that san francisco has this flavour it has because of the blood and sweat and tears of working class people that are under represented that have built this city and have embraced diversity and culture and community and made this place so attractive. that is the real heart and soul here. it's a plan on every level, it's

systematic, it's systematic removal. from closure of school and no one is talking about how the familiafamilies can afford too d here anymore most of the youth that live in san francisco live in the ten tenderloin. which is the highest population of drugs and violence and momentumless. homelessness. what does that say if san francisco is sending their families to this area? is it a question? i don't think so. >> is it possible for sa san francisco to accommodate their residents and continue to up-scale these areas without forcing these people out. feetweet us your ideas if you tk it's possible. and we'll be right back.

>> audiences are intelligent

>> welcome back we are talking about the pros and cons of again think igentrification. can we even meet our needs give the power back to the sit citizs of the city. gentrification comes from the inside. everyone is being shipped across the oakland at the bay bridge. it's likes i see police songs it there is power and money behind it. i think the vc's need to invotet in small local businesses to keep parts of it authentic. >> it sounds like your community is trying to maintain the fab licfabricunder which it was bui.

instead of making it new and shapshiney. >> i think what we want to do is take more control as as a neighborhood and community and involve all members. i think our parks are self created. we have neighborhood street parks that are built underneath the freeways. we took back the land that was under served and we made it available to everyone. >> we pupt i punt in put in a bt and an of an off leash dog park. bechallenge the city to do these services and we work with the supervisor to realize a lot of this. and one of those initiatives is a concept called a green benefits districts we are at the final stages of going to petition for a green benefits

disstrirktdisstrictdistricts ths with more green space and more parks and it's under our control. it's a federal tax assessments zone, but as i talk to more and more people in the neighbourhood there is a high appetite for it because we lack so much and we want to take more in to our own hands. gabriel is there any sort of sub subsidies that may be be benefil here. >> there is. we just adopted a ballot measure. we are setting aside 50 million-dollarings a year into a housing trust fund. and there is money for sro ease, but it's a drop in the bucket.

housing stock has not kept pace with immigration and growth. >> and san francisco is a tiny mass of land and affordable housing and median cost of housing drives everyone else away. >> sf will be a case study unless the city does much more urban planning. >> i hear a lot of com complain, but no solutions. all right, what is a solution here? >> i don't know wha what the solution is. >> i di don't even know if thers a seclusion. a -- solution. there are people in san francisco that need help and need support. there are people struggling. people think if they work hard knifenough they can get a job ad they can survive. and it's not that simple. there are people that need support and it's particularly

youth that need it. >> they cut city college and the community college which is the gateway for higher education for most minorities in san francisco. the key is to support the youth and the people of san trap and o and allowing them to express their own voices. >> we don't need someone from the outside to tell us what we need and how to change our neighborhood. we need to be given a power to step into this flin political ad economic arena. because right now our voice is not being heard. >> thankthanks to all of our gus for joining the program. until next time we'll see you on liability at america.aljazeera.com.

>> good evening of everyone welcome to al jazeera america i'm john siegenthaler. >> voters are about it go to the polls to make important decisionings. >> relationship status. >> john siegenthaler ijohn kerro convince eguesstimat egypt theya friend. >> art work missing for many years and the nazi connection.