May 21, 2024

Today, Supervisor Peskin introduced a ballot measure that is a meaningful step toward creating more deeply affordable housing for extremely low-income seniors, working families and persons with disabilities in our city.  Read coverage in KQED and the SF Chronicle!

Right now, tens of thousands of seniors, working families, and people with disabilities are functionally excluded from the City’s affordable housing programs.  For example:

  •  A majority of senior renters living alone cannot afford the rents charged at a majority of the city’s senior housing units.
  • Based upon existing rules, a single parent working full-time at a minimum wage job does not make enough income to qualify for most of the city’s affordable family housing.
  • Affordable housing designed and built to be fully accessible for people with disabilities are regularly rented to people without disabilities because the city’s policies sets rents higher than what a majority of disabled households can afford.

Despite repeated calls for change and official reports describing the unmet need, the city has failed to adopt or commit to a plan to remove or correct these mounting barriers to its affordable housing program, so a number of housing justice advocates and affordbale housing organizations got together with Supervisor Peskin to come up with a solution. Supervisor Peskin’s proposed ‘Housing Opportunity Fund’ would for the first time mount a substantial and sustained effort to correct the problem of unaffordable affordable housing.

If approved by voters, the proposal would:

  • Plan for and dedicate funding to expanding housing opportunities for the lowest income seniors, families and people with disabilities.
  • Deploy that funding over four years to create over 2,200 housing units truly affordable to seniors, families, and people with disabilities who presently cannot qualify for today’s housing system.
  • The proposal would have no budget impact for the next two years given the present budget crisis. Funding then would begin in 2026, providing $8.2 million to assure deeper affordability for existing and new housing now being developed. The fund would then grow incrementally each year to reach a maximum of $33 million by 2030. Full funding would be delayed until the present budget deficit is resolved.

This proposal is supported by a growing coalition of grassroots and faith-based organizations, housing and service providers, and tenant and disability rights advocates including:

  • Bill Sorro Housing Program (BiSHoP)
  • Chinatown Community Development Center
  • Chinese Progressive Association
  • Community Tenants Association
  • Faith In Action
  • Homeless Prenatal Program
  • Mission Economic Development Agency
  • People Organizing to Demand Environmental and Economic Rights (PODER)
  • San Francisco Anti Displacement Coalition
  • San Francisco SafeHouse
  • Self-Help for the Elderly
  • Senior and Disability Action
  • South of Market Community Action Network (SOMCAN)
  • Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation
  • Young Community Developers

For more information contact Meg Heisler at meg.heisler@sf-cad.com.