By Lisa Aubrey, HANC President
Pre pandemic times were perilous enough for San Francisco tenants. Add a global pandemic with sweeping existential challenges like job loss, transit shut downs, food shortages, loss of elder and child care, school closures and a lack of health care for all, and you’ve got a local, statewide and national disaster on your hands.
A cursory Internet search reveals that as of March 26, 2021, there are 7,326 apartments listed for rent on Zumper, with a -24.3% year over year change in rents. While headlines trumpet that the SF rents have softened since the pandemic, our city remains the most expensive rental housing market in the nation, with the average cost of a 1 bedroom apartment listing for $2650.
Current figures (in San Francisco and nationally) underscore a glaring gap between rich and poor. At the start of the pandemic, thousands of well-paid workers fled the city to less expensive locations while continuing to keep their well-paying jobs and continuing to work remotely. At the same time, less fortunate San Franciscans struggle mightily to pay their rent and provide food for their families, especially in lower income neighborhoods like the Bayview, South of Market and the Tenderloin, where sheriff’s deputies have carried out nearly 3 dozen evictions since last Spring. Incredibly, after an eight-month pause, court-ordered evictions have resumed in San Francisco, harming some of our most vulnerable residents.
Since the start of November 2020, the Sheriff’s Department conducted evictions at 33 addresses across the city (according to documents obtained through a California Public Records Act request by journalists at SF Public Press.) Eighteen - more than half —involved tenants in permanent supportive housing; these facilities provide social services along with subsidized rents and are intended to help people who are formerly homeless.
As San Francisco continues to grapple with evictions and a lack of truly affordable housing, D5’s Supervisor Dean Preston is focused on the thousands of vacant apartments and living spaces across the city: existing affordable housing that does not need to be built in a time where construction costs are even more expensive than before the pandemic. Preston is calling for the City’s budget analyst to issue a report, and for a Board of Supervisors committee hearing on vacancies to take place sometime in May 2021.
Sadly in these unprecedented times, the conversation around housing has been dominated by the same tired talking points: “build, build, build”— “how many new units?”— “how quickly can they be built?” and “how can we incentivize building more?” Mayor London Breed’s recent state of the city address neglected any mention of the thousands of vacant apartments across the city. Predictably (and sadly), she focused on pre pandemic talking points including building 5000 new units EACH year and streamlining the approval process. Preston stated: “With the right policies we can pretty much activate 5000 units immediately.”
A San Francisco Public Press analysis of San Francisco Rent Board data found that from March 1 through Dec. 31, 2019, landlords filed 1,226 eviction notices; in 2020, during the same period with the COVID19 pandemic, landlords filed 535 notices, even as city, state and federal moratoriums on pandemic-related evictions remain in effect.
The moratoriums are designed to protect tenants who are unable to pay all or part of their rent due to COVID-19. Yet these measures do not bar all evicitons, which , advocated say, places vulnerable tenants at greater risk of losing their homes.
The San Francisco Tenants Union counsels that California rent debt relief funds are available now for eligible tenants. You can apply directly: HousingIsKey.com (priority for low income tenants.) SFTU advises: “Do not give personal info to your landlord. Tenants in debt should apply to the state rent relief program ASAP.” The city of San Francisco will roll out an additional program for low income tenants who still cannot pay rent going forward.Visit sfadc.org/covid-19 for up-to-date information about both programs.(editor's note: we had difficulty reaching this page. We don't know whether the glitch is only temporary. Meantime, we suggest this site:
https://localwiki.org/sf/SFAnti-DisplacementCoalition
Please join HANC on Thursday April 8, 2021 @ 7PM for a discussion of the state of tenant protections, evictions and strategies in the time of COVID19.