Category: Update

Via email

Dear CRS and Friends:

Today the petitions were filed successfully, and because of you and others, we are in great shape to qualify for the ballot in November. We needed 8,974 petition signers, and we turned in 18,571! Huzzah!!! This was a huge undertaking in a short period of time, and thanks also to the museum who spearheaded this project and were able to make it happen, with the hard work, energy and commitment of co-sponsor OTGH Alliance, along with support from Concerned Residents of the Sunset and everyone else who took the time to sign the petition.

Watch Channel 7 ABC local news at 6 tonight. J.R. Stone will have a report on this from the tennis courts at GGP!

by Chris Roberts :sfstandard – excerpt

Tenderloin Housing Clinic, one of the city’s most prominent city-funded nonprofit housing providers, is heading toward a historic moment: its workforce could be the first in San Francisco that primarily serves the formerly homeless to go on strike.

The city funnels $1.2 billion annually to 643 nonprofits, 70% of which is spent on homeless outreach, permanent supportive housing, healthcare, and other key services for the city’s indigent population, according to the San Francisco Controller’s Office.

Considered a vital tool in the city’s struggle against homelessness, the sector employs workers who are nonetheless “among the lowest paid workforce in San Francisco,” according to a June 8 Controller’s report. Average hourly wages range between $20 and $25 an hour, the report said.

At THC, roughly 300 people work in roles including front-desk clerks and janitors at its 24 single-room occupancy hotels and apartment complexes, and as caseworkers who manage the sometimes-intensive services at city-funded supportive housing. Organized with the Service Employees International Union Local 1021, their last contract expired in June 2020…(more)

By Sam Lew : 48hills – excerpt

Developer wants luxury housing in Western Addition; residents fear displacement

McCormack Baron Salazar (MBS), which developed the apartments in 2001, plans to replace the public housing complex with 260 luxury units alongside 193 units of public housing in a 19-story tower.

The tenants demanded that the St.Louis-based developer present an alternative set of redevelopment plans with transparency and tenant input; they want to ban any market rate housing and instead ensure that there are units for public and affordable units…(more)

We know the law will probably evict the tenants thanks to our state legislators who removed all protections for tenants and removed local citizens and our government from development decisions, but, we would like to know how our supervisors would handle this if they could. This is also a good reminder that all elections have consequences and we can only vote for people who run. If no on runs to replace those state representatives we are stuck with them.

This is a cut and dried issue. I would like to ask each supervisor to explain to us not what the law says, but how they feel this project. Do they support evicting tenants from a 193-unit pubic apartment complex in order to add 260 luxury units? No additional affordable units will be built and the new “so-called affordable” units will not be as affordable as the current units when they are built. This project will literally remove 193 units of affordable housing and probably throw some people onto the street who can not afford higher “affordable housing” elsewhere.

How much is a person’s life worth? Is it worth disrupting 193 people their fillies and partners, to build 260 luxury units?

By Jonah Owen Lamb : sfstandard – excerpt

Inmates languishing in their cells, cases not being reviewed or charged, warrants gone missing.

These are just some of the problems caused by the bungled replacement of a decades-old software San Francisco’s criminal justice system uses to communicate, according to documents obtained by The Standard and sources familiar with the situation.

The new network was supposed to bring a system that relied on an antiquated Atari-era program into the 21st century. Instead, it has caused chaos and could lead to the violation of constitutional rights—and potentially endanger police officers, according to people with knowledge of the issue.

“This new system is a mess,” San Francisco prosecutor Ryan Khojasteh said. “It’s a complete upending [of] how we do our job.”

The biggest issue, he said, is getting timely access to information prosecutors need to handle cases and manage their workload…(more)

How is it that San Francisco cannot find a competent computer system that functions in Silicon Valley. Perhaps we should look at a city that has a functioning system and hire that contractor. There must be an existing system somewhere they works.

By Bob Silvestri : marinij – excerpt

The State’s unrealistic, dysfunctional housing regulations demand that cities and counties “build” more housing, even though 98% of California’s cities and counties don’t build any housing: never have/never will. But, for all the anti-NIMBY, gavel pounding, and stomping of feet the state’s “trickle-down-the market will solve everything” approach has been an utter failure.

Let me repeat that. The state’s approach to increasing affordable housing has been an utter failure.

New ideas have been suggested but the state continues to double down on failure. A day of reckoning is approaching.

