On Friday, Chinatown CDC launched a take-out meal program to get dinners to residents in their single-room occupancy (SRO) hotels. The meals, provided by New Asia, a dim sum and community banquet restaurant located in Chinatown, allowed residents to avoid communal kitchens on their floors, a typical setup for the SRO hotels. And that helped residents maintain the physical distance suggested by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to help curb the spread of COVID-19.

Housing is on everyone's lips, says Sheila Rice, who just completed a term as interim executive vice president and chief operating officer for NeighborWorks America. She expects the trend to continue through 2020. 

For starters, the health-care industry is highlighting housing, Rice says, pointing to a quote that is everywhere from the Champlain Housing Trust to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: "Housing is health care." 


San Francisco’s Chinatown faces a number of challenges, stemming back to its origins: Chinese immigrants to the city were often limited to living in the neighborhood due to discriminatory policies and practices, reinforced by a natural desire to seek out supportive environments. Over time, a strong sense of community developed. Today, however, residents face a constant threat of eviction and displacement due to San Francisco’s hot real estate market.


Everyone knows it’s important to save for a “rainy day.” Emergencies happen: appliances break, cars sputter to a stop, jobs are lost. But when your paychecks are not that much more than what you need to pay your routine bills, that’s a habit most haven’t been able to form.


Access to broadband internet is fast becoming a predictor of whether you are on the “have” or “have not” side of the American wealth divide. If you can’t access high-speed internet regularly and don’t know how to take advantage of it, you probably won’t do as well in school, won’t know about good available jobs and won’t be able to get those jobs if you did.

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