Back in 2012, San Francisco’s chief economist told city supervisors that there were several ways to increase housing affordability. But none of them were good.
First: Give every low-income four-person household $75,000 for a down payment, enough to help them afford “about 25 percent” of the market, defined for that cohort as the city’s three-bedroom homes. That solution would cost “in excess of $4 billion,” city economist Ted Egan told the board’s land use committee, which at the time included a 41-year-old Scott Wiener, on Feb. 13, 2012. That was over half of the $7.3 billion city budget that was currently being hammered out.
Second, San Francisco could instead subsidize the production of thousands and thousands of affordable housing units. But at perhaps a quarter million dollars in city subsidies per unit, that solution was even costlier.
Finally, to have the same effect, the city could spur the permitting of about 100,000 new market-rate units, about what was constructed in the prior century. Assuming developers could secure the financing to build at this scale, it would entail “a very significant change in the way we look at housing construction and regulate housing construction,” Egan said.
What’s changed since 2012? The problem has gotten far worse.
Rents are up 24 percent year-over-year, according to Apartment List — rapid growth on rents that were already among the nation’s highest. A median one-bedroom here now goes for $3,879 a month. The city was, as of last year, just 12 percent into its state goal of 82,069 units by 2030. Evictions are on the rise.
Mission Local asked San Francisco’s supervisors, mayor, federal representatives and major candidates in Tuesday’s election, “How will you address housing affordability in San Francisco?”
The answers amount to a smörgåsbord of urban housing policy, from “social housing,” to community land trusts, to cutting transfer taxes, to pressuring landlords into disclosing hidden rental fees, to funding tenant-defense attorneys, to converting old office space to new apartments — and a few more wild cards.
Jump to their answers
A smörgåsbord, many argued, is the only dining option that can get San Francisco out of this mess — though the moderates tend to want a market-based smörgåsbord and the progressives want one that saves us from the market.
Almost all agreed that the city of San Francisco is going to have to pay to get the affordable housing it wants.
What if, somehow, San Francisco did add tens of thousands of housing units? As we’ve noted, the city studied this in 2001: If, by some alchemy, the city added 10 percent more ownership units instantaneously, it would decrease housing costs by 4.1 percent.
Something, but not a solution: Knocking that off Zillow’s median home sales price of $1.4 million gets you to $1.34 million. This is hardly addressing the affordability problem. And adding 10 percent to the housing stock overnight is an act that would require a magic wand, not regulation reform.
But what if San Francisco increased its per capita income by 10 percent? The 2001 study addressed that too. It found this would increase housing costs by 7.5 percent. And that has happened: The city’s per capita income grew 54 percent in the last 20 years, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis adjusted for inflation.
Here’s what San Francisco politicos had to say about the problem, in 200 words or fewer.
City officials
Mayor Daniel Lurie
My administration is helping San Franciscans stay in their homes today while building more homes for tomorrow.
We partnered with the Board of Supervisors to tackle the rent emergency, protecting renters from unwarranted evictions and preventing sudden rent spikes that force people out.
We will cap banked rent increases with Supervisor Danny Sauter, protect renters who fall just a bit behind on rent with Supervisor Jackie Fielder, provide key information to tenants with Supervisor Matt Dorsey, expand Tenant Right to Counsel and strengthen enforcement with City Attorney David Chiu.
But we must also tackle the main driver of housing costs: There aren’t enough homes.
Last year, we passed Family Zoning, the first meaningful zoning update since we downzoned 50 years ago, and projects are already using the new rules.
We’re building housing more quickly with PermitSF. We’re making it easier to turn empty offices into homes, with hundreds of units in the pipeline. In November, voters can significantly expand the Housing Trust Fund so we can build affordable homes.
We have more work to do, but our administration is acting with urgency so that our recovery helps San Franciscans put down roots and participate in our city’s success, not be displaced by it.
Supervisor Connie Chan
Housing affordability is part of the overall affordability crisis facing working families. People are forced to make impossible choices: To pay rent, or pay for medication and groceries. This is unsustainable. To bring down the cost of living immediately, we have to provide livable wages that keep up with rising costs. We must safeguard healthcare, provide affordable childcare, expand rental subsidies for workers, and build housing people can afford.
