By Calvin Welch, HANC Board
Proposition C is a Charter Amendment creating a Housing Trust Fund within the General Fund of San Francisco. If passed the fund will devote some $1.4 Billion over the next thirty years to the construction, acquisition and rehabilitation of permanently affordable rental housing in San Francisco, down payment assistance for first time homeowner, a homeowner stabilization fund for moderate income owners facing foreclosures, and a Infrastructure Challenge Grant Fund for small neighborhood parks, pedestrian safety improvements and community service space. 90% of the fund will be aimed at rental homes affordable to households earning no more than $50,000 , a figure covering the vast majority of San Francisco’s families with children and seniors. It is expected that each dollar from the fund will leverage at least a dollar from state and federal sources, producing housing for well over 30,000 San Franciscans over the life of the program.
In addition, Proposition C will “incentivize” the development of middle income housing by reducing from 15% to 12% ( a 20% reduction) the requirement on market rate developers to build Below Market Rate (BMR) homes on the site of their market rate development. Since neither the current “in-lieu” fee nor the 20% requirement for “off-site” BMR production is reduced it is expected that more “on-site” opportunities for middle income San Franciscans will be created.
The proposal was developed by Mayor Lee and a Housing Trust Fund Task Force made up of business and labor, community and industry representatives. It seeks to replace funding lost in state and federal cuts to affordable housing assistance and has received the support of a wide coalition of supporters. It was placed on the ballot with the support of nine of the eleven Supervisors.
HANC will be campaigning for the measure and will help organize two weekend mobilizations in District 5 on September 29th and October 11th at 10 AM at the Richardson Apartments, at Fulton and Gough.