News

By Shawn Vestal, The Spokesman-Review, Spokane, Wash.:yahoo – excerpt

May 29—One key dynamic of urban homelessness is laid bare in a new book by a pair of Seattle researchers.

When they compared major cities across the country, they found that homelessness was not strongly associated with high levels of poverty in a community.

What it was very strongly correlated with was high levels of wealth.

The authors of this new book, “Homelessness is a Housing Problem,” found that many cities with very high levels of poverty — from Detroit to Dallas to Miami to Philadelphia — have relatively low rates of homelessness…(more)

By : sfstandard – excerpt

The upcoming recall election of District Attorney Chesa Boudin presents a fork in the road for San Francisco as two camps of voters envision different paths forward for the city.

On one side, some San Francisco voters report satisfaction with their experience living in the city and remain staunchly faithful to progressive ideologies. On the other, people express fears of crime and dissatisfaction with aspects of city life and point to Boudin’s recall as a stepping stone to solving its many issues…(more)

I appreciated the even-handed approach the media is taking on this and other controversial issues lately. Investigative reporters are digging deep and finding a lot of flaws in the systems at City Hall. We need to fix those systems that perpetuate the problems and that will take new leadership with management skills that seem to be lacking. For the time being we will have to rely on the media to keep digging and exposing what has remained hidden for too long and hope for some new heroes to appear on the horizon with some fresh ideas to pull us out of the morass we are in and end the fighting over lifestyles that is sapping all our energies.

SPUR PLAN:

If anyone wants to see the SPUR plans the video with maps and here.
https://www.spur.org/events/2022-05-24/renewing-san-franciscos-economic-core
See above for links to the program and the maps

Notes taken by Mari on SPUR plans : “Renewing San Francisco’s Economic Core” This will require a new level of collaboration between public and private-sector stakeholders to seize opportunities and overcome extant…

This is pretty much about the City Core, which to them is the downtown area, that they had spread into Northbeach and down into SOMA and a far west as Castro in the minds of the Downtown establishment. Some of their maps indicated little spurts all over the city of active areas pre-COVID.

There was a map that I hope we can find that shows (what I believe they labeled) the tax retrieval base, more or less. Where the new business activity is centered now. there was a small dark area around the Market Embarcadero area and the next big color spread that seemed to indicate activity was on the West Side of he city. I may have misunderstood this so it would be good to see the video and review the report.

It is clear that the primary concern on SPUR is to revive the Market Street corridor where 75% of the sales tax came from office spaces.

The primary objective was described as the need to take these actions to revive the preferred office space area:
Re-articulate the uses of the downtown economic core
Clean and keep safe streets
Deal wth the affordability issues
Re-imagine the downtown community benefit district

Night life and night lights
Painted sidewalks, signage etc.

They like the idea of Friday night monthly events to get people to work and they give them a reason to stay and play in the bars and restaurants by having music and entertainment on the streets.

They see the downtown mixed up with live/work etc. as a long term 30 year solution.
For the short term they want bodies. For that they want to get companies to bring workers in for 3 day work weeks.
They want to get residents in SF to come downtown as well.
They like the idea of pop-ups in spaces to activate the ground floors and fill them with art and culture.

Of course this means taking people away from their neighborhood businesses and could present a challenge to people living in other districts.

***

Mayor’s response:
https://sfmayor.org/article/mayor-london-breed-announces-investments-support-small-business-recovery-san-francisco%E2%80%99s

by Mary Kate Bacalao : sfstandard – excerpt

Mary Kate Bacalao is the director of external affairs and policy at Compass Family Services, co-chair of the Homeless Emergency Service Providers Association, and co-chair of the Local Homeless Coordinating Board.

The Chronicle’s investigation of “unstable, underfunded and understaffed residential hotel rooms” is a sobering indictment of a housing system pushed to its absolute breaking point.

