by the SF League of Pissed Off Voters
Our friends at The San Francisco League of Pissed Off Voters recently released its periodic guide with recommendations on important ballot propositions. In this edition, Street Sheet reprints an abbreviated version focusing on housing and local governance.
Prop. D: No! (see accompanying opinion in this issue) It’s San Francisco’s very own Project 2025. It was put on the ballot by MAGA Mark Farrell for three reasons: as a slush fund to launder money from his sleazy Republican donors; to spin a right-wing narrative that demonizes commissions as government ‘bloat’, thereby justifying axing them to block healthy public oversight; and to increase the scrutiny-free power of the Mayor’s office – an office Farrell hopes to occupy soon.
Prop. D guts public oversight by dissolving the commissions’ decision-making ability and transferring it to the Mayor. The Mayor would gain even more power than granted already by our exceptionally “strong mayor” system. Prop. D is billed as a way to streamline inefficient bureaucracy, but its real purpose is to reduce transparency and slide decision-making out of view of independent oversight.
Under Prop. D, a task force would have nine months to arbitrarily reduce SF commissions to fewer than 65 or BOOM! all the existing commissions dissolve, except for those required by law. There goes the last check on mayoral power.
Prop. G: Fund Affordable Housing for Seniors and Families: Yes
Because of convoluted housing formulas, many low-income seniors don’t make enough money to qualify for the City’s low-income housing! The Board of Supervisors responded to this ridiculous situation in 2019 by setting up a subsidy program, but the Mayor’s budget reduced its annual funding from $4 million a year to a measly $125,000. Prop. G would establish a baseline of $4 million annually to subsidize units for seniors and families who are too poor to qualify for low-income housing, so that the people who most need homes aren’t shut out.
Prop. 5: Lower Voting Threshold to 55% for Housing and Infrastructure Bonds: Yes
Prop. 5 would make it easier for voters to approve general obligation bonds to fund affordable housing and infrastructure projects, by lowering the vote threshold for approval from two-thirds to 55%.
This measure was put on the ballot by affordable housing advocates in order to make it easier to pass the regional housing bond Bay Area Housing Finance Authority (which was unfortunately pulled from the ballot at the last minute, despite being supported by every local government across the Bay Area). Even though Prop. 5 won’t have the intended impact of supporting a historic affordable housing investment, it’s still important, because it makes it easier to pass important infrastructure bonds like this election’s Prop. B and Prop. 4. It also paves the way for an easier path to victory for future campaigns to fund affordable housing.
This makes a real difference. For example: If Prop. 5 were already the law of the land, then June 2022’s Prop. A would have passed, which would have unlocked a once-in-a-decade opportunity to fund Muni’s capital needs. Instead, Prop. A failed with 65% “yes” votes because it didn’t make it to 66%! Gah! The failure of that critical transit bond, fueled by the conservative furor around the Chesa Boudin recall, drove Muni right up to the edge of the fiscal cliff it’s now facing.
Prop. 5 is an important step to reclaiming our democracy from rich people who don’t want to pay taxes to fix our crumbling city and state. Vote yes on Prop. 5!
Prop. 33: Allow Local Governments to Expand Rent Control: Hell Yes!
This prop would repeal the awful Costa-Hawkins Rental Act of 1995, a landlord-friendly state law that restricts the type of units eligible for rent control. Costa-Hawkins is why single-family homes and buildings built after 1979 don’t have rent control in San Francisco. Prop. 33 won’t change any local laws, or enact rent control everywhere (we wish!). It just lets cities make their own rules. We’re stoked that if this passes we could expand rent control in SF (especially if we have Mayor Peskin in Room 200–squee!). Don’t fall for the well-funded misinformation on this one—let’s make sure SF voters push Prop. 33 over the finish line.
Is rent control pro-housing or anti-housing?
Rent control expansion is pro-housing, actually, because it keeps people in their homes. The biggest problem with rent control is that there isn’t enough of it! We reject the real estate lobbyist framing that says that any legislation that gets in the way of higher real estate profits is “anti-housing.” It’s not “pro-housing” to increase a family’s rent by 10% and force them out onto the street.Vote Hell Yes on Prop. 33!
But won’t rent control hurt tenants?
There is a ridiculous real estate industry narrative that rent control is a bad thing for tenants. Corporate landlord profiteers and their lobbyists are warning us that if rent control is expanded even a little bit, everyone’s rents will go up and new construction just won’t “pencil out.” This is, frankly, delulu. Even more wild, they accuse rent control expansion of being a Republican plot to restrict construction of affordable housing in small beach towns like Huntington Beach.
The idea that a wealthy enclave would pass super-restrictive rent control is strictly hypothetical—there is no actual history of that happening. Republican voters hate rent control and continually vote against it, so it beggars belief that Republican leaders would impose pretextual rent control—it’s straight up antithetical to the way their constituents think about markets. The real estate industry argues that enticing developers to build a couple hundred apartments in snobby towns is more important than providing stability and affordability to literally millions of low and middle income renters in the major metro areas that support and want to expand rent control. Don’t believe the hype: Prop. 33 is good for tenants.
What’s our plan for the housing crisis?
It’s becoming clearer and clearer that the private market has no plan for financing housing without the promise that rents will go up. Housing is seen as a sound investment for Wall Street instead of a human right for everybody. We have to shift our thinking about the housing crisis from one of regulation to one of financing, and specifically a form of financing that protects tenant stability and promises rents will actually come down. This will require innovative financing like public revenue bonds, which SF is currently pioneering. If there’s revenue for housing production, the builders will build it.
For the full version of The League’s voter recommendations, go to https://www.theleaguesf.org/voter_guides
