by Jeff Buckley on June 9, 2025 (BeyondChron.org)
5 Strategies for Building Affordable Housing
My last article on the Housing Element described its affordable housing goals as laughably unattainable.
To meet the Housing Element’s affordable housing goal of 46,598 units, San Francisco will need to build more affordable housing in 8 years than it has in the last 45 years. 12,600 more affordable units to be exact.
We are nowhere close to accomplishing this goal. As of March 31, 2025, the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development (MOHCD) has 10,136 units in our affordable housing pipeline and housing production drops off a cliff after 2026.
So, San Francisco would have to both fully fund its 10K pipeline (which it hasn’t) and then quadruple its production rate by investing at least a billion dollars of local funding (it doesn’t have) in the next 8 years to achieve its affordable housing goals.
While the goal may be farcical, here’s a collection of measures the City can take to stimulate affordable housing production:
Finish HOPE SF
MOHCD can use the Housing Element’s unobtainable affordable housing goals as the reason to change funding for public housing improvements. This will free up more money for 100% affordable housing elsewhere in the city, better funding our affordable pipeline.
The fact that our most vulnerable families still live in the barracks of Sunnydale and Potrero’s post-World War II era public housing is a stain on San Francisco.
San Francisco mayors, to their great credit, have recognized this and have made fixing public housing the centerpiece of their housing and community development strategies. Mayor Newsom started the nationally recognized HOPE SF program to densify our family public housing sites – adding affordable and market rate housing to underdeveloped sites with the private and philanthropy sector helping fund services.
Ed Lee built out HOPE SF and took on the Housing Authority and fundamentally changed it, while adding close to $2 billion in improvements to our public housing system along the way. Mayor Breed continued the work, and new apartment buildings now stand in Sunnydale and Potrero, replacing barracks.
Now Daniel Lurie should complete HOPE SF in the next 8 years by getting the state and the SF and state PUC to help pay for it. They are all after all complicit in the poor state of our public housing infrastructure. If the Housing Element’s affordable housing goals can be used for anything useful, it should be an impetus to shift limited housing money away from HOPE SF infrastructure repair and into building out the citywide affordable housing pipeline.
Unleash Rent-Controlled ADU Production
Most San Francisco ADU production occurs not in our single family homes, but in our rent-controlled apartment buildings. Many years back, then Supervisor Scott Weiner authored very smart legislation to allow ADUs to be developed in apartment buildings as an offset to required structural safety upgrades. Rent-controlled ADU production boomed, but the Board later put constraints on it.
We should unleash that development potential by evicting cars from parking spots, so apartments can be built in their place. In other words, unless you are a family with children, a senior or disabled person in need of a car, or a worker who relies on their truck for their job, all other parking spaces should be converted to housing.
To offset this, we should allow for more local resident parking at discounted rates. We should have strong oversight of the construction so it isn’t used as a way to displace tenants. We should fund tenant activists to ensure tenants know their rights and housing inspectors to ensure the construction is done thoughtfully and quickly. But car storage should not be prioritized over housing creation. After all, we have a housing element affordable housing goal to meet, and ADUs are defined as affordable per the state.
Pass a Local Housing Bond and Fix MOHCD During This Affordable Housing Dark Age
Thanks to DOGE cuts, there’s no one at HUD to do basic things like process payments to affordable housing developers, let alone implement creative funding programs like the Faircloth to RAD conversations that housers were really excited about before the presidential election. The next four years are about survival.. First, we should pass a local housing bond in the next couple years to fully fund the existing pipeline. But we should really use the next 4 years to re-engineer MOHCD. I don’t think the public fully understands how much our city micro-manages affordable housing. We treat affordable housing as the solution to all of society’s problems by adding unnecessary restrictions that drive up costs. Spread the societal problem-solving around and lessen the cost burden to affordable housers.
Lower Inclusionary Housing Rates for New Projects
It’s been about two years since the Board of Supervisors lowered affordable housing fees and rates for existing “pipeline” projects, while keeping its pre-pandemic high rate of affordable housing in place for new projects. It was a good idea, but it hasn’t worked to create new housing. New housing starts are at historic lows in the city, so it’s time to reduce the rates for new projects. It likely won’t result in a ton of housing, but it’s better than doing nothing. Have it coincide with the new Housing Element rezoning effort with a barometer to measure the state of the housing economy and raise or lower affordable housing fees along with the housing and job market.
Maintain Funding for Tenant Right to Counsel
Tenant groups claim that increasing zoning capacity will lead to tenant displacement in upzoned areas. I am skeptical of that claim, but nonetheless we should take the issue off the table by fully funding a tenant right to counsel and tenant organizing.
We have some of the strongest tenant protections in the country. Fully fund these efforts to stop tenant displacement whether it’s in renewed ADU production or as a result of upzoning. In the long run, more supply reduces the strain on existing housing and on our tenants vulnerable to speculative evictions.
Times are bleak in the housing world. Unfunded mandates, a defunded and antagonistic federal government and not enough local funds to do everything we need. But we can make a real impact if we ignore it all and focus on how we can really help our most vulnerable and build the type of housing most San Franciscans want to live in.
Jeff Buckley was Mayor Ed Lee’s Housing Policy Advisor