Single-room occupancy hotels, commonly called SROs, are a cornerstone of San Francisco’s supportive housing portfolio. The supportive housing model—which at its heart combines deeply affordable housing assistance with robust on-site services—went national in the 1990s, and in recent years state and local revenues like Project Homekey and 2018’s Proposition C have catalyzed significant expansions to deal with a growing crisis of unsheltered homelessness. The problem is not that supportive housing is a failed model, but that these program expansions are happening on top of a foundation that is crumbling from decades of underinvestment…(more)

By Tim Redmond : 48hills – excerpt (includes infograph)

Mayor’s Office has no clue where to find the money, and won’t even spend the existing Prop. I windfall right now. It’s ‘unbelievable’.

If San Francisco wants to meet its state-mandated affordable housing goals, the city will need to find roughly $19 billion of local money over the next eight years—and nobody at the Mayor’s Office or the City Planning Department has any idea where that kind of money will come from.

In fact, officials from those departments can’t even explain what the current funding gaps are, or have been in the past three years…

Preston asked if the Mayor’s Office of Housing or the Planning Department had requested that Breed spend the Prop. I money on housing. The clear answer: No.…(more)

Is this Mayor’s Office of Housing where the holdup lies? Must she wait to be asked by on of her departments to spend the funds?

When the SF Bank is established will the officers be empowered to write checks for projects approved by the Supervisors or will they have to wait for the Mayor or one of her departments to approve their financial decisions?

Monday, June 13, 7 PM
What it is like to live in a BMR in San Francisco.
We will introduce Supervisor Preston to his new Tenderloin constituents and others who live in BMR and mixed income projects under various government- supported programs to find out which are the most popular among the  residents. We hope discus  different programs for different neighborhoods and consider how residents can grade the building managers to strengthen the system that is supposed to support their needs.  (Information)
Monday, Jun 13, 2022 07:00 PM – Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83818239821?pwd=NlJ6T1BoRVhjdENCTzA0V0lhVit3dz09
Meeting ID: 838 1823 9821
Passcode: 443720
Dial by your location
+1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose)
Meeting ID: 838 1823 9821
Passcode: 443720

By Rick Girling : 48hills – excerpt

Historic proposal that could transform municipal and nonprofit financing will present preliminary plans.

On Thursday/19 at 3pm, newly-hired public banking consultant HR&A Advisors will join the Reinvest in San Francisco Working Group in formulating a plan to establish San Francisco’s first public bank since the city was founded more than 200 years ago.

Last June, the Board of Supervisors took an important step towards setting up a public bank for the city by unanimously passing the Reinvest in San Francisco ordinance introduced by Supervisor Dean Preston. Another dramatic step came on April 15, 2022, with the first official meeting of the Working Group, composed of financial professionals and community representatives charged with preparing a business plan for the bank. After being approved by the Board of Supervisors, the plan will be submitted to the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation in Sacramento…(more)

By Michael Barca : substandard – excerpt

San Francisco is entering uncharted territory to recoup more than $23 million that city officials say Recology shouldn’t have charged local ratepayers for trash pick-up.

Supervisor Aaron Peskin announced legislation Tuesday urging the city Controller’s Office to draft new rates that Recology can charge San Francisco customers for garbage collection.

According to Peskin, this marks the first time in nearly a century that the city—rather than Recology or its predecessors—plans to initiate rate-setting. The supervisor hopes to offset a billing increase due in July by directing the controller to kickstart the process now.

Peskin’s legislation comes a day after Controller Ben Rosenfield concluded that Recology netted $23.4 million in “excess profits” between 2018 and 2021—largely because the firm spent less on its workforcethan anticipated…(more)

By Tim Redmond : 48hills – excerpt

Speculators who use the Ellis Act to evict tenants saw their property values rise almost twice as fast as other landlords in the city, with the median haul from tossing long-term renters into the streets at $1.4 million.

That’s what a study, by the Board of Supes Budget and Legislative Analyst, makes clear—and it shows that these speculators can afford to pay far more money in relocation fees than the city currently charges.

The report was requested by Sup. Myrna Melgar, who has introduced legislation to raise the relocation fees, currently at $7,419 per tenant, to $10,000. That bill will be heard Monday/16 at the Land Use and Transportation Committee.

Melgar is seeking to raise the relocation fees to $10,000 per tenant, with a maximum of $30,000 for a unit.

The legislation would also make clear that if a landlord decides to re-rent any unit vacated by the Ellis Act they also have to rent the rest of the units, at the pre-Ellis price…(more)