TODCO Development Co. is the housing development division of the TODCO (Tenants and Owners Development Corporation) Group, the community-based housing/community development nonprofit corporation for San Francisco’s South of Market Neighborhood. TODCO plans and develops new and rehabilitated senior and single-room occupancy affordable housing. The TODCO Group also directs asset management of its developments, provides resident services programs for its tenants, and undertakes a range of community development and community planning programs for South of Market communities.
TODCO formed in 1964 in response to the demolition of Third Street’s “skid row” to build a convention center. To fight back, the poor and elderly tenants living in its dozens of rundown residential hotels and apartments organized Tenants and Owners in Opposition to Redevelopment (TOOR) and vowed “We Won’t Move!” TOOR filed a federal lawsuit demanding decent relocation housing that brought the redevelopment project to a halt for four years.
Eventually, the City and Redevelopment Agency were legally forced to provide four sites in Yerba Buena Center for new housing to replace demolished residential hotels and provide City Hotel Tax funds to finance their development. In 1971, TOOR became TODCO, San Francisco’s second, non-profit, “community-based housing development corporation.”
Currently, TODCO houses more than 1,200 community members and recently received a $1,560,000 loan from Community Vision to finance the predevelopment costs associated with the renovation of 182 units of rental housing for very low-income seniors. The housing project includes a community room, dining room, and a landscaped courtyard area.
Community Vision has a long history with TODCO, and we are proud to be a partner in its effort to provide high quality residences and services for the South of Market Community.
