I came home last night to find a handwritten envelope waiting for me on my front doorstep.
Inside was a note from Neighbor Aretha, who says she’s lived here for 20+ years. She has to move, but she wants to stay in Bernal Heights, so she’s on the hunt for an affordable room to rent. And like a true Bernal native, she chose a resourceful-but-polite way to solicit help from her neighbors.
I don’t have a room, but I do have a megaphone. So here are the details (click to embiggen)…
Some modest digging also revealed a Craigslist posting, which adds that she’s a 21 year-old recent SF State grad. Then there’s the clincher: “I love SF and plan to stay here for a long time, and there is no place more special to me than our neighborhood around Bernal Hill.”
If you know of a room available with “modest rent” for a “hard-working girl in [the] home-searching business,” kindly dial your Neighbor Aretha via the email address on your screen.
Bernalwood 
What’s up with that email address? ZZ Packer is a fairly well-known author (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZZ_Packer). Seems odd to co-opt someone else’s handle, especially if you already have a cool name like Aretha Bright!
Sounds like a joke to me. Still, if this person is serious she needs to make more money to live in Sf or move to the east bay. Not everyone can afford to live here. fact of life.
Someday, when Bernal looks and feels just like the Marina, Aretha can have my reasonably affordable apartment with a wonderful landlord, because I’ll be moving out. Unfortunately for me, that day seems closer and closer. I’m a 10-year Bernal resident who works in the non-profit sector and when I moved here, most people understtoid that what made Bernal great was its diverse and compassionate, socially conscious people.
A homebody who never wants to leave the neighborhood! Yikes! Sounds like she wants to move in on the cheap, stay for 10 years and she never goes out! Not moving into my spare room!
Would you rather have a party animal in your spare room? She sounds like a responsible, level-headed young woman to me.
This young woman is most likely Susie Bright’s daughter, and it will be great if she can stay in Bernal. Her letter is straightforward; she clearly loves the neighborhood, and she’s not begging for anything, merely asking for some assistance. Very few people accomplish anything without help from others, and she’s politely asking her neighbors to behave like neighbors. Some of the responses here are so snippy that I wonder why you fear less financially-endowed people so much.
Seconded.
Well said!!
really. What is wrong for asking for help from one’s community? This young woman isn’t asking for a free ride, she’s just asking for help to maintain the modest lifestyle she has known all her life.
The snippy responses are not what I think of when I think of Bernal. Is it possible to become so egocentric such that we become overly-entitled? I think it is.
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Yes, Aretha is Susie Bright’s daughter. I’ve known her and her mother for years; I also hired her to work in the coffee shop/bakery I used to manage. She is a smart, lovely, well-spoken, accomplished and responsible young woman with a college degree, and I think she would make a wonderful housemate or tenant.