San Francisco black population way down

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 10 (UPI) -- A task force is trying to figure out how to keep black residents in San Francisco, where they have dropped to 6.5 percent of the population, officials said.

The African-American Out-Migration Task Force held a four-hour public hearing Thursday, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. Many residents said developers are continuing the policies that drove blacks from the Fillmore neighborhood in the 1970s.

In 1970, 13.4 percent of San Franciscans were black. Now, there are fewer black-owned businesses, and the remaining black residents are less likely to be homeowners, more likely to live in substandard or public housing and poorer than the rest of the city.

Residents at the hearing accused Lennar Corp., which is redeveloping the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard, of trying to push blacks out of the Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhood, the last majority-black area in the city.