To buy the median price home in San Francisco, you now need to be able to afford an $8760 monthly mortgage payment. This housing crisis is fundamentally driven by a supply demand imbalance, at the city and regional level. As Supervisor, I would be the strongest advocate on the Board for increasing housing production – with a focus on housing that is affordable to working families and low income San Franciscans. This new housing should be located along commercial corridors and transit routes, and would not only help alleviate the housing affordability crisis but would also provide the customers that local merchants and cultural institutions need to continue to thrive.

As Supervisor, I would ensure that our inclusionary housing rates incentivize the greatest production of affordable housing, not just the greatest percentage of affordable housing. I would work to dramatically reduce construction costs and timelines, by fully implementing Mayor Ed Lee’s Executive Directive regarding housing permitting deadlines, with strong enforcement provisions; by staffing up and redesigning the entitlement, infrastructure and building inspection departments in order to dramatically cut unnecessary wait times; by creating better, more effective construction training programs to reduce the shortages in San Francisco’s skilled construction workforce; and by embracing modular construction – with strong labor agreements – and new construction technologies. I would also work to continue the reforms of our ADU laws, to dramatically increase the production of these natural affordable units.

As Supervisor, I would also support the legislative efforts by our state representatives to build the housing that is affordable to working families across the state.

My record at BART and MTC on housing affordability is in stark contrast to the current Supervisor, who strongly opposed SB827. As an elected BART Director, I created policy to deliver 20,000+ new homes — over 35% of which will be affordable — in the immediate vicinity of BART stations. I also wrote state legislation, with Asm David Chiu, to significantly increase the speed and number of units that will be built around BART stations with the hoped-for-passage of AB2923 later this year. As Supervisor, I am committed to working with Senators Wiener and Skinner, as well as Assemblymembers Chiu and Ting (all of whom have given me their sole endorsement), on state level reforms. Our response to the housing affordability crisis is so deeply flawed that the time for half measures is long past.