The San Francisco Chronicle sent reporter Rachel Swan to cover the Mayoral Candidate Housing Town Hall on 3/17/2018. My actionable ideas to stabilize our shelter and housing shortage crisis are nuanced— as to be expected — but they are not “hard to follow” as Rachel claimed. Here are a number of ways that the Chronicle could have accurately summarized my direct quotes and statements :

Weiss stated that “stable, affordable rent is an essential need for so many of our workers, families and residents” and challenged residents and candidates to gather signatures for a statewide petition to allow cities to expand rent control to all buildings, including units built after 1979 and single-family homes. Weiss re-iterated her support for expanded rent control later in the forum to crowd applause, and also spoke in support of Right to Legal Counsel for Evictions — a local anti-displacement initiative that will be on the ballot for SF voters in June 2018. [See video below at 20:43 and 25:11]

SF Mayoral Housing Debate: Angela Alioto, Amy Farah Weiss, Mark Leno, and Jane Kim 3/17/2018

2. Weiss came out strong with a demand for “no less than 50% affordable” in any upzoned housing development, and pointed out that in order to do this we will need to develop “new financing mechanisms” of a state/local tax credit and/or zero-to-low interest loans that will be paid back through rent/mortgages. What does she mean by “affordable”? Weiss stated that her 50% affordable goal is evenly distributed between 15% AMI— people living on a fixed income of under $15,000 a year — “up to 120% AMI, which is two teachers living together.” [See video above at 21:15]

3. Weiss mentioned that since the 2015 Mayor’s race she has been promoting a comprehensive program to develop ADUs — Additional Dwelling Units — which according to the Planning Department can be added to 37,000 parcels city-wide. At an estimated cost of under $200,000 per ADU, Weiss pointed out that a $1 billion housing development bond/revenue source could yield 5,000 ADUs as opposed to under 1,500 units in new multi-story developments, since affordable housing units in new developments currently cost the City an average of $600,000-$700,000. Weiss later elaborated that as Mayor she would develop a program through the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development (MOHCD) to support small property owners with zero-percent financing, free design and construction in partnership with local hire programming, temporarily wave additional property taxes, and provide tenant screening if the property owner rents to a worker, family, or resident at no more than 30% net income while the loan is in repayment. [See video at 22:21 and 51:15].

4. One of Weiss’ most memorable lines of the evening was in regard to the impact of vacant units and empty second homes on our housing market. Weiss stated that she had personally talked to property owners that intentionally leave their units vacant and said that we need to do something to disincentivize this practice “because supply and demand doesn’t work when you can withhold supply.” [See video above at 26:15]

Amy Farah Weiss speaks at Mayoral Forum. Photo: Stephen Lam / Stephen Lam / Special To The Chronicle

5. When asked about her approach to homelessness, Weiss — who mentioned her previous direct service and program development/evaluation work in mental health, transitional housing, harm reduction, and intentional healing communities — discussed the “Encampment Livability Index” tool and “Safe Organized Spaces” framework that she personally researched, developed, and piloted over the last two and a half years as the Founder/Director of the Saint Francis Homelessness Challenge. Weiss has a scalable plan to stabilize our encampment and shelter shortage crisis with funding redirected from the $30 million a year that is currently being misdirected to address encampments by DPW ($8.7 million annually) and SFPD ($20.6 million annually). Weiss feels confident that our “encampment and shelter shortage crisis” is a “manageable crisis”, and that City Hall can stabilize the 3,000–3,500 residents currently living in crisis conditions without access to a toilet, secure sleep and storage, organization, and a path to permanent housing. The goal, Weiss says, is to change the framework from “move along” to “you belong — with reasonable agreements in safe organized spaces and a pathway to housing”. She even said that if she was given the resources and authority to carry out this plan she would stop campaigning in order to lead the effort. [See video at 42:55]