Over the past 15 years that the state has added regulations on top of regulations, penalties on top of penalties, and even resorted to having a special task force suing municipalities for Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) compliance, California housing production today (about 1 new house for every 656 people with a population of 39.4 million) is worse, on a per capita basis, than it was when all this started with the passage of SB 375 in 2008 (about 1 new home built for every 610 people in 2008 with a population of 36.3 million). And it’s a lot less than we were building 40 years ago (about 1 new home per 265 people with a population 23.8 million).

In other words, we’re building less housing today than 40 years ago…(more)

By Mike Ege : sfstandard – excerpt

This week, the Board of Supervisors has a return engagement with two controversial housing bills, and is set to clear financing for three importantaffordable housing projects. They will also likely vote to expand a funding scheme for further promoting tourism, and declare certification of theJune 7 election results. (As always, wonks looking for the full kit and caboodle can check out the complete agenda.)

Housing Bills: Will Gridlock Continue?

The Board is set to again consider two bills on housing that caused considerable headaches for housing advocates: one, to legalize more dwelling units in single-family neighborhoods, and another to stop development of certain “micro-unit” housing projects. The two bills have been paired together as part of a compromise, but at the board’s June 14 meeting, District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman asked that the bills be continued due to advice from the City Attorney.

The Mandelman bill, originally drafted to allow some fourplexes and other multi-unit buildings in districts zoned for single-family homes, was received with some optimism from housing advocates. But it was plunged into development hell at the board’s Land Use and Transportation Committee, who tacked on several caveats…

The companion bill, sponsored by District 3 Supervisor Aaron Peskin, bans “micro-unit” efficiency studio housing in the Tenderloin and Chinatown, with the intention of preventing the gentrification of those neighborhoods’ existing stock of single room occupancy hotels…(more)

They might as well quit building micro units since most are empty due to the lack of takers.

https://chargefinder.com/us/charging-station-san-francisco-ccsf-sfmta/dnmrgz

It appears that the majority of public EV chargers were all planned for the now empty downtown office buildings and hotels and for some reason there are a lot of them around North Beach and Fisherman’s Wharf.

Another mistaken assumption by our city planners that the office workers would drive EVs and the rest of us would not. What do you want to bet that the EV chargers are not cheap. Perhaps they would like to move them to less dense neighborhoods where car owners live and now work in larger numbers.

By Mike Ege : sfstandard – excerpt

It’s a rare election in San Francisco that doesn’t feature some form of measure on the ballot, and some of the policy questions they pose might have you asking how they wound up going to voters in the first place…

This year—with four elections scheduled—has been especially busy.

So far, San Francisco has voted on 11 ballot questions, including four recalls. Our final election of the year, on Nov. 8, will probably also feature a full slate of measures. To date, the Board of Supervisors is mulling 10 more charter amendments for the fall election. Meanwhile, more measures—including a plan to undo car closures in Golden Gate Park and the Great Highway—are in the works.

So, how do these questions come before the electorate?

Ballot measures can land on the ballot in multiple ways, from signature-gathering to the legislative process. Here’s a breakdown of the different kinds of ballot measures and how exactly they happen…(more)

Thanks to the author for taking this on. We need a refresher course every now and then since the laws on these procedures have been known to change.

By Adam Shanks : sfexaminer – excerpt

The struggle over homeless services in The Haight will continue.

A new law will require The City to locate 20 units of temporary housing for young adults facing homelessness in the neighborhood — but it seems unlikely to ever actually happen.

Mayor London Breed will decline to sign the law, to which the Board of Supervisors gave final approval this month, her office confirmed to The Examiner. Nevertheless, the law will still take effect. It passed with unanimous support from the Board of Supervisors, rendering Breed’s veto power meaningless. Still, her refusal to sign is a signal she does not support the bill…

The Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing reviewed Preston’s legislation in a May report and estimated that it would cost between $5.7 million to $9 million to purchase 20 new units of housing. The cost of actually operating a 20-bed shelter was estimated to be between $715,000 to $860,000 per year.

The City has $58.4 million left in its Our City, Our home fund earmarked for transition-age-youth housing, but spending it on shelter — including the transitional shelter stipulated in Preston’s legislation — is not allowed without a tweak to city law, according to HSH.

The City’s Real Estate Division looked in the neighborhood and did not find a single appropriate building for sale. Eleven were available for lease, but none of those were an entire building…(more)