Sup. Dean Preston has been fighting for two years to get the city to spend $10 million the supes have allocated to fix the elevators in SRO buildings in the Tenderloin. Broken elevators have for years left disabled tenants trapped in their rooms; in 2020, Preston negotiated a deal to put money in the city budget to fix them.
Then nothing happened.
That’s been a pattern with the administration of Mayor London Breed: The supes allocate money for housing programs, of the voters pass new taxes for affordable housing, and the mayor refuses to spend it. She has repeatedly refused to spend money on affordable housing in D5, in what can only be called political payback against Preston, who defeated her chosen candidate for the job.
But now, after Preston kept pushing and the Chron asked what was going on, the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing has finally awarded grants to 14 buildings, with 1,391 residents.
From Preston’s office:
“This is great progress. Once these repairs are made, over 1000 residents of the Tenderloin, many senior and disabled, will be able to come and go from their homes safely thanks to this unprecedented city investment in emergency SRO elevator repairs,” said Supervisor Preston, a former tenant rights attorney in the Tenderloin, who made securing these funds and getting them out the door a top budget priority.
Yes, it’s an election year, and yes, Breed is supporting Preston’s opponent—but that shouldn’t matter if seniors and people with mobility issues are unable to get out of their buildings.
The Board of Supes is back in session after the August recess, and while most of the items on the agenda are pretty routine—no committees have met in the past four weeks, so nothing has been passed on to the full board—Sup. Aaron Peskin has a resolution that could put rent control in the center of the fall mayor and supes races.
The supes have already voted, 8-2, to endorse a measure on the November ballot that would allow local government to expand rent control. Prop. 33 would overturn the Costa Hawkins Act, which was passed after several cities, including Berkeley, West Hollywood, and Santa Monica, enacted laws that limited rents even when apartments were vacated. After the Supreme Court ruled that vacancy control was legal, the landlords went to Sacramento; they lost repeatedly while state Sen. David Roberti, representing West Hollywood, was the president pro tem, who wouldn’t allow the bill to go to the floor. When term limits drove him out, the bill passed.
So now Peskin has a resolution that declares the supes “intent to expand local rent control protections to go into effect if the Costa-Hawkins Act is repealed via ballot measure on November 5, 2024.”
The resolution directly connects the Costa Hawkins Act to a long series of right-wing efforts to prevent local government from serving the most vulnerable:
WHEREAS, In the last decade, state preemption has increased, especially in Republican-controlled state legislatures, primarily orchestrated by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), an industry-funded trade organization, which has in many states, restricted local government’s ability to regulate the minimum wage, paid sick days, Transportation Network Companies (TNC’s), municipal broadband, sanctuary city policies, fair scheduling, short-term rentals, inclusionary zoning, and rent regulation; and
WHEREAS, Coalitions of stakeholders, advocates and local governments across the nation have pushed back on harmful state preemption, and sought to return the right of local governments to innovate in areas of policy to protect workers, consumers, tenants and the environment.
It notes
WHEREAS, The real estate industry has claimed that rent control has a chilling effect on new construction, yet this does not match up with the data, based on a recent Haas Institute Report that showed the six cities with rent control in the SF Bay Area in fact had produced more housing units per capita than cities without rent control
Then:
FURTHER RESOLVED, That the City and County of San Francisco objects to state interference driven by corporate interests, and specifically state preemption of local rent control laws; and, be it FURTHER RESOLVED, That the San Francisco Board of Supervisors intends to enact a local law to expand local rent control protections that will go into effect if the Costa-Hawkins Act is repealed via ballot measure on November 5, 2024.
It’s not clear at this point what those expansions might include. The supes could put buildings constructed after 1979, which Costa Hawkins exempts, under rent control. They could also, depending on who is on the board after the November election, include some sort of limits on rent hikes on vacant apartments.
The incumbent supes who are on the ballot—Connie Chan, Preston, Ahsha Safai, Myrna Melgar—all voted for the resolution in support of Prop. 33. This goes a bit further.
If the resolution passes, Breed will have to sign or veto it.
When the high-profile mayoral debates start, moderators (I hope) can ask about expanding rent control. When I’ve done that, I’ve gotten only really limited and useless answers.
But Peskin has a chance to make this a central issue: If Prop. 33 passes, will the others support rent controls on vacant apartments? Will the candidates for supervisor?
Before Costa Hawkins, vacancy control was a defining issue in San Francisco politics. Candidates who supported the idea got tenant support; those who refused got tenant opposition.
Maybe that litmus test will come back.
Full disclosure both of my kids work on the Peskin for mayor campaign.
