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Tech is booming, rents are rising, and Ellis Act evictions are skyrocketing.
In the past 12 months, 225 units have been removed from the housing market under the Ellis Act, as opposed to 70 units the year before. This negative aftermath of San Francisco’s success prompted five supervisors to introduce legislation on Tuesday, which would give evicted tenants priority in city-sponsored housing. Read more here.
Courtney Quirin is a trained wildlife ecologist turned environmental journalist with a knack for photography and visual storytelling. Though her interests span many topics and disciplines, she's particularly keen on capturing multimedia stories pertaining to the global wildlife trade, human-wildlife relationships, food security, international development and the effects of global markets on local environments and cultural fabric. Courtney completed a MSc in Wildlife Management at the University of Otago, New Zealand, where she not only learned how to catch and tag fur seals (among many things) but also traveled to the highlands of Ethiopia to identify the nature and extent of farmer-primate conflict and its linkages to changes in political regime, land tenure, food security, and perceptions of risk. From New Zealand Courtney landed at The Ohio State University to investigate urban coyotes for her PhD, but just shy of 2 years deep into the degree, she realized that her true passions lie within investigative journalism. Since moving into the world of journalism, Courtney has been a contributor to Bay Nature Magazine, a ghostwriter for WildAid, and the science writer for Academia.edu. While at Berkeley's J-School Courtney will focus on international environmental reporting through the lens of documentary filmmaking and TV.
More by Courtney Quirin3 Comments
This is a good first step. The current system, which expects private property owners to provide lifelong housing at deeply discounted rents, is breaking down. Residents who qualify for housing assistance are the responsibility of the city as a whole.
The Ellis Act is the law. Why spend money to try and undermine it? Keeping rents below market rate for a select few is the root of the housing shortage in SF.
The housing crisis in San Francisco is a bit more complicated than that. There’s definitely a supply issue, but the situation isn’t helped by the fact that adjacent cities aren’t doing their best to seize on the opportunity before them. People want to live in the bay area, and I’m sure folks would settle for south city, Daly city, San Bruno if those places had decent city centers connected with good public transit and higher density housing. Its amazing to me that the peninsula doesn’t seize on this and build their places up. San Francisco shouldn’t really be all that “special.”