By Christin Evans, HANC Board
The 2018 ballot measure, Our City Our Home, which taxes San Francisco’s largest businesses to fund housing, shelter and other solutions for people experiencing homelessness has finally started to trickle out to reach those in need. Delayed by a court challenge, the first Prop C funds were unlocked in late 2020 by a California Supreme Court decision. While some funds were allowed to be spent, primarily on emergency shelter, at the height of pandemic, the bulk of the stockpiled funds were allocated by Mayor Breed and the Board of Supervisors in July 2021.
Headlines proclaimed the city’s spending had swelled to over $1 billion to address homelessness, which became a bit of a political issue in the state assembly race. Of course, the large figure was misleading as it was a projected two year spending figure and included several one-time revenue sources including one-time Covid relief funds for Shelter in Place hotels which would not reoccur.
Fast forward to this year’s budget cycle and a more realistic picture of what impact Prop C is having took shape. The revenues generated from the gross receipts tax on sales over $50 million has consistently delivered over $300 million annually in new funds, doubling the city’s annual budget for homelessness and supportive housing solutions.
Projects funded already to date:
- Acquisition of 5 buildings, over 700 housing units of permanent supportive housing
- Short and long term rental subsidies for over 1700 adults, youth & families
- Over 130 new substance use disorder & mental health beds
- 7 street crisis response teams including an overdose prevention team working with individuals living on the street, in shelters and supportive housing
- Over 520 emergency shelter placements including safe sleep sites, vehicle triage center and non-congregate hotel rooms
- 2800 shallow subsidies and eviction prevention assistance including a right to an attorney when facing an eviction
However, while most of those solutions were budgeted and approved in 2021, many of those subsidies and newly acquired housing units are being allocated to those in need just now. Department staffing challenges and time consuming placement processes have led to fewer than 100 people being housed each month according to the city released data on its online dashboards: https://hsh.sfgov.org/about/research-and-reports/hrs-data/ That has led to some advocates calling on the city to accelerate housing placements especially as Shelter in Placement hotels have closed, sometimes with fewer than a third receiving a permanent housing placement.
The 2022 budget which is set to be approved in a few weeks adds some additional supports for elevator and building repair in the city’s older stock of permanent housing. And it adds more treatment beds, funds housing subsidies for Trans community members and cost of living adjustments for existing program staff to aid in recruitment and retention. The Haight may also get transitional housing for transitional age youth that Supervisor Preston championed with an ordinance passed earlier this year.