As supervisor, I advanced 100-percent-affordable housing, helped secure financing for developments at Stonestown and Potrero Power Station, and sponsored the Affordable Housing Production Act to build affordable homes with strong labor standards. We should continue using public land, community land trusts and low-cost financing to produce permanently affordable and middle-income housing. But building at the necessary scale will require sustained local, state and federal investment over many years — not a single, or even multiple, zoning changes.
Tenants need relief now. I will continue my efforts to strengthen protections against unfair evictions and excessive rent increases, preserve rent-controlled housing, and expand rental assistance and tenant counseling. We must also raise wages and reduce healthcare and childcare costs, which can be funded by making billionaires and large corporations pay their fair share.
Supervisor Stephen Sherrill
We need more homes in San Francisco — and, right now, finding money to build these homes is the biggest blocker.
It’s too expensive to build housing here because of extra fees, taxes, and regulations that we impose on builders – additional costs that other cities don’t require. Separately, we don’t have enough funding dedicated to building new affordable housing.
To lower costs, I’m pushing legislation to cut these fees that ultimately get passed onto tenants as higher rent. This will provide some relief to renters and encourage more homes to be built faster.
Beyond that, we need to look at our excessive taxes imposed when a building is sold, and our inordinate permitting delays, both of which, combined, can make a project 25 percent more expensive to build as compared to other major cities.
Finally, I am looking at our outdated building codes, which don’t account for new technologies that could lower construction costs, like mass timber. We can’t control interest rates or tariffs, but that’s no excuse for inaction on what we can fix.
For affordable housing, we need to pass Prop. C to build up the Housing Trust Fund. It’s well-designed: As the economy grows, more funding … read more here
Supervisor Danny Sauter
To create new homes, I am co-sponsoring the Housing Trust Fund (Prop. C) which will result in hundreds of millions of dollars in new funding for affordable housing. I’m also leading an audit of city-owned vacant or underutilized properties, an exercise that has identified dozens of parcels that could amount to thousands of new homes.
This builds on the work we’ve already done: Last year, I supported the Family Zoning Plan, the most significant rezoning of our city in decades, to allow for new homes near transit. I authored special legislation to allow us to break ground on 1111 Sutter, the largest new housing project in District 3 in over 20 years. And, as the Chair of the Downtown Revitalization Financing District, I’m leading the push to convert empty offices into homes downtown.
I am a renter myself and represent a district that is overwhelmingly composed of tenants living in rent-controlled homes. I’ve introduced a package of tenant protections, which we’ll work to pass this fall, which include reforming banked rent to cut down on surprise rent increases, greater accountability for elevator access for tenants, expanded language support, and increased oversight on contractors and builders who defraud tenants.
Supervisor Alan Wong
At its core, housing affordability reflects a basic economic reality: When the demand for housing exceeds the supply, housing becomes more expensive. San Francisco needs to protect existing residents and increase housing supply for all income levels. We need to support increased density in our city’s center while also having neighborhoods do their fair share.
If we want increased housing, we have to make it possible. Every unnecessary cost, delay, and barrier makes housing less likely to get built and more expensive. We should streamline permitting, shorten approval timelines, and reduce unnecessary costs. The cost of creating more housing must pencil out, otherwise nothing will get built.
We also need to help people stay in their homes today through tenant protections and efforts to prevent displacement and increase affordability. We need to make better use of what we already have by converting existing commercial buildings and legalizing existing housing. I authored legislation making it easier to legalize existing in-law units and add housing within existing buildings.
There is no single solution. We need to increase supply, protect existing residents, invest in affordable housing, reimagine existing buildings, and give communities a meaningful voice in how they grow.
Supervisor Bilal Mahmood
San Francisco faces twin housing and rental emergencies, and we need solutions on both fronts: Helping renters afford and stay in today’s homes while making it easier to build and finance tomorrow’s.
Renters are stuck in bidding wars over scarce housing, and longtime San Franciscans face rising eviction rates. My focus is rental transparency — like our No Hidden Rent Act, which requires all fees be disclosed in your monthly rent upfront, so you can find an apartment you can actually afford. We also need to keep closing loopholes in our eviction laws, like Supervisor Fielder’s legislation ensuring tenants can’t be evicted over relatively small unpaid balances.
