“Without Real Changes, the Housing Element is just Words” Says Citywide Coalition to the Board of Supervisors and Planning Dept.

PRESS RELEASE FOR Monday, January 23, 2023

The Board of Supervisors is poised to approve San Francisco’s Housing Element on Monday, the first set of housing policies that claims to center racial and social equity. But in order to realize these goals, the Board of Supervisors and Planning Dept. must be guided by the solutions put forward by the communities most impacted by gentrification and displacement. 

“Without real changes, the Housing Element is just words on paper,” says Jeantelle Laberinto, Race and Equity in all Planning Coalition (REP-SF), a citywide coalition of nearly 40 grassroots organizations throughout San Francisco. “As we transition into the implementation phase, REP-SF demands that the Board of Supervisors and Planning make it real. We want them to turn the language centering equity into real, concrete, meaningful change.”

American Indian, Black and other Communities of Color will continue to suffer from the onslaught of gentrification and displacement unless the recommendations they have made to the Housing Element are faithfully implemented and other provisions are thrown out so that conditions become better and not worse.

REP-SF organizations have engaged in every part of the Housing Element process for nearly two and half years. In the final months, Planning began to incorporate some of REP-SF's recommendations, and started to refer to the Citywide People's Plan, which is REP-SF's visionary blueprint laying out housing and land-use policies that truly center on racial, social and economic equity. Without REP-SF, the City would not have had any real pathway to realize its stated goal of centering racial and social equity in the Housing Element.

“We fought tooth and nail to get the Planning Department to include our recommendations into the Housing Element,” said Reina Tello, People Organizing to Demand Environmental and Economic Justice (PODER). “We weren't able to get as much as we wanted or needed, but it was a huge accomplishment to crack the system to get some meaningful changes included.” 

The State of California and Association of Bay Area Governments have assigned a mandate that San Francisco must ratify a set of housing policies in its 2023-2031 Housing Element that will result in 82,069 new housing units with 46,598 (57%) of those being affordable to households that have low to moderate incomes.

“In its efforts to comply with the state’s requirements, the overall approach that Planning has taken with the Housing Element silences low income and people of color communities, deregulates market rate housing, and provides no concrete strategies or resources to meet the affordable housing mandates. This all adds up to a Housing Element that violates the Fair Housing Act and will cause even more displacement and gentrification.” says Don Misumi, Richmond District Rising.

Particularly worrying is that the “Rezonings” as described in the Housing Element make it so that San Francisco is headed to a new phase of urban renewal that will tear through communities in the same way Redevelopment did, razing homes and businesses with little regard to the displacement, trauma and disconnection.

“If we’re not vigilant, San Francisco’s Housing Element can turn into Redevelopment 2.0,” says Ericka Scott, San Francisco African American Arts & Cultural District.

REP-SF recommends the Board of Supervisors, the Planning Department and other city and state agencies do the following:

• Prevent Redevelopment 2.0 by protecting existing tenants from displacement, especially resulting from demolition of existing residential units.

• Defuse the Developer Dirty Bomb (Action 8.1.5) which completely undermines all racial and social equity considerations.

• Identify and secure resources now for an affordable housing first strategy, including for the next fiscal year.

• Move forward with the Municipal Bank and use the Prop I dollars to fund an Affordable First strategy that starts with aggressively and strategically purchasing sites for affordable housing development and existing apartment buildings to transition them to permanent affordable housing.

• Prioritize housing that's affordable for households with extremely low and low incomes.

• Protect all existing sources of affordable housing, especially inclusionary.

• Retain input and solidify leadership from communities of color, low-income communities and cultural districts to guarantee racial and social equity.

• Prevent and eliminate homelessness through more permanent housing, not temporary, and improving shelter access and the Coordinated Entry system.

REP-SF looks forward to working with the Board of Supervisors to make the stated goals of centering racial and social equity in the Housing Element real and not just words on paper. 

“It's up to us to work together– communities of color and low income along with the Board of Supervisors and Planning to correct the dangers of the Housing Element during implementation,” says Erick Arguello, Calle 24 Latino Cultural District.