All about housing
Newsom's homelessness programs and promises to the neighborhoods could put the squeeze on the city's poor

By Rachel Brahinsky

This month San Francisco's two most pressing social problems – homelessness and the lack of affordable housing – take center stage again as officials confront a dizzying array of policy decisions and program changes all at once. Unfortunately, while some of the news is good for low-income folks, much of it is bad.

At the top of the agenda is a proposed November ballot measure to help fund new homes for low- and middle-income residents. Mayor Gavin Newsom had promised the city a bond plan that would include $150 million in supportive-housing funds for the poor, but at press time the mayor's advisers were apparently pushing a far more modest plan.

That announcement comes just as housing activists report a dramatic rise in evictions of vulnerable tenants and just as officials prepare to begin charging people to sleep in homeless shelters. Simultaneously, a neighborhood group is pushing for policy changes that could eventually hamper the city's power to approve new homes.

One bright light is Sup. Chris Daly's effort to strengthen the city's ability to use surplus city property to house the homeless.

Balancing act

On May 5 the Board of Supervisors' Finance Committee is slated to discuss changes in city law aimed at making it easier to develop surplus city property to house the homeless. Volunteer outreach teams, largely made up of formerly homeless people, visited more than 80 locations around the city to begin assessing their value as housing sites. Some 40 properties have been identified as having building potential by the outreach crew, which was headed up by the Coalition on Homelessness and the San Francisco Organizing Project.

The hearing comes just two days after the mayor's Care Not Cash program finally kicked in. Under that plan, which was upheld by the courts April 30, homeless welfare clients will have their monthly checks slashed from about $410 to just $59 in exchange for either a mat on a shelter floor or a room in a residential hotel, depending on what's available.

As the Bay Guardian reported more than a year ago (and as the city's budget analyst confirmed several months later), the shelter plan will probably have a trickle-down impact on other homeless folks – including the working poor and immigrants – who are likely to be bumped from shelter beds to make room for welfare clients (see "Shelter Shuffle," 4/2/03). Similarly, the "hardcore" homeless identified by the mayor's outreach teams – scheduled to hit the streets May 10 – will also be prioritized for shelter beds, which could result in even more displacement.

The guiding logic of Care Not Cash will be tested in the next few months. Newsom has long said that many welfare clients come to San Francisco because of its generous cash benefits; when they are faced with losing their checks, he believes, they will leave, saving public dollars. The budget analyst reported last summer that there's no evidence this will actually happen.

All this comes amid an alarming increase in evictions, which could eventually increase the homeless population. "Even as the rental market has loosened up, the displacement of tenants has continued to soar," the San Francisco Tenants Union's Ted Gullicksen told us.

He's not exaggerating. Between September 2003 and February 2004, some 125 evictions were filed under the state Ellis Act, typically an indication that landlords are hoping to convert rental units into condominiums for sale. That number is more than double the 54 Ellis Act evictions filed in the six months prior, and it doesn't include other types of evictions, which have also risen, according to Gullicksen. The last time San Francisco saw so many Ellis Act evictions, Gullicksen said, was at the height of the dot-com boom.

So while the city is laudably housing a few of the most needy, many others are losing their homes – and the net effect citywide is as yet unclear.

Solutions at stake

Fresh from his inauguration, Newsom stunned opponents by calling for a $150 million general obligation bond to fund supportive housing – rooms with in-house counseling and other services. Now the proposal has changed dramatically. After negotiations with a 15-member panel of housing advocates and real estate developers, the mayor, the San Francisco Chronicle reported April 29, will likely propose only $85 million for supportive housing, in a $185 million bond package that will also include cash for affordable housing and down-payment assistance for higher-income home buyers.

Sources close to the negotiations confirmed that those numbers are in the ballpark of what's expected, and they tell us there's an agreement to ensure that the down-payment loans be designated for residents earning no more than 105 percent of San Francisco's median income. At press time it was unknown whether the Mayor's Office would push for higher income limits, and the mayor's press office wouldn't confirm details.

And there are quite a few things left to be worked out. Unanswered, for example, is how the city will fund services at the supportive-housing projects once they're built. General obligation bond funds can only be used for capital projects, so there's no clear funding stream. A tentative agreement to free up supportive-housing dollars for higher-income tenants is in the works, in the event that money for services can't be found.

The changed nature of the bond could leave tenants-rights and affordable-housing activists in a somewhat awkward position. They'll be inclined to support a bond that funds housing for low-income San Franciscans, even an imperfect one. After all, city planners say San Francisco would have to spend nearly $1 billion to fully meet its affordable-housing needs.

Their enthusiastic support is essential because the measure must win a two-thirds majority to pass – so if the bond comes out looking too friendly to the rich, the whole deal could be hurt. But the mayor won't have the final word, considering the plan can't go on the ballot without the Board of Supervisors' approval.

Finally, in related news, the once-fiery fight over the draft Housing Element – the city's blueprint for residential development that was challenged by westside neighborhood activists last year – is back on the table again this month. The central issue is the San Francisco Planning Department's inclination to encourage development of dense housing in transit corridors and to waive parking requirements for certain projects. The Coalition for San Francisco Neighborhoods, fearing a development incursion in the Sunset and Richmond Districts, filed an appeal before the Planning Commission earlier this year challenging the document from top to bottom.

At press time it was unclear whether the city would concede to the CSFN's demands, but it's likely, since the CSFN banked its support of the mayor's candidacy last fall on Newsom's agreement that the plan needed redoing. If it's revised as the CSFN hopes, the door will be opened for policy changes that could eventually slow housing production throughout the city. Mayoral spokesperson Darlene Chiu told us that the mayor has no position on the specific details of the CSFN's appeal but that he "supports changing" the document in some way.

Research assistance by Becky Wildman-Tobriner.

E-mail Rachel Brahinsky