San Francisco’s upzoning plan has passed. On Jan. 12, 2026, the day it goes into effect, developers will be able to build taller, denser buildings on thousands of sites in the western and northern parts of the city. As the debate over how and where to upzone raged in City Hall, flyers taped to utility poles across the city signaled the launch of a much more DIY campaign to reignite a plan that took shape — and fell through — over five years ago.
“Mayor Lurie has the chance to fund social housing,” the simple, black-on-white flyers read.
The posters refer to Proposition I, a ballot measure that passed in 2020 with 57 percent of the vote. Prop. I doubled the real estate transfer tax rate on buildings valued at $10 million or more. Proponents expected the new city revenue to be earmarked for new housing projects.
But the city’s mayors, who hold most of the power over the city’s budget, have so far declined to do so. Instead, it goes to the general fund.
Enter Honest Charley Bodkin and Dylan Hirsch-Shell, the duo behind San Franciscans for Social Housing. They call themselves SHIMBYs, or “Social Housing in My Back Yard.” An offshoot of the YIMBY movement, they think that, with enough public pressure, Lurie could be persuaded to change tack and start funding social housing in San Francisco. Their signs urge readers to sign an online petition pushing the mayor to establish a fund for “housing that is municipally-owned (or non-profit owned), permanently affordable, and available to a wider mix of income than traditional public housing.” Some 650 signatures have been collected so far in what appears to be a modest launch.
Hirsch-Shell is a former Tesla engineer who self-funded his mayoral campaign last year to the tune of $160,000; Bodkin was his campaign manager.
“I wasn’t so much convinced that I would win necessarily, but my interest was in promoting policy ideas that I thought were important,” Hirsch-Shell said. His platform included support for universal social housing and a universal basic income.
Bodkin was also a mayoral candidate before he met Hirsch-Shell on the campaign trail and joined his team. Shortly after getting into local politics, he was perhaps best known for being 86’ed from bars across his Haight Street neighborhood for alleged antics like inciting customers and striking a bartender in the head with a chair, according to a short documentary by Vincent Woo.
Bodkin says he’s six months sober now, and is focused on affirming local programs such as social housing and the public bank. He’s joined forces with Hirsch-Shell on the SHIMBY line, and they are plastering flyers in English, Spanish and Chinese across the city. They’re starting with Prop. I as a fund for social housing because “the will of the voters has been spoken.”
“I put my struggle, my efforts not into arguing with people at bars,” Bodkin said, “but with those that actually matter, those at City Hall.”
Former Supervisor Dean Preston, who authored Prop. I, is not formally allied with the SHIMBYs. Neither are the Democratic Socialists of America — arguably the most politically powerful socialist organization at the moment.
Still, Preston agrees with the SHIMBY thrust — he has been fighting for at least a portion of Prop. I funds to be spent on social housing for years. “The transfer tax is the one opportunity you have to tax these huge real estate speculators buying and selling mega-mansions and skyscrapers downtown to raise funds,” Preston said.
The plan, he said, was to utilize the Prop. I funds towards rent relief and social housing. The latter would be open to a variety of income levels, and owned or financed by the city, as opposed to traditional affordable housing which typically depends on subsidies and non-profit developers.
But no such funding mechanism was written into the proposition. Special taxes — taxes that go into dedicated funds — generally require a two-thirds vote, and a special tax of this nature would have been, according to the city attorney’s office, unconstitutional in California.
Instead, the Board of Supervisors passed a resolution saying the city should use Prop. I funds for affordable housing programs, including social housing. Because resolutions aren’t legally binding, the money went into the city’s general fund, where it has been flowing ever since. A report published in June of 2024 found that some $200 million were spent on a mix of housing related issues.
In 2024, Preston requested a report from the city that found a social housing program based on Prop. I revenue was feasible. The report indicated that cumulative revenue from the increase could total upwards of $400 million by 2026.
Although Preston, a democratic socialist, and the hundreds-strong DSA have long been vocal in the cause of social housing, San Franciscans for Social Housing is an organization of two (and “hundreds of other people that call themselves San Franciscans for social housing,” Bodkin said, referring to petition signers).
Without formal alliances, the pair may continue to address the Board of Supervisors during the minutes allotted for public comment during meetings at City Hall, or approach individual supes in public (as Bodkin has done to Mayor Lurie a couple of times before).
Even then, options are limited: Supervisors could pass another non-binding resolution asking for the money to be rerouted, but Lurie has given no indication that he would do so.
Bodkin and Hirsch-Shell are not the first to try to carve a third way through the YIMBY vs. NIMBY divide. In 2018, the short-lived PHIMBY (“Public Housing in My Back Yard”) acronym was rolled out by the Los Angeles chapter of the DSA, which saw it as a way to mitigate the risk of gentrification posed by SB 827, a bill championed by state Sen. Scott Wiener that would have exempted most new construction near public transit from local zoning laws.
The SHIMBYs are trying to pitch a wider tent. Bodkin said he has “paid dues” to SF YIMBY and lobbied in Sacramento with Wiener and California YIMBY. More recently, he said, he also joined the San Francisco DSA.
That hasn’t stopped Jane Natoli, the organizing director for YIMBY Action, from taking to Bluesky to refute the strategy of the nascent SHIMBY movement.
“San Franciscans didn’t pass a property transfer tax that funds social housing. They passed a tax that goes to the general fund,” Natoli wrote. “You can’t just wish funds for things.”
Preston is not surprised that YIMBY leaders like Natoli aren’t lining up to rally around the cause of social housing.
YIMBYs and socialists might look like allies “on paper,” Preston said. But as far as the YIMBY organizations are concerned, he continued, “There’s a consistent pro-industry theme that is very much at odds with developing social housing in San Francisco.”
On top of all that, Prop. I may be on the chopping block next year — local and state officials are looking for ways to repeal it, or mitigate its effects.
The flyers keep going up, for now. Bodkin and Hirsch-Shell say they’re trying to build a movement. Hirsch-Shell says it’s a lesson from the campaign trail:
“Retail politics is not dead.”
