REP-SF Planning to the People Newsletter: April 2025
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Happy Fair Housing Month! April is a busy month of advocacy for the REP-SF coalition! Please join us for important hearings on April 10th & 17th. Details below! Act now to ensure tenants and small businesses know about SF's upzonings! And check out our new blog posts to learn about our advocacy around Fair Housing Law and tenant protections!
Our REP-SF Planning to the People newsletter provides the latest news and ways to take action on behalf of grassroots communities for housing justice and equitable city planning – all in one place!
In community,
The REP-SF Team
Race & Equity in all Planning Coalition
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April 10 & 17: Join Us for Important Hearings!
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Love your neighborhood? Want to protect it from displacement? Tell City Hall that we’re here to stay! Join us in speaking at these important hearings:
April 10: Upzonings at SF Planning Commission, Room #400. Email info@repsf.org to RSVP. SF Planning will unveil its new map of the areas targeted for upzoning. Changing the rules in favor of developer giveaways will make rent more expensive, increase the displacement of tenants and small businesses, and could mean neighborhoods across the City will be demolished. Join us in speaking in support of prioritizing truly affordable housing and the community-based equity solutions in the Housing Element. Tell our city leaders we need to build for need, not for greed!
April 17: Small Business Protections at SF Planning Commission. RSVP to deliver public comment. Join REP-SF & Small Business Forward (SBF) in advocating against small business displacement with the City's proposed upzoning plan targeting neighborhood commercial corridors. Our coalitions and small businesses are asking the Planning Commission to adopt permanent controls to protect neighborhood-serving small businesses.
- 11 am: Press Conference at City Hall, Room #TBD, hosted by REP-SF & SBF
- 12 pm: Community Presentation & Public Comment, Room #400
Suggested talking points for public comment will be provided! Learn more in our blog post on SF's proposed upzonings and our community demands: bit.ly/REP_Blog_Rezone
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Date TBD: Land Use Committee Hearing. Tentatively scheduled for April 14. Email info@repsf.org to keep up to date. The City doesn't want you to know that they are encouraging developers to tear down your home or business! Join us in speaking in support of Supervisor Chan's proposed legislation to require public noticing for SF's upzonings. Sign onto our letter now to directly email City Officials. Share our letter campaign on your social media now!
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REP-SF Blog: Fair Housing is a Civil Right, So Why is the Rent Still So Damn High? (April 3, 2025)
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Most people don't know that they have a Civil Right in America to Fair Housing, a right that was passed at the federal level 57 years ago. Actually, April is Fair Housing Month! But what does Fair Housing really mean if our rents are still so damn high? That doesn't seem fair, and it isn't. In our new blog post, Dyan Ruiz, Co-Founder of People Power Media shares why, over half a century later in San Francisco, throughout California, and across the country, housing justice advocates must continue to fight for fair housing.
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REP-SF Blog: Community Launches Critical Solutions to Keep Residents in SF (April 2, 2025)
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On Feb. 27, our citywide coalitions REP-SF, the San Francisco Anti-Displacement Coalition (SFADC), and the Council of Community Housing Organizations (CCHO) threw down for tenants at the SF Planning Commission Hearing we requested to prevent displacement. We presented our comprehensive solutions to ensure residents are able to stay in the city with the escalating threats from upzoning and demolitions. Our community members and allies delivered over an hour of emotional public testimony. Check out our new blog post for video highlights and great media coverage of the hearing!
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REP-SF Receipts: Meeting with Mayor Daniel Lurie
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REP-SF and our allied coalition, SFADC met with SF Mayor Daniel Lurie to introduce our coalitions and ensure the City focuses on the over 100 equity-based actions in the Housing Element. Many of these actions are now overdue. We also shared our demands around SF’s proposed upzonings to keep residents and small businesses in the City. We will continue to advocate directly to the Mayor for truly affordable housing and people-centered planning.
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Huge Community Win! Planning Commission Rejects Landlord Plan to Convert the Mosser Hotel
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In a huge community win for tenants, on March 20, the Planning Commission rejected a permit that would have allowed a residential hotel owner to convert 72 rent-controlled units, housing many low-income tenants, to tourist use. Thank you to REP-SF members, South of Market Community Action Network (SOMCAN), all of the community organizations who signed the opposition letter to the Planning Commission, and everyone who spoke at the hearing to stop the conversions! To learn more, read SOMCAN's executive director Angelica Cabande's opinion piece in 48Hills about the fight to save affordable housing and stop the conversion of the Mosser Hotel.
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Video: BUSTED! California's Corporate Landlord Group Hires People to Fake Opposition to Rent Control
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BUSTED! The California Apartment Association, the state's largest corporate landlord lobby group, secretly paid people to oppose to rent control at a city council meeting in Concord. This shows how desperate and corrupt they are – because when real tenants show up, we win! "Don't believe the California Apartment Association and their lies! Californians want and need rent control!" Watch ACCE Action's video to learn more!
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New Book: "Dispatches from the Threshold"
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We’re excited to share the launch of the new book, "Dispatches from the Threshold: Tenant Power in Times of Crisis," an emergent archive of the housing justice movement in North America and beyond! We’re so proud to share that REP-SF members at People Power Media co-authored Chapter 9: "Against Landlord Technology in San Francisco," along with Erin McElroy of the Anti-Eviction Mapping Project and Matthew Martignoni. Order the book!
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New Study Counters YIMBY Narrative on Supply & Demand
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A new study by economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco has found that constraints on development have little or no impact on housing prices. Sorry (not sorry), YIMBYs! The study proves what our advocacy has always said: Housing is expensive because people are getting richer and not because of supply and demand!! Making it easier to build is not going to make housing more affordable!! As Tim Redmond writes about the study in 48Hills, "economic inequality, which leads to gentrification and displacement, is at the heart of all of these problems." Read the full study, or just watch Priced Out, an animated short film by REP-SF members, People Power Media about why housing is so expensive!
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New Report: We Need Affordable Homes
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Invite Your Communities to Subscribe to Our Newsletter!
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Our monthly Planning to the People newsletter (that you are reading now!) provides the latest news and ways to take action on behalf of grassroots communities for housing justice and equitable city planning – all in one place! Help us build our momentum by encouraging your networks and communities to subscribe to our newsletter: Share our subscription form!
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