Working Towards A Solution To
San Francisco's Affordable Housing Crisis

by former Supervisor Chris Daly

As much as we talk about the "housing crisis" in San Francisco, let's not kid ourselves and let's not kid the public - we don't have a housing crisis in San Francisco, we have an affordable housing crisis. There is a big difference between the two and we need to acknowledge that difference.

For instance, if you are a member of a family of three and you're making over $100,000 in San Francisco (over 120 percent of the area median income) you can compete in the market rate housing picture in this city because that's about what market rate housing is. If you're making 130 percent of the area median income you can easily pay a third of your wages for rent (the traditional definition of affordable housing) and if you make a little bit more than that you can afford to purchase. The units are there.

But the problems start if you make 100 percent of the area median income or if you make 80 percent. If you make 60 percent of the median income you're beginning to get into trouble. And if you make 40, 30 or 20 percent of the area median income you simply cannot compete. At a certain point, even if you put a truly ridiculous figure like 90 percent of your paycheck into housing costs you still cannot compete.

So we clearly have an affordable housing crisis as opposed to a housing crisis. The question then is what to do about it. Some developers and business interests in San Francisco would have us believe that the easy solution is to simply start tearing down portions of our older housing stock and begin building newer buildings with more units. But turning in that direction is not logical and would not only fail to improve our affordable housing situation, it would make it worse.

First of all, as the misleading Workforce Housing Initiative (Proposition J) recently proved, additional residential buildings in San Francisco do not guarantee additional affordable residential buildings in San Francisco. And, as I have already noted, we do not have a housing crisis in San Francisco, but an affordable housing crisis.

More importantly, taking such a path would strike a potentially fatal blow at rent control in this city, since any buildings built after 1979 are exempt from San Francisco's rent control laws. With every building demolished we would be forever losing a certain number of rent-controlled units from San Francisco's housing market.

Not only would we be losing affordable units, but we would run the risk of losing something just as precious but more intangible: the diversity of our city.

The one thing I've found that just about all of us in San Francisco agree on is that we love the diversity here. We'll debate and we'll argue about just about everything else, but we'll all agree that we love our home mainly because of the diversity that's here.

I believe that this diversity that makes San Francisco such a special place is here in large part because of our rent-control laws. Unfortunately, when you look at the average income in communities of color, it trends toward the lower end of the spectrum due to factors like historical racism and the lack of the wealth base passed down through generations that you find in many sections of the white community. A lot of people from communities of color are stuck in the rental market because of this and could be forced to gradually leave the city if our rent-controlled units began vanishing. Therefore, maintaining rent controlled units is critical to maintaining the diversity that is one of San Francisco's most important features.

But protecting rent control - and San Francisco's diversity - is only one step to deal with the affordable housing crisis. Other action is also needed. That's why I've taken an affirmative approach to supporting new housing development, especially when that development includes higher levels of affordable units. That's what we did with the Rincon Hill development where, on an area that's currently surface parking lots, we approved up to 1600 new housing units with 106 more affordable units than the developers are required to provide under current city law.

And we don't have to stop there. If you talk to folks at the Planning Department, they'll tell you that there are development opportunities to build at least 30,000 new residential units in San Francisco. And they'll tell you that on most of these sites, like Rincon Hill, there aren't currently any residential buildings.

Now of course there is not the capacity to build 30,000 units over the next several years. So, if there's limited capacity to build and there are multiple sites to choose from, shouldn't public policy reflect that? Shouldn't we say to developers that we would prefer that they go and build on that vacant lot? Shouldn't we say that we would rather you didn't tear down this building that's habitable, where people are living and where a community has formed?

I believe we should and that is why I introduced the Anti-Demolition Ordinance at the Board of Supervisors which would have forbidden the demolition of residential buildings with 20 or more units (the type of housing that 22 percent of San Franciscan renters currently reside in). Although, unfortunately, Gavin Newsom vetoed the ordinance, I still believe it is one of the more positive steps we can take and I will continue to push it as an option through either further legislation or the ballot initiative process.

We must continue this fight because ultimately, the key to solving our affordable housing crisis lies not in protecting the interests of developers and other wealthy campaign contributors, but in ensuring that renters have access to reasonably priced housing and creating planning policies that take advantage of available land without diminishing the number of rent controlled units and the diversity of San Francisco.


Supervisor Chris Daly's opinion piece was adapted from a speech he gave during the Feb. 10, '04 Board of Supervisors meeting in support of his Anti-Demolition Ordinance.