At the same time, the city must get out of its own way on new housing. That means cutting red tape, unnecessary hearings, and fees that hold back both affordable and market-rate homes. My SHADE Act streamlines the CEQA appeals that have blocked or delayed over 2,000 units, and I’m working on a broader housing emergency package to speed permitting and lower costs. And to finance housing, especially affordable homes, we must pass Prop. C and expand the housing trust fund.
Supervisor Matt Dorsey
There’s no silver bullet here. San Francisco will always have housing demand, and for years we’ve criminally underbuilt for it. Historic downzoning, layered with years of hostility to new development predictably led us here. Zoning capacity, zoning district-level restrictions, and permitting timelines all matter, and I am always thinking of and acting on legislative solutions.
Financing has a huge impact on housing production, but it’s largely outside of City Hall’s control. Projects don’t get built if capital markets don’t see San Francisco as a good investment, and that’s exactly what the board and Mayor Lurie’s leadership has been working to change. Market-rate housing has to be part of the answer, and so does 100-percent-affordable housing at real scale.
The city has doubled down on converting underused office space into housing through code changes, fee relief, and implementing state laws that further support these projects. We’re finally starting to see some of these projects come to life, and I’m optimistic that we’ll be seeing more of them. We also need to stay committed to our big development areas, Treasure Island and Central SoMa chief among them, with tens of thousands of units of long-term capacity in the pipeline. I’ve been closely … read more here
Supervisor Myrna Melgar
It took decades to create a housing shortage that does not affect everyone the same way. It is most acute for lower-income people, renters, single parents, the young, and vulnerable people.
There has been a deliberate under-investment in housing production, long-lasting racist and segregationist land-use policies that limited who got to own land and what got built; real-estate speculation that drives up land prices, and the high cost to build any housing.
We have created many more jobs than housing over the last decades, and that deficit has accumulated and driven up housing prices.
Our state property-tax structure disincentivizes downsizing when you no longer need the bigger house, exacerbating the shortage.
Immediate relief for tenants would require monumental shifts in state law that would reform the Ellis Act, expand rent control, and further allow a cap on rent increases, and we need to build more housing for everyone faster, more efficiently, and more sustainably.
Support tenant protections and hold predatory landlords accountable. The mayor and board could expand funding for right-to-counsel for tenants as voters intended, and be proactive in tenant education. Lastly, we should partner with the city attorney to hold predatory landlords accountable for building-code violations and predatory … read more here
Supervisor Rafael Mandelman
I have supported the Family Zoning Plan and other legislative efforts to increase San Francisco’s zoned housing capacity, reduce development costs by deferring and eliminating fees, and streamline our approval processes.
Plainly, however, there is more work to be done in all these regards. The Family Zoning Plan only covered a portion of the city, and our approval processes remain far too complicated.
I am hopeful that the Mayor’s efforts to reform the permitting processes through PermitSF will bear fruit, and charter reform will allow even more significant process improvements.
With respect to the eviction crisis, I strongly support full funding of Tenant Right to Counsel to ensure that all San Francisco renters are able to take full advantage of all legal protections that may be available to them.
Supervisor Jackie Fielder
We must keep tenants in their homes and invest heavily in building more affordable and social housing, the latter of which includes market-rate and below-market-rate housing.
San Francisco is facing a 10-year high-eviction crisis, with the majority of evictions for non-payment of rent. I introduced legislation that will prevent landlords from evicting tenants who owe less than one month’s Fair Market Rent in order to stem the eviction tide and keep more San Franciscan tenants in their homes.
In order to build more affordable homes, we need more innovative investment, which is why I’ve been a major proponent of Prop. B, which would be a step in establishing a public bank to provide low-cost loans for affordable housing and social housing development; Prop. C, the Housing Trust Fund, and Prop. I, the Housing Guarantee Act, which would also fund social housing development.
Supervisor Shamann Walton
Did not respond.
Supervisor Chyanne Chen
Housing affordability is one of San Francisco’s most critical challenges, and I strongly support a comprehensive “Three Ps” approach that builds on the three pillars of protection, preservation, and production.