Excerpt from the (SOS) Safe Organized Spaces Neighbor’s Guide

6. When asked about her thoughts on SB 827, as well as the Mayor’s role in leading the Planning Department, Weiss explained that since San Francisco’s Planning Department has approximately 45,000 units that have already been entitled that the next Mayor will need to streamline the interdepartmental permitting process. Weiss mentioned the local construction worker shortage and the subsequent need to build up our construction workforce by training and hiring underemployed/unemployed residents. Weiss reported that Christine Johnson, the former Planning Commissioner, estimated that San Francisco currently has over one hundred projects with expired entitlements after 3 years of non-use, which Weiss says gives the City leverage to push the project owner into action, negotiate more inclusionary housing, and/or utilize eminent domain to develop affordable housing. Weiss received applause when she said that “SB 827 was wrong for the City”, and emphasized the Central SoMa Plan currently has an imbalanced job:housing ratio of over 45,000 jobs to under 10,000 housing units. Weiss has said at multiple forums that the Central SoMa Plan is destined to become “Tech Displacement 3.0” if we don’t build enough affordable units and link a high percentage of new jobs to SFUSD, CCSF, and SF State graduates. [See video at 1:09:43]

To reiterate, it should be clear to anyone watching Saturday’s Mayoral Housing Forum — that:

➤ Weiss supports the expansion of rent control (and repeal of Costa Hawkins through a November 2018 ballot initiative) as an essential anti-displacement tool.

➤ Weiss supports the development of a new program through the Mayor’s Office of Housing to finance and construct Additional Dwelling Units city-wide with local hire to provide affordable housing for San Francisco’s workforce, families, and residents at no more than 30% net income.

➤ Weiss does not support the current iteration of the Central SoMa Plan because of its 5:1 jobs to housing imbalance. She is calling for more housing, 50% affordable housing in upzoned residential/mixed-use development, and direct links between SFUSD/CCSF/SF State programming and upcoming construction, tech, and service sector jobs.

➤ Weiss is calling for the development of new financing mechanisms that subsidize 50% affordable inclusionary (stratified from very low-income to middle-income) in any upzoned projects.

➤ Weiss supports the development of a vacancy tax to disincentive vacant residential units and work with small property owners to activate units for our rent-burdened workforce, families, and residents.

New details about housing policy initiatives

Introducing a vacancy tax that can be implemented without changes to state legislation. Sunday morning, March 18th — at the City Democratic Club Endorsement interview — I introduced a brand new initiative that will enable City Hall to catalogue and incentivize activation of vacant units without having to change State law. As Mayor, I will work with a diverse set of stakeholders to develop a parcel tax proposal for all residential units (and potentially commercial units) that will go on a 2019 ballot for voter approval, with exemptions for units that are occupied by owners or tenants (which can be proven with the deed, lease agreement, etc.). There will also be exemptions for properties that are in probate, have permits for construction, or have other reasonable conditions for being kept vacant. For property owners who are unable to activate units due to the high cost of rehabilitation needs, we can develop a program to provide low-to-zero percent financing for construction if they agree to rent to a pool of workers, families, and/or residents at no more than 30% of their net income while the loan is paid off.

Developing a neighborhood friendly alternative to SB 827 that prevents displacement and provides city-wide affordable housing development. At the Bernal Heights Democratic Club Mayoral Forum (that London Breed also chose to skip) I introduced for the first time an early stage initiative to allow for sustainable and community-integrated development in neighborhoods that are currently zoned for single family housing (RH-1), such as Glen Park and the Western neighborhoods of the Sunset and Richmond. What if the Planning Department allowed for increased density to up to 4 units total, if: 1) The property had never been subject to an Owner Move-In eviction or an Ellis Act eviction, 2) The property owner had an approved plan to build a 3–4 unit neighborhood-vetted building* with at least one unit that will be rented below-market rate to a pool of workers, families, and residents screened by MOHCD, 3) The new development fit within existing height limits — generally a four story limit throughout the City, and 4) There was no increase in parking permits allowed for the residency. With a conservative estimate, this initiative would easily bring in an estimated additional 5,000 units every 10 years, with at least 2,000 new units of affordable housing. *As a City we could develop 5–10 models of 3–4 unit buildings, both 3 and 4 stories, that Districts and neighborhoods could select as desirable for their community in regard to aesthetics, on-site parking, sustainable building, etc.

