In 2020, the voters of the City and County of San Francisco decisively approved Proposition I, doubling the transfer tax on multi-million dollar real estate transactions. The ballot arguments in favor for Proposition I prominently assured voters that the tax would fund the development of affordable housing.   With this stated purpose, the Board of Supervisors created the Housing Stability Fund to operate, support, and build affordable social housing.

This past January the Fund’s advisory board made a public call for recommendations for potential uses of projected Prop I revenues – $136 million in Fiscal Year 2022-23.   Based upon the public’s proposals and testimonies, the advisory board unanimously approved and submitted budget recommendations to the Mayor and the Board of Supervisors.

If adopted, these budget recommendations would result in significant immediate and long term outcomes including:

  • Launch a $60 million site acquisition fund, sufficient to secure land for more than 500 units of affordable family and senior housing.

  • Support building new affordable rental and ownership housing.  One proposed ‘shovel ready’ project in the Mission District could create 63 units of affordable housing for public school educators.

  • Enable 400 extremely low income seniors and people with disabilities to qualify for accessible housing in the existing affordable housing pipeline.

  • Improve living conditions in aging affordable housing developments including upgrading or installing elevators in SROs and addressing long deferred maintenance needs in public housing.

  • Foster the design of new models of affordable housing including cooperatively owned and operated housing, publicly owned developments, and neighborhood directed preservation projects.

As our communities struggle to recover from the impacts of the pandemic we need bolder solutions to the housing crisis – a crisis accelerated by policies that favor building more market rate housing that is unaffordable to a majority of San Franciscans.

We urge your support for the budget recommendations for the Housing Stability Fund.  Now is the time for making the promise of Proposition I a reality.

 

Jobs with Justice San Francisco

Council of Community Housing Organizations

San Francisco Anti Displacement Coalition

Senior and Disability Action

Community Tenants Association

Housing Rights Committee of San Francisco

By Iván Arenas, Chicago ACT Collective, via JustSeeds