by Zach Bollinger
In the final two weeks of June, organizations, nonprofits, activists and concerned citizens assembled at City Hall, largely under the banner of The People’s Budget Coalition, to demand, well, a budget for the people, not a budget for the billionaires, speculators, and landlords. This coalition lobbied for a variety of interests, including funding for arts programs, women’s safety and rights organizations, maintaining Free City College, and disabled and senior citizen services. Mine was in housing and homeless services and programs—particulary subsidy programs that house homeless people and keep them housed.
It is well-documented that homelessness is primarily driven up by the cost of living, debunking “haters’” claims of mental illness and drug addiction. The corporate YIMBYs would have us believe a housing shortage is the culprit, and that if we “just build more housing” through deregulation and dezoning—does that sound like Ronald Reagan?—market rates can fall as much as a WHOPPING 15%.
Well, let’s look at some simple math:
According to Zillow.com, as of July 5, 2026,
Average 2-bedroom apartment cost per month: $5,261/month
Per year – $5,261 x 12 = $63,132/year
Suppose we have mother of two children in need of a two-bedroom apartment, working at San Francisco’s minimum wage:
Annual pre-tax income: $19.61 x 40 hours x 52 weeks = $40,788/year
Monthly, that is: $3,399/month
Before taxes, she’ll come up short by $1,862 per month just for rent! Now, consider other expenses and bills which she definitely has. An average rent reduction of UP TO 15% is not going to be nearly enough, no matter what the YIMBYs say.
Using the 30% of income measure that landlords demand to lease a unit, the rent would need to come down to $1019.70 per month—an 81% reduction—or else her earnings would need to increase to $109.61 per hour! So, despite their good-sounding intentions, the corporate YIMBYs are wrong, too.
The cost of living isn’t just expensive for so many workers; it is unaffordable. No wonder we see such a large rise in people “choosing” to live in RVs and cars.
Turning back to the City budget, San Francisco is in a shortfall yet in this year’s budget have included 800 rental subsidies. However, all of these are only short-term, not long-term. They gave us more than the 500 subsidies we originally asked for, but less in terms of quality.
The Large Vehicle Program in San Francisco, which is dedicated to people who dwell in RVs, has Rapid Rehousing (RRH) as a crucial element. RRH is a form of a short-term, two-year rental subsidy which starts the RVer at zero or very low out-of-pocket cost for rent and increases over the two-year duration to terminate with the RVer paying the full rent price.
Given the math above, this is a problem many RVers instinctively and immediately recognize: This is a very large goal that would be difficult to achieve. Science bears this out.
Researchers at Vanderbilt University compared families who navigated the homelessness system on their own with those who received long-term rental subsidies, short-term subsidies and transitional housing. Between those who navigated the system on their own, used a short-term subsidy, or entered into transitional housing, researchers found little differences in instances of domestic violence and family separation. The study’s financial calculations show that long-term subsidies cost 9% more than a person navigating on their own and 20% more than short-term subsidies and transitional housing.
However, two outcomes massively improved for families with long-term housing subsidies. Compared with the other three methods, long-term subsidies are over 200% more effective for housing stability and reduction in instances of domestic violence. The study shows that at least 42% of people with a short-term subsidy return to homelessness in some form.
How do costs for shelter and/or re-entry into a short-term program or a resident’s unsubsidized approach pencil out in a City budget when people fall back into homelessness for not meeting a short-term program’s requirements on time? What does that say about the elected officials’ stated goals?
While we can conclude that we should be using long-term subsidies to get people out of homelessness and into stability, one method can permanently achieve this objective: Social housing.
Shanti Singh, legislative director at the statewide renters’ advocacy organization Tenants Together, and who has worked to pass legislation on social housing, such as Senate Bill 555 in 2023, defines social housing as housing that is “permanently affordable, permanently decommodified [i.e. free from speculation], accessible to all, especially to those who need it most, and with meaningful tenant governance.”
In other words, we can make housing cheaper and accessible for everyone if we remove the financial incentive and give control over housing to tenants and the general population rather than to landlords and private developers. People can remain housed in social housing because one way it can be structured is with rents being charged based on a person’s ability to pay, i.e., as a percentage of income, rather than a flat price set by a landlord that a tenant has to qualify for.
It’s a difficult goal to achieve, Singh noted. “Decision-makers are resistant to make any moves to add or implement social housing even when a city like San Francisco has funds in store for that use,” she told Street Sheet.
“Whenever anything like this comes up, whether in city councils or on the ballot, the real estate industry leaps in to curb it and stop it.,” Singh added.“They don’t want any competition.”
In 2020, San Francisco passed Proposition I, which is a modest tax of 5.5% or 6% on real estate sales of over $10 million with the intent—but not dedication, Singh added—to pay for affordable housing and housing stability. So far, out of the $500 million that has been raised, only $64 million was spent. In order to get these funds spent the way they’re supposed to, Singh said, “We need leadership to build out a system and we need to dedicate those funds to social housing … People don’t trust the government, and we need organization to hold it accountable.”
So, maybe what we can do is organize similarly to the successful Prop. C campaign in 2018, which enacted taxes on large-revenue businesses and top executive pay, and dedicated those funds to housing and services for homeless people. We could have a similar dedication of money for social housing.
We could take some cues from The People’s Budget Coalition on holding the government accountable to its constituents. Hundreds of people showed up at City Hall to protest against proposed cuts to important services and projects and succeeded in restoring most of the funding they demanded. Consider the unity and turnout we can form around an issue that directly impacts each and every one of us on a daily basis.
Unidos vencimos. United, we win!