We need strong protection and preservation policies to provide front-line defense against displacement and gentrification. Protection policies like just-cause protections, rent stabilization, and expanded tenant protections provide immediate relief to those at risk of displacement.
Preservation policies help to keep our existing stock of deed-restricted and rent-stabilized housing affordable over the long term. In addition, Preservation strategies convert older, tenant-occupied multi-family properties into permanently affordable housing. Together, these strategies can provide more immediate and cost-effective relief to low-income and working people while the city works to increase the supply of affordable housing.
The third pillar, of new production, is critical to address severe supply shortages of affordable housing. We must produce more housing at all income levels and, in particular, affordable housing.
I support expanding the city’s dedicated funds for affordable housing through Prop. C, the expansion of the Affordable Housing Trust Fund. I also support expanding our city’s tool box to help finance new affordable units with the support of Prop. B, a charter amendment that I authored on … read more here
State officials
Sen. Scott Wiener
We need to embrace policies that make it easier to build housing for people at every income level. Zoning reform, expediting approvals/permits, renter protections, and addressing economic feasibility — we have to do it all at once to build the homes San Franciscans need to lower costs and protect renters.
San Francisco’s housing-affordability crisis is the result of decades of bad housing policy that made it impossible to build affordable housing and market rate housing alike, and there are no silver bullets.
Part of the solution is funding to build the affordable homes the market won’t build on its own. I’ve proposed a plan for Congress to provide $1.2 trillion — paid for by reversing Bush’s and Trump’s tax cuts on corporations and the wealthy — to build over 8 million homes nationwide, including both traditional affordable housing and mixed-income social housing.
But truly delivering homes at scale requires fixing our broken system of building them. I’ve led a movement to make it cheaper and easier to build in California. The laws I’ve passed and helped pass have cut average approval times for new homes in San Francisco by 80%, removing endless barriers to building.
Market conditions have made building … read more here
Federal officials
Rep. Nancy Pelosi
Affordable housing is a matter of public health and essential to a stronger, more inclusive San Francisco. Our crisis reflects both a shortage of affordable homes and the widening gap between housing costs and working families’ incomes.
The goal has always been to make housing more affordable, and to do so, we must increase housing stock and assistance for working people. Although the federal government has limited authority or policy tools to directly affect supply in local housing markets, Congress can provide the resources and incentives communities need to build and preserve housing that local residents can afford.
When I was first elected to Congress, I joined the Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs Committee to address the housing needs of San Francisco. To that end, it has been with pride that I’ve secured billions of dollars in federal funding for housing and long fought for the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit, which enables the private and nonprofit sectors to build more low-income homes.
For example, we have made federal investments in RAD and HOPE SF that revitalized public housing at Hunters View, Alice Griffith and Sunnydale. I’ve also worked to provide assistance for first-time homebuyers and created housing resources for people … read more here
Rep. Kevin Mullin
Having an affordable, quality place to call home should be a basic human right, but sadly, it’s a challenge for families across America, and especially here in California.
All levels of government – including local, state and federal – need to be working to support efforts to reduce the cost of housing and keep people stabilized.
I am pushing a two-pronged strategy at the federal level that focuses on more immediate solutions, as well as longer-term reforms. For example, I authored the bipartisan Empty Lots to Housing Act that would help turn vacant parcels near transit into affordable housing, and cosponsored the Affordable Housing Credit Improvement Act that was recently enacted and will help finance nearly 1.6 million affordable homes nationwide over the next 10 years.
I’m also cosponsoring the Green New Deal for Public Housing, which proposes the most significant investment in preserving and improving public housing in decades, but will need a Democratic trifecta to pass.
San Franciscans know all too well how hard it is to live in such a high-cost area, and we need the federal government to support the local city/county and state efforts to expand housing supply, increase ownership opportunities, and protect tenants and vulnerable communities.
Candidates
Michael Nguyen
District 8 candidate
San Francisco’s crisis isn’t mainly a zoning problem. It’s a financing problem. Approved homes sit unbuilt because interest rates and construction costs make them pencil for no one. That’s why upzoning yields only 14,600 extra units over 20 years. We need public capital that builds regardless of market cycles.
