Free consumer education at San Francisco’s Chinatown resource fair

Community outreach manager Jamie Woo and project associate Cui Yan Xie represented Consumer Action at the 14th annual Chinatown Community Resource Fair in early November in San Francisco’s Chinatown neighborhood.

The office of San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón hosted the popular community-wide event to address the myriad issues that affect the region’s Chinese and Chinese-American population. Over 25 government and community-based agencies attended the event to provide and promote education and assistance with issues such as immigration and citizenship, scams and fraud (including those disproportionately impacting the Chinese community, such as “blessing scams”), and public safety, healthcare, housing, emergency preparedness and finances.

"The Chinatown Community Resource Fair offers the opportunity for the Chinese community to engage with representatives from city agencies and community organizations,” Gascón said. “Access to valuable services and resources serves to make residents safer and our communities stronger and better for all.”

A few hundred people attended the fair; most were Chinese-American seniors and Chinese-speaking immigrants. Consumer Action prepared 110 sets of educational brochures in Chinese and 10 sets in English (representing a total of more than 1,000 brochures) to educate the participants on senior scams, ID theft, “how to complain” effectively about a bad or deceptive product or service, how to keep your home in the face of foreclosure, how to find low-cost auto, homeowners or renters insurance, and how to manage debt.

“Attendees were so excited to pick up our educational materials that we ran out of them by the end of the fair!” Woo exclaimed. “We’re thankful to have had the opportunity to attend the fair again this year. It’s a great opportunity to interact with the public and inform them of our valuable and free services.”

Consumer Action offers consumer education materials in both English and Chinese (as well as other languages) on our website. Non-profit agencies and government groups may also use our website to order print copies of many of the free publications.