Listen to SF voters: scale up social housing

We just turned in signatures to send the Affordable Housing Guarantee Act to the ballot! This measure builds on progressive wins of the past and commits City Hall to a future where working people can afford to live in San Francisco. Check out my recent Op Ed in the SF Examiner where I talk about the measure in more detail. 

A recent rally held at San Francisco City Hall where our coalition turned in over 20,000 signed petitions

This is a vision that San Francisco voters have repeatedly endorsed at the ballot box. In 2020, voters overwhelmingly passed a tax on the ultra-wealthy to fund social housing. By a whopping 74%, voters demanded 10,000 units of social housing through Prop. K, and also decisively passed Prop. I, a tax on sellers of skyscrapers and mansions, to fund this vision. At the time, the Board of Supervisors unanimously passed legislation to use the tax revenue for housing.

The plan, hatched by my office and the local chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, delivered real results. We invested $200 million in innovative solutions to the affordability crisis. We launched the biggest local rent relief program in U.S. history and stopped 20,000 evictions. We acquired five sites for the development of over 500 homes, funded the development of another 60 affordable homes for educators, invested $20 million in public housing repairs, committed $10 million to fix broken elevators in permanent supportive housing, and made an unprecedented investment of $64 million in community land trusts that stop displacement and provide permanently affordable homes for San Franciscans. For a time, Prop I was working as voters intended. 

Then, after two years of progress, billionaire-backed politicians sprung into action to prevent these successes from being scaled up. They diverted the funds, squandering hundreds of millions that could have been spent on housing. Earlier this year, the Board of Supervisors even dissolved the oversight body tasked with guiding the investments in social housing.

Now the real estate lobby wants to repeal the tax altogether, and the Mayor and Supervisor Bilal Mahmood introduced legislation to do exactly that. The absurdly named “BUILD Act,” which would have overturned the Prop I tax, was announced back in February but was recently put on ice without receiving a hearing. But the groups that would have benefitted from such a tax break haven’t stopped, and are hard at work pushing similar measures in Sacramento, and have vowed to bring the BUILD Act back after the November election.  

Prop I’s transfer tax  only impacts those who sell property for $10 million or more: corporate landlords, billionaires, and, increasingly, private equity firms. The same billionaires and corporations who have benefited from Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill Act” tax reductions would get a further tax sweetener if Prop. I were repealed. 

This isn’t simply about avoiding taxes.It’s an attempt to prevent a competing vision of the city before it gains momentum. If San Francisco successfully builds social housing at scale, rents would finally come down. That would be good news for everyone – except this tiny group of extremely wealthy investors, who much prefer the current situation, where only they dictate how much new housing is built and what it costs to live here. 

The Affordable Housing Guarantee Act would preserve the transfer tax on billionaires and corporations, and guarantee the revenue is invested in the housing working-class San Franciscans desperately need. It would make sure that City Hall finally follows through on the vision voters have already embraced.

The transfer tax raises far more money than any other proposal on the table. It’s also the only revenue stream that isn’t limited to traditional housing models, and can fund innovative alternatives like mixed-income social housing. 

City Hall has committed to securing 46,000 new affordable homes by 2031, but has no actual plan to do so. Preserving Prop I and dedicating the funds to housing should be a no-brainer. Combined with the expansion of the Housing Trust Fund recently announced by the Mayor, we have an opportunity this November to take a giant step forward in solving San Francisco’s housing affordability crisis. 

Prop. I has already raised over $500 million, and is projected to raise another $350 million over the next three years. We can make sure that those funds are used to scale up social housing and build a city where everyone – bus drivers, nurses, teachers, nannies, and artists – can afford to live and raise families here. This is the future that voters have repeatedly asked for, and this November we can make sure City Hall finally delivers on it.