Structural: I support Props C and I to create permanent, dedicated housing revenue. The City has 10,100 affordable homes across 190 projects in its pipeline, stalled by a $25.1 billion gap. Steady revenue lets us bond against it and get that pipeline moving, with a goal of starting all of it within five years. Then, like Seattle, we create a public social housing developer that builds mixed-income homes on public land and recycles moderate-income rents into the next building. That’s how we reach tens of thousands of permanently affordable homes over 10 to 15 years, instead of one-off projects.
Immediate relief: Fully fund the right to counsel. Strengthen COPA so nonprofits can buy rent-controlled buildings before speculators do, which is how we keep Castro and Noe Valley tenants in place. Fast-track 100% affordable projects through ministerial approval, and crack down on harassment and illegal buyouts.
Gary McCoy
District 8 candidate
Did not respond.
Darshini Patel
District 8 candidate
San Francisco has approved almost 75,000 homes, only 3,300 are under construction, and over 20,000 stalled in the permit process because they cost more than they’ll earn. The real problem isn’t market-rate versus affordable or pro-tenant versus pro-housing; it’s a process that lets approved homes sit for years while we argue over policy.
The city economist estimates under 15,000 homes in 20 years; we need 80,000 in five. I supported upzoning, but that math isn’t mathing. Let developers build market-rate housing and move affordable housing out of the speculative market. Social housing sets rents at cost, never expires because the public owns it, and is open to teachers, nurses, and small-business owners.
We should build where neighbors get something back — homes above a senior center, childcare, and green space at a site like the Diamond Heights Safeway — and we must focus on follow through with permitting deadlines that escalate automatically and a public dashboard tracking every project.
For tenants today: 3,570 District 8 households pay over half their income in rent. Rental assistance keeps them housed. Fund eviction defense and close the upzoning’s demolition loophole, because density should never arrive by eviction.
Dion-Jay “D.J.” Brookter
District 10 candidate
Our housing crisis isn’t caused by one factor. Zoning can create capacity, but it doesn’t build homes. Housing production mainly depends on land costs, construction costs, interest rates, financing, labor, and broader economic conditions. Developers build at the top of the market, where rents and prices generate a return, not at the affordability levels working-class San Franciscans need.
The City should support responsible market-rate housing where it can add supply without displacement, while investing in housing the market will not produce. The City needs to focus on the levers it can control: reducing unnecessary delays and costs, delivering already-approved homes stalled in the pipeline, using public land strategically, and significantly increasing public investment and mission-driven financing.
Propositions C and I and CA Proposition 1 provide important dedicated funding for affordable housing. We should also pursue future regional BAHFA funding to further leverage resources.
For immediate tenant relief, the City needs stronger tenant protections, eviction defense, rental assistance, preservation of rent-controlled and affordable housing, and expanded acquisition through programs such as the Small Sites Program.
The challenge is not simply creating the capacity to build. It is financing, building, preserving, and delivering housing at the affordability levels San Franciscans need.
Theo Ellington
District 10 candidate
Did not respond.
J.R. Eppler
District 10 candidate
San Francisco needs more homes people can afford, and relief for tenants who cannot wait for construction.
Zoning alone cannot overcome high borrowing costs, expensive construction, and upfront infrastructure bills. District 10 has thousands of approved homes still unbuilt. I would unlock market-rate and affordable housing by using infrastructure financing districts to fund streets and utilities against future property-tax growth, and defer fees while preserving funding for neighborhood services. Faster permits and financing assistance should come with construction deadlines and enforceable affordability commitments.
I support Proposition B’s path toward a public bank, but it requires capitalization and regulatory approval over several years. Cheaper loans help; deeply affordable homes still require subsidies. I would combine local housing funds with state and federal grants and tax credits. My goal is additional groundbreakings this term, with large projects taking ten to fifteen years or longer to complete.
For immediate relief, I would fully fund eviction defense and emergency rental assistance, enforce rent control and habitability standards, and fund nonprofit purchases through Small Sites and COPA. Preserving existing homes protects affordability now, especially in historic communities facing displacement. Families should benefit from new housing without losing their place in San Francisco.