Sometimes there’s so much going on that I can’t keep track of it all. So this week’s Agenda missed a couple of interesting items that will come up at the Tuesday Board of Supes meeting.
There’s a significant housing issue that has five sponsors, one short of what’s needed to pass it. The measure by Sup. David Campos would ban all no-fault evictions during the school year if the tenant is a teacher or a student at a San Francisco school.
It’s not going to halt all evictions, and it’s only a temporary reprieve for the teachers and students. But it makes a statement: Evicting a teacher or student during the school year can have a huge impact. In this housing market, most teachers who live in rent-controlled units can’t possibly afford another place in the city, which means an eviction sends them so far out of town that continuing to teach in SF might be impossible.
Same for families with kids in the local schools. Imagine that you learn in the spring, when your kids are getting ready for the SAT or the AP tests, that you have to leave town – and very likely leave the school district, and put them someplace entirely new where they know nobody and the teachers and curriculum are not in synch with what they’ve been working so hard to master.
I have a high-school junior who is going through all of this right now. His college future depends to some extent on these infernal tests; if we didn’t have stable housing, had to move to a new city and a new district, I don’t what we would do.
It’s hard to imagine even the pro-landlord supes voting against this, but we shall see. Only five have signed on so far.
Then there’s a measure by Sup. Scott Wiener that would require employers to supplement that state-paid disability leave parents take when they have new children. Right now, disability only covers about 60 percent of a worker’s earnings, and for reasons that remain incomprehensible to many of us, the United States doesn’t pay for anything remotely resembling adequate maternity and paternity leave. For a lot of people, spending time with a new child and living on 60 percent of pay just isn’t possible.
I would be very surprised if this didn’t get unanimous support.
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