We all know San Francisco has a housing crisis. Vulnerable residents are being displaced from the city. Their longtime communities are being wiped out. We all see it every day.

At the very same time, our city is undergoing its biggest economic boom since the Gold Rush 170 years ago.

Clearly, something is way out of balance. This economic growth is not meeting the housing needs of the city’s people. Proposition E will be a big step forward to fix that. It will directly link the growth in city office buildings — which accommodate about 40% of the city’s overall economy — to the development of new affordable housing for their workforce and for all San Franciscans.

So when Proposition E passes, San Francisco must either build affordable housing faster — and first — or office buildings slower. That will bring the city’s economic growth back in balance with the housing needs of its residents and their communities.

Here are key specific facts:

• According to the city economist’s new report on the future economic impacts of Proposition E, the Affordable Housing/Jobs Balanced Development Act on the March ballot, if Prop. E passes, the city’s overall economy will still grow by at least 38% over the next 20 years. So Proposition E is not a “no growth” measure.

• That will add 27,560 more office jobs, and the city’s annual gross domestic product of economic activity will grow by $65 billion.

• This growth could be significantly more — if the city’s actual production of new housing that is affordable for our lower and middle-income households meets the goal set by the state — which is currently to build 2,042 affordable housing units per year to meet the city’s overall need. This is “balanced growth.”

• Prop. E only slows office development approvals if affordable housing production falls short of this goal.

• It caps further office development in central SOMA beyond the projects already in the pipeline until 15,000 more new housing units — both market-rate and affordable — are built in South of Market.

• And it allows office projects that also will build their needed affordable housing at the developer’s own cost without city assistance — 809 affordable units per 1 million feet of office — to go ahead at any time. This is a powerful incentive for office developers to be part of the housing solution.

That final innovative provision of Proposition E is timely and realistic. We know this is true because the master-planned development of the obsolete Potrero Power Plant property approved just days ago by the city Planning Commission will satisfy it. That project will include 774 affordable housing units out of its 2,401 total units. This exceeds the 647 affordable units that would allow it to be greenlighted for construction of all its office buildings when Prop E passes.

We believe the vital need of our city’s people for affordable housing must come first — before continued excessive office development, like the recently approved Central SOMA Plan’s massive 6 million square feet of tech offices.

Proposition E is the right priorities, the right values and the right balanced development path for our city’s future.

Brian Basinger is executive director of the AIDS Housing Alliance. John Elberling is president of Tenants and Owners Development Corp. Mitchell Omerberg is executive director of the Affordable Housing Alliance.