A “third path” financing mechanism for affordable housing. Currently, the City has two major pathways for affordable housing: 1) Requiring inclusionary rates of on-site affordable housing development in new market-rate construction — or allowing developers to “fee out” and put money into a pool for the City to use; and 2) Using federal tax credits that require the entire building to be under 60% AMI. In order to require 50% affordable to be included in upzoned developments — as well as to build affordable housing for a larger segment of our workforce, families, and residents that earn between 15% AMI to 120% AMI — we need to be able to provide zero-to-low-interest financing for affordable housing. We can best do this through the development of a Municipal Bank and/or State Bank, but also by working with local pension funds and through local measures to capture revenue — such as Safia’s Proposition D, a revenue measure for affordable housing (which unfortunately was written to pit itself again Jane Kim’s Prop C revenue measure for Early Childhood Education), or Jane Kim’s Proposed $1 Billion Housing Bond for November 2018. Speaking of local pension funds, SFERS was tasked years ago with divesting over $450 million of its $23 billion pension fund. What could be a better investment than financing local affordable housing projects with a reasonable return on investment for former City workers — this money could be meted out over time to projects that have been streamlined by the Planning Department, thus significantly lowering risk. I have also been in talks with affordable housing development experts that have shown interest in the development of a new state tax credit that could be used to finance affordable housing development, which is a great idea given our current budget surplus and need for housing development at the State level. Lastly, the recent federal corporate tax breaks from 35% to 21% provide a great new revenue source for local/regional/state development funding.

Leno’s plan to end street homelessness by 2020. I agree 100% with Mark Leno’s goal to activate 1,000+ empty SRO units with supportive services for our unsheltered population, and with Jane Kim’s rally cry to utilize eminent domain if need be. However, Leno’s plan states the he will activate those 1,000 units “immediately”, which seems overly ambitious since it will take a while to negotiate with property owners and prepare some of the units for habitation. Leno also claims that he will build as many Navigation Centers “as possible” in the first year, but if he plans to make a dent in our encampment crisis by June 2019 he will need to be bold and have a plan to build dozens of Navigation Centers on public land. Thus far I have not seen any direct initiatives that will immediately and sufficiently stabilize our systems, neighborhoods, and neighbors in crisis. That is why I continue to reach out to all the candidates, the Board of Supervisors, Mayor Farrell, and SF residents — both housed and unhoused — with the goal of implementing the humane and strategic initiatives developed through the Saint Francis Homelessness Challenge.

Performance metrics for our next Mayor

It is imperative that whoever becomes our next Mayor is held accountable to measurable outcomes before we potentially “renew their contract” for a four-year term in the November 2019 election. To that end, I have developed the framework for an Outcomes Tracker — focused on the timeline of June 2018 to June 2019 — that currently has 12 categories and 42 measurable initiatives (and growing) that can be accomplished over the next year. Please review the Outcomes Tracker and share it with your readers to help strengthen this valuable tool. As I’ve been saying throughout the campaign, it is time to move beyond “having a horse in the race” and instead “redesign the track”. Our focus should be on actionable policies and outcomes over platitudes, personalities, and fundraising totals.

Below are a few examples of categories and initiatives we can collectively measure:

Homelessness/Shelter Shortage Crisis Outcomes

☐ Stabilize San Francisco’s 3,000–3,500 unsheltered residents currently living in tents, RVs, vans/cars, make-shift structures, and sidewalks through the development of community-integrated safe organized spaces as a ladder to traditional housing and shelter options.

☐Develop and begin to implement a strategic plan to redesign our current emergency shelter system to support housing goals, mental health, increased autonomy, and dignified shelter

☐Develop an actionable multi-year plan to create sufficient amounts of affordable housing/shelter units with appropriate levels of case management and support for each individual to live in the least-restrictive, most autonomous setting possible

Affordable Housing development/Anti-displacement

☐ Re-introduce First Right of Refusal Legislation to allow nonprofits and tenants the first opportunity to purchase their building when it is placed on the market

☐ Develop a program through MOHCD to support the financing and construction of thousands of ADU’s (additional dwelling units) that can be built within 37,000 city-wide parcels identified by the Planning Department.

☐ Develop an online registry of rent-burdened SF workers and families who are seeking affordable housing at 30% of income through the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development

☐ Develop a comprehensive program to activate vacant residential units (with both incentives for small property owners and vacancy taxes/fees to the extent possible of local law)

☐ Streamline the permitting process in order to build the 35,000+ units that have already been entitled by the City.

Any questions?

Hopefully that clears up any confusion. And if there are any pressing questions about policy, I am happy to delve into further details with a follow-up interview. Every policy should be seen as iterative in service to the greater good, and I believe in sharing early drafts of ideas and initiatives in the spirit of transparency and participatory democracy.

In community,

Amy Farah Weiss

Learn more at weissformayor.com. Donate $27 and up and receive a locally designed and printed t-shirt to help Get Out the Vote on June 5, 2018.