From California’s next governor to how San Francisco taxes businesses, many Latino voters entered this week’s primary election focused on how measures and candidates would address the city’s housing shortage and rising costs of living.
Nearly 3 in 10 Bay Area residents struggled to make ends meet in 2023, even with half of those living in poverty working full time, according to a Tipping Point analysis. Over the past year, El Tecolote and the Public Press have documented how San Francisco’s working-class communities are experiencing homelessness and food insecurity, and are increasingly turning to informal solutions such as residential RVs and street vending to make ends meet.
“We are dealing with a lot of economic uncertainty, high interest rates, high construction costs, and so even the best crafted policies may not be producing housing right now because the market’s just not working,” said David Garcia, Deputy Director of Policy Terner Center for Housing Innovation at UC Berkeley. “It takes some patience to see results of that work, [which] also highlights the need for shorter term reforms to keep people housed.”
These concerns were reflected in a pre-election poll conducted by El Tecolote and the San Francisco Public Press, where respondents ranked housing and affordability among their top priorities for this year’s election. As part of our post-election coverage, we’re now highlighting how leading candidates and measures say they would address affordability concerns.
Keeping the status quo or starting new? The California governor’s race
On June 5, Democratic candidate Xavier Becerra advanced to the gubernatorial general election. His opponent has yet to be determined: as of June 8, Steve Hilton has 25.9% of the vote while Tom Steyer has 21.5%. Results won’t be certified until July.
Becerra, a longtime Democratic politician and son of Mexican immigrants, supports streamlining housing construction while enforcing tenant protections and expanding childcare access. He says he will use state authority to lower prices, pledging to protect access to essential medical health services for immigrant communities and freeze utility rates and home insurance premiums.
However, Becerra takes a different approach to homelessness, as he told CalMatters: “Unhoused Californians should not get to voluntarily stay on the street if help is available.”
Meanwhile, Hilton, a British-born political commentator endorsed by Donald Trump, is campaigning on deregulation and closer alignment with the federal government — including its immigration enforcement policies. The Republican candidate said he would remove state policies that slow down housing construction, expand the use of California’s natural gas reserves to lower energy costs at the expense of previous environmental regulations, and eliminate income taxes for people making less than $100,000 a year.
Democrat Tom Steyer, on the other hand, promises to build 1 million homes within four years, protect renters’ rights and end tax breaks for wealthy commercial property owners.
“My basic attitude about homelessness is no one gets well on the street,” Steyer told El Tecolote. “If someone can’t make rent for a month or two, you help them so that they don’t end up on the street, because being on the street is such a stressful, destructive environment that it produces all kinds of problems for the people who are living there that are not easily remedied.”
Market rate housing or subsidies? Congressional candidates differ on how to increase housing
Last week, State Senator Scott Wiener and District 1 Supervisor Connie Chan advanced to November’s general election, where they will seek to fill Nancy Pelosi’s seat in Congress, a position through which they could continue furthering the quest for housing availability in the city.
“The federal government has a huge role to play when it comes to financing housing in general, as well as allocating resources for, for tenants and for affordable housing development,” said Garcia. “The question is which [candidate] is better positioned to use the tools that the federal government has to impact housing outcomes at the local and state level.”
Wiener, who has represented San Francisco in the California State Senate since 2016, is known for his pro housing development legislation and his vocal support for LGBTQ+ and immigrant rights. One of his most well-known pieces of legislation is SB 35, which allowed developers to streamline the local permitting process for multi-family homes with affordable housing units in places that had yet to meet their affordable housing production quotas.
In his campaign for congress, he has promised to lower housing costs and build 8 million new homes. He wants to expand policies that incentivize developers to continue building more housing across income levels, including market-rate housing.
Chan, on the other hand, says she favors direct federal investments in affordable housing over relying primarily on corporate developers and wants the federal government to prioritize funding low and middle-income housing. She supports expanding federal grants and low-interest loans for affordable housing and increasing rental assistance to vulnerable tenants. She wants to make sure new housing doesn’t displace tenants or businesses. She also plans to support “middle-income job creation” and higher union wages.
As supervisor, Chan has advocated for tenant protections and increased housing subsidies for unhoused families. She’s also pressured City Hall to direct more resources towards vulnerable communities in times of crisis, including undocumented immigrants and residents facing housing insecurity.
No additional funds for San Francisco services: Voters reject Overpaid CEO tax
The contest between Propositions C and D, two local San Francisco measures, was one of the most expensive city ballot fights in a decade. Both propositions tried to address the city’s economic pressures: Proposition C by lowering taxes for small businesses, while Proposition D proposed raising taxes on companies where CEOs earn at least 100 times more than their median employees.
The two measures, however, failed. Proposition D was rejected by 53.6% of voters during Monday’s latest count, and a Chronicle analysis said it no longer had a viable path to succeed. Proposition C, meanwhile, was rejected by 65.94% of voters.
Supporters of Proposition D, including many nonprofit organizations, wanted the measure to help address the city’s large budget deficit, by generating up to $300 million in revenue each year. Housing advocates have been pressuring the city to increase the number of subsidies available, and the added funds could have made it easier for San Francisco to increase the rent assistance it can offer those facing housing insecurity. The mayor’s budget proposal includes deep cuts to programs and services for people experiencing economic instability.
Opponents of Proposition D, however, worried that the measure could have pushed businesses to leave the city and lead to price increases and the loss of 900 jobs, complicating the city’s slow economic recovery from the pandemic, and increasing living costs.
Lurie’s Family Zoning Plan and the District 2 and 4 supervisor seats
Stephen Sherill and Alan Wong both won their districts by wide margins, with Sherill polling at 69% of the vote in District 2 and Wong earning 49% in District 4, helping maintain a moderate majority on the Board of Supervisors.
Both supervisors are close allies of Mayor Daniel Lurie and supported the Family Zoning Plan, a mayoral housing initiative intended to allow the construction of more than 36,000 units of new housing. Expanding housing production was a central issue in Sherill’s campaign.
Because Districts 2 and 4 contain large concentrations of single-family homes, neighborhoods such as the Inner and Outer Sunset, Pacific Heights and the Marina could experience some of the most visible effects of the Family Zoning Plan if it is fully implemented.
Opponents of the Family Zoning Plan say they are concerned about tenant protections. While the plan includes protections for rent-controlled buildings, these safeguards only apply to buildings with three or more units. Critics argue that upzoning could inflate property values and encourage developers to demolish rent-controlled buildings and replace them with new luxury units, directly affecting working-class residents and the businesses that employ them.
Supporters, meanwhile, argue that the plan is necessary to address San Francisco’s housing shortage and help the city meet state housing requirements.
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