Here’s the latest in our “Meet the Candidates” series for District 5, where we ask each candidate to answer one question per week leading up to the election. All the responses are compiled onto a single page, where readers can peruse the potential District 5 supervisors’ stances on upwards of 40 topics before it’s time to vote in November.
Three candidates have filed to run against incumbent Supervisor Dean Preston to lead District 5. The district saw big changes during the 2022 redistricting, and now spans from the east end of Golden Gate Park through Haight-Ashbury, Japantown and the Western Addition, the Lower Haight and Hayes Valley, and most of the Tenderloin.
For the next couple weeks, we’re going to talk about housing. It’s a huge topic, and we’ll have follow-up questions with more specifics.
But first, this week’s question is: What has been working well in District 5 with regards to housing in recent years, and what will be your focus areas for improvement?
Note: I will be in District 5 this week on Wednesday, April 10, at 11:00 a.m. at Alamo Square Cafe (711 Fillmore St.). Come say hi and share your thoughts.
Dean Preston
Homeowner
As a tenant rights attorney and affordable housing advocate for decades, my priority is housing San Franciscans can afford.
I wrote the Right to Counsel law to give a free lawyer to any tenant facing eviction, passed legislation to ban evictions in the pandemic, and raised over $40m for rent relief. I voted for 30,000 homes (over 85 percent affordable), taxed the rich to raise over $300m for affordable housing, and broke ground on sites across District 5. Visit www.deanshousingrecord.com for details.
What works: rent control and social housing. What doesn’t: Relying on trickle-down economics to make housing affordable.
Allen Jones
Renter
Regarding housing, I have not noticed anything get better in District 5.
This includes the fact; I’ve heard of many obtain housing near where I live. Sure, I’m happy to hear that one less person or family is homeless. But I scratch my head more about the criteria/formula for obtaining subsidized housing than that of market-rate rents.
Main gripe: The city is operating so desperately to house our most mentally unstable residents, it shows little to no regard/respect for those who fork over hard-earned money for rent. This will be my focus area for improvement.
Autumn Looijen
Renter / Landowner
Our Victorian homes are an irreplaceable treasure, and our neighborhoods have done incredible work to preserve them. On Haight Street, we’re building great affordable housing for families and youth.
Yet the rent is too high for families, working-class people, artists and youth we invite here for sanctuary. (My family moved here because Covid-19 dropped the rent.)
We haven’t been building enough homes. We’ve been slow to approve homes — even in vacant parking lots — and even slower to build them. Slow process means financing falls apart and the homes we need are never built.
Let’s start by fixing the process.
Bilal Mahmood
Renter
San Francisco has made significant, but insufficient, progress on housing. Talking with residents every day in District 5, it’s clear that affordable rent and cost of living have gotten undeniably worse over the last 4 years.
Especially for our nurses, teachers, laborers — we have not prioritized middle-income housing. The time to get any type of housing approved in San Francisco averages 1,000 days, the longest of any city in California. Until we solve this permitting crisis all types of housing — from affordable to middle-income — will almost never be developed.
The order of candidates is rotated each week. Answers are capped at 100 words, and may be lightly edited for formatting, spelling, and grammar. If you have questions for the candidates, please let us know at eleni@missionlocal.com.
Read the rest of the District 5 questions here, and the entire “Meet the Candidates” series here. Illustrations for the series by Neil Ballard.
You can register to vote via the sf.gov website.
Interesting that the only homeowner amended anti eviction legislation SIXTEEN times during the COVID 19 pandemic (when the whole city, nation and world came to a grinding halt) so that thousands of San Franciscans who rent were protected from eviction during an unprecedented and volatile period. Interesting too that the proud recall organizer person who very recently moved to D5 from Los Altos (where her 3 kids are in private school) would rather talk about pretty Victorians than about where and what specifically she would do to focus on sourcing deeply affordable housing in D5 for teachers, elders, low income families and our unhoused people. And the fake neuroscientist and fake economist candidate’s response is a non answer with zero specifics on exactly where (as in which sites and how exactly) he would build post COVID19 exodus and with the citywide, state, national and global economic challenges. He is no economist……that’s clear. And while many agree that the global pandemic negatively impacted all peoples locally, statewide, nationally and globally, Mahmood says that everything has worsened to a terrible degree in the past four years while blaming the current D5 supervisor, but not the pandemic and not the current tone deaf, transactional and visionless mayor who calls the shots and has for nearly seven long years. Clearly Mahmood and Looijen bent been in San Francisco for long enough to begin to fathom SanFrancisco’s and D5’s daily challenges nor our history of grappling with them.
Now since carpetbagger Mahmood has admitted his resume and credentials are fake, voters must ask if Mahmood really even lives in the district. And WHO ARE YOU, REALLY MAHMOOD?
Interesting that the only homeowner is the one who wants it to be the most difficult to build new housing….
You are confused lady