Ramin Rahimian for The Bay Citizen

Two of the last 10' by 14' Earthquake Cottages built after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake now sit in the U.S. National Park Service's Presidio in San Francisco, Tuesday, January 31, 2012.

After the 1906 earthquake, more than 5,000 tiny cottages were built to house some of the San Franciscans who had been left homeless. Today two of those cottages, just 10 feet by 14 feet each, are preserved in the Presidio.

After the 1906 earthquake, refugees lived in tents. But as winter rains approached, more than 5,000 cottages were built by union carpenters to house 15,000 of the 250,000 people who had been left homeless. Two green 10-foot-by-14-foot buildings tucked near the Main Post at the Presidio are survivors of what are now called earthquake shacks. LOUISE RAFKIN

NIMBY-ISM

The cottages, which were built by a government relief organization and painted green to blend with the flora, were erected in parks, including Dolores, Precita and what is now Park-Presidio Boulevard. Most residents were working class and could not afford to rebuild immediately. Refugees from Chinatown were segregated and sent to camp in tents in a windy, cold area near the Golden Gate Bridge. 

CASH AND CARRY

Walls of the cottages were redwood, the floors were made of fir, and the shingles were cedar. Stoves cost extra, and toilets were communal facilities that were built in the parks. Shack tenants paid $2 per month toward the final $50 cost of the structure. When the camps closed in 1907, more than 5,000 structures were moved to private lots by horse and wagon. Some residents who were unable to afford moving costs disassembled their homes and carried them away in pieces. 

HOMELESS RIGHTS

Jane Cryan created a Save the Shacks campaign in the early 1980s when she was facing eviction from a shack she inhabited in Richmond. She also worked to save two shacks nicknamed the Goldies after their former inhabitants, Goldie and Ray Raczkowsky. The couple’s shack had to  make way for apartments, and the home was transported to the Presidio in 1986.

SOME RELIEF

After San Francisco’s 1906 quake, officials responded to an outbreak of the bubonic plague by offering a bounty on rats. FEMA trailers that were built in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina and intended only as temporary housing have reportedly caused health problems for their occupants.

STILL SHACKED UP

Some shacks are still inhabited. Two were set atop an Ocean View house as a second story; several serve as homes in Bernal Heights. One was recently discovered in a Sunset district backyard, and one resides at the zoo where it is part of a demonstration on sustainable practices; rainwater collected from runoff from the shack’s roof waters the gardens. “It’s a link to the future,” says Joe Fitting, a zoo conservationist. “It shows the beauty of repurposing.”