A November affordable housing measure almost lost the high-polling term \u201caffordable housing\u201d in the digest that will be printed in San Francisco\u2019s Voter Information Pamphlet.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Its supporters rallied on Friday and got the phrase restored. The episode, however, may foreshadow more opposition from the mayor\u2019s office and some labor unions ahead of the November election.<\/p>\n
The measure, the Affordable Housing Guarantee Act<\/a>, would require the city to use revenue from the existing \u201ctransfer tax\u201d on real estate deals worth more than $10 million to fund only affordable housing<\/a> developments and housing assistance.<\/p>\n At least 60 percent of the funds would be allocated for affordable housing production, including at least half on social housing developments.<\/p>\n Social housing<\/a> is a form of affordable housing that is \u201cdemocratically controlled by residents\u201d and \u201cfor everyone,\u201d including people who may be too poor for some affordable housing or earn too much to qualify for it while still being rent-burdened, said Scott Feeney, a proponent of the measure.<\/p>\n Representatives from the Mayor\u2019s Budget Office and the Office of Economic and Workforce Development argued that including the words \u201caffordable housing\u201d in the Voter Information Pamphlet would be misleading because much of the money would fund social housing, which is not the conventional city-funded affordable housing that voters would assume.<\/p>\n They sought the term \u201calternative housing<\/a>\u201d instead. This was adopted on Thursday by the Ballot Simplification Council, which prepares impartial digests for voters.\u00a0<\/p>\n Supporters of the measure were shocked that the term \u201caffordable housing\u201d was replaced and went to work to restore it. \u201cIt was really befuddling to see the mayor\u2019s office twist themselves into a pretzel trying to redefine, redirect, regenerate what the realities of their own programs are,\u201d said City Hall veteran Sunny Angulo, executive director of the new progressive advocacy group Propel. \u201cIt was bananas.\u201d<\/p>\n A flood<\/a> of letters<\/a> asking<\/a> for reconsideration poured in before a hearing on Friday of the Ballot Simplification Council. Supervisors Shamann Walton<\/a> and Jackie Fielder<\/a> complained that the removal of \u201caffordable housing\u201d was itself confusing to voters.\u00a0<\/p>\n City<\/a> Hall<\/a> officials<\/a> and labor<\/a> also sent letters to demand using \u201csocial housing\u201d instead of \u201caffordable housing.\u201d<\/p>\n After a two-hour Friday hearing and following multiple rounds of public comments, the Ballot Simplification Council voted 4-0 to restore the words \u201caffordable housing\u201d in the digest<\/a>, which also mentions \u201csocial housing.\u201d One member was absent.<\/p>\n The measure\u2019s backers consider the result a win. Losing \u201caffordable housing\u201d in the digest would have figured to be a major blow to the measure\u2019s chances.<\/p>\n A June poll<\/a> by the ballot measure\u2019s supporters showed early, strong support: 67 percent of respondents said they backed the measure, which would only require a simple majority to pass.<\/p>\n \u201cI think once you say affordable housing without raising taxes, you\u2019re in a good place with the voters of San Francisco,\u201d said political consultant Jim Stearns, who is also a donor to the measure.<\/p>\n Though the measure does not have any official opposition yet, according to Angulo, that could change: The measure would keep in place a tax on sellers of big real estate that Lurie and Supervisor Bilal Mahmood had moved earlier this year to eliminate<\/a>. The San Francisco Building and Construction<\/a> Trades Council and Laborers Local 261 recommended removing \u201caffordable housing\u201d last week.\u00a0<\/p>\n It also would siphon money away from the city\u2019s general fund \u2014\u00a0affecting the flexibility of the mayor and the board of supervisors in spending.\u00a0<\/p>\n Voters will also weigh in on another housing measure this November, this one backed by Lurie to increase San Francisco\u2019s annual affordable housing fund from $52 million to $125 million<\/a>. Those funds would come from future property tax growth<\/a>.<\/p>\n The mayor\u2019s office said the presence of two housing measures on the same ballot motivated its intervention at the Ballot Simplification Council.<\/p>\n Lurie\u2019s deputy press secretary Shelby Weiss wrote in a statement, \u201cOur office has asked the Ballot Simplification Committee to reduce the risk of voter confusion stemming from the measure\u2019s current phrasing, by making clear that this measure is for the purpose of funding social housing.\u201d<\/p>\n When asked about Lurie\u2019s stance on the measure, Weiss responded by saying \u201cShared what we can for now.\u201d<\/p>\n Angulo said, \u201cI invite the mayor to be a part of the solution. He has said he cares about affordable housing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A November affordable housing measure almost lost the high-polling term \u201caffordable housing\u201d in the digest that will be…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":423422,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[168965,35072,101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-423421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-ballot-measures-2026","tag-election-2026","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=423421"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423421\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/423422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=423421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=423421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=423421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}