by Christin Evans
The November election is nearly here and you should have received your ballot by now if you are registered to vote.
There are three ballot measures to support when you fill out your ballot: Vote YES on Propositions B, C and I. Each of these props will help us expand our City’s affordable housing stock. With rents soaring, we need to spend more of our City money on expanding the number of permanently affordable homes for San Franciscans making less than $90,000 per year. That includes housing for retail and service workers, caregivers and teachers.
Proposition B: The ballot measure would lay the groundwork for creating a Public Bank. While the bank will not appear overnight, there is a plan to take steps to put in place the prerequisite institution needed for San Francisco to fund one in the future. Because a key focus of a future Public Bank would be helping affordable housers with low interest loans, the investment in a Public Bank would greatly expand the amount of affordable housing San Francisco can build and invest in every year. It also would work with existing credit unions and community development financial institutions buying up their existing loans so that they could make more loans to affordable housing developers locally.
Proposition C: San Francisco created the Housing Trust Fund in 2012 but kept the amount of money that could be put in the fund capped at $50 million per year. This measure raises it to $125 million per year so that as the general fund expands, so would the contributions to the housing trust fund. The money available for affordable housing projects in the city would continue to be managed by the Mayor’s Office of housing as it is today.
Proposition I: The Affordable Housing Guarantee Act makes sure that we don’t lose an important source of revenue for affordable housing in the future. Currently, we have a higher transfer tax on properties worth more than $10 million. That means that when a billionaire sells their mansion, they pay more taxes than everyday homeowners would. Mayor Daniel Lurie and Supervisor Bilal Mahmood had proposed cutting this transfer tax. So affordable housing activists gathered signatures to put this measure on the ballot to make sure that the tax stays in place and delivers $120 million per year in tax revenue. It also mandates that the money collected go towards affordable housing projects and tenant assistance.
It’s a no-brainer. Let’s make sure that we pass these three measures to help address our City’s affordable housing crisis: vote YES on B, C and I.
