SF Supervisor Dean Preston seeks $100M for public housing

A San Francisco supervisor has drummed up a plan to raise $100 million to build public housing.

Supervisor Dean Preston called for $100 million in long-term debt financing to pay for 100-percent affordable housing developments, along with repairs to existing government-funded homes, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

The tenant rights attorney and Democratic Socialist also asked the Board of Supervisors to approve $35 million to pay for housing initiatives.

The initiatives include teacher housing projects, elevator improvements at old single-room-occupancy hotels, rental subsidies for low-income seniors and disabled residents, and aid to communities that want to set up housing cooperatives or land trusts.

If Preston gets his way, the money would be allocated in the next city budget.

“When it comes to affordable housing right now, we are on a road to nowhere if we don’t start doing something different,” Preston told the Chronicle. “We have got to take our blinders off and start embracing strategies for ramping up affordable housing in a big way.”

The funding push is motivated largely by Preston’s belief that the city government can help solve the housing crisis by building and operating more homes itself, while promoting other alternate models such as land trusts.

He pointed out that San Francisco has built less than half of the state-mandated affordable housing goal in the current eight-year “housing element.” And that doesn’t include the 82,000 homes – including 33,000 affordable units – it must build by 2030. The price tag: $1.3 billion.

The city has long struggled to foster the development of affordable homes as nonprofit developers face long project approvals and soaring construction costs.

Mayor London Breed proposed a $14 billion spending plan for the next fiscal year, but Preston and some of the city’s other progressive leaders don’t think it envisions nearly enough funds for affordable housing.

Breed tried and failed three times to get supervisors to put a measure before voters that would streamline housing production. Supporters are now gathering signatures to put it on the ballot instead.

At least three supervisors are pushing a rival ballot measure with stricter affordability requirements.

Preston wants to tap into revenue generated by Proposition I, a successful 2020 city ballot measure that doubled taxes on the sale of buildings valued at more than $10 million.

Preston, who sponsored the measure, has clashed with Breed over how the tax revenue should be spent. He wants the money allocated for affordable housing — as he says it was intended. Instead, revenue from the measure goes to the city’s general fund to be spent for any purpose.

[San Francisco Chronicle] – Dana Bartholomew

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