Today! SF Must Stop Violating Fair Housing Laws by Putting Truly Affordable Housing First

PRESS RELEASE FOR Monday, September 18, 2023

“Our communities demand that the City put truly affordable and dignified housing first, so residents can stay rooted in their neighborhoods and plan for their futures,’” says Jeantelle Laberinto with the Race & Equity in all Planning Coalition (REP-SF), “but Mayor Breed’s housing ‘streamlining’ legislation ignores these vital needs and effectively turns the entire City over to speculators and developers for unaffordable housing, which will worsen inequality and homelessness.”

The Mayor’s legislation, which will be presented at the Land Use and Transportation Committee on September 18th, is full of developer giveaways with no real plan and no new funding for affordable housing, as well as no new protections for existing residents who will be even more vulnerable to displacement. Under the current Housing Element, the State’s mandate guiding local housing policy over the next eight years, nearly 57% of housing built in SF should be permanently affordable for very low to moderate income households. Unfortunately, all of the implementation policies that have been introduced following the State and SF Board of Supervisors’ approval of the Housing Element have focused on bringing more market rate housing to San Francisco and diminishing the amount of affordable housing that will be built. Cumulatively, these ordinances move San Francisco farther away from achieving outcomes for racial and social equity, violate San Francisco's legal obligation to affirmatively further fair housing, and violate key equity-oriented provisions that the Board of Supervisors already approved as part of this mandate. 

Approaching the current Housing Element cycle with the same failed approach as the last cycle, which fell short in its housing production for lower income categories by more than 8,000 units, will yield the same inequitable results–an overproduction of market rate housing and under production of affordable housing. Currently, the only tangible effort to support affordable housing is the $300 million bond which San Francisco voters will be asked to approve in 2024. This proposed bond would only be half the size of the prior housing bond despite the fact that our affordable housing goals have increased roughly three-fold.

The Mayor’s legislation also fails to provide any new protections or stability for communities that have been historically marginalized and are increasingly vulnerable to displacement. Underpinning the developer giveaways are incentives for demolitions of existing housing which will result in the increased displacement of long time tenants resulting in San Francisco repeating the harms of Redevelopment and urban renewal that demolished Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) owned housing and businesses in the Fillmore, Japantown and South of Market from the 1950s to the 1990s. In fact, the geographic scopes of the Mayor’s legislation and other Housing Element implementation proposals cover a far greater area of San Francisco than the relatively small, historic Redevelopment project areas.

This legislation silences BIPOC and low-income communities and takes away their power to self-determine how they grow and plan for their futures. At a time when San Francisco’s income inequality and racial wealth gap ranks among the worst in the world, the voices and expertise of these communities should be leading development approvals processes to ensure their right to the city and right to thrive here.

In order to comply with the Housing Element mandates for this new eight-year cycle, along with legal obligations to affirmatively further fair housing, San Francisco must take a different approach than it has taken in the past. REP-SF's Citywide People's Plan provides clear and concrete direction for how the City can meet its Regional Housing Needs Assessment (RHNA) mandates while affirmatively furthering fair housing. The Board of Supervisors must prioritize the equity actions they approved for the Housing Element and move towards an affordable first approach to stabilize our communities’ homes and livelihoods.