China News Service, March 24. According to a report compiled by the US "World Journal", a stucco building on Powell Street in Chinatown, San Francisco, USA, has a laundry room and a beauty salon on the first floor of the building, and 64 scattered rooms above the second floor.

The Chinatown Community Development Center in San Francisco raised money to buy the building, renovated it, and leased it to low-income Chinatown residents.

  Malclom Yeung, operating chairman of the Community Development Center, said sparse housing is Chinatown's living culture.

New immigrants to the United States must first find an affordable place to stay. The elderly also need a space to play mahjong. The Chinatown Scattered Housing Building provides them with social life.

It is also for this reason that Chinatown in San Francisco has become a vibrant Chinese community among Chinatowns in the United States. However, Chinatown culture would not be able to survive without these scattered buildings.

  Yang Zhongxian said, but in the past three or four months, more and more scattered buildings in the Chinatown community have been listed for sale, more than any period in the past.

He pointed out that the small building is the life of Chinatown culture, and look at how many people live upstairs in those grocery stores or takeaway Chinese restaurants on Stockton Street.

These scattered buildings are the "entrance" for new immigrants to the New World.

Chinatown has held this role of hosting new immigrants since 1850.

  If real estate venture capitalists snatch the squat buildings, Chinatown's all-important cultural color will be eclipsed, he said.

  From 2016 to 2019, the technology industry in the Bay Area was strong and the economy was booming. Some real estate venture capitalists bought Chinatown scatter buildings, planning to convert these low-income residences into high-income technology homes.

While some venture capital investments have not been profitable, it is generally believed that San Francisco's economy will continue to grow rapidly, so similar investments continue to take place, threatening the Chinatown housing complex community.

  San Francisco Chinatown has a total of about 15,000 scattered homes, making it the largest housing community in Chinatown.

Most bungalows are less than 200 square feet in total, and some areas have less than 100 square feet.

  Some of these scattered buildings were closed due to poor management, and some continued to survive.

Most scattered buildings have communal kitchens and bathrooms.

Most of San Francisco's scattered buildings are privately managed.

This is not the same as a residential hotel in Tenderloin.

The Tenderloin B&Bs are privately funded but run by non-profit corporations.

  The Chinatown Community Development Center faced great challenges during the epidemic, and finally raised $15 million to buy the building at 1105 Powell Street and convert it into a single-family building for rent.

The Development Center received the development funding from the Crankstart Fund, the San Francisco Housing Accelerator Fund, and the Mayor's Office of Housing Community Development.

Rebecca Foster, chief executive of the San Francisco Housing Rapid Development Fund, said the Chinatown Community Development Center can serve as a model for community development by preserving the character of local retail buildings.

  Foster said the transfer of retail buildings to nonprofits will provide new opportunities for life in Chinatown's traditional community.