Housing Key Concern for SF Supes

San Francisco's affordable housing crisis will continue to top the agenda at City Hall in 2015.

The issue was a key focus for the city's returning supervisors as they gathered last week to welcome Julienne M. Christensen as the new District 3 supervisor and elected District 5 Supervisor London Breed as the new board president during the January 8 swearing in ceremony for the five even-numbered supervisors who won re-election to new terms in November.

"Most of all, we need affordable and safe housing for our residents," said Breed as she listed a number of issues she plans to tackle as the board's new president.

The second African American woman to lead the board, Breed recalled how only blocks away from City Hall she grew up in public housing with her siblings, grandmother, and an aunt.

"I remember standing in church lines to get donated food and standing in fire department lines for toys at Christmas," said Breed, who in 2012 defeated bisexual former Supervisor Christina Olague, who had been appointed to fill a vacancy, to represent the Haight and Western Addition on the board.

"I felt left out, isolated, powerless as I watched the city move by all around me," added Breed. "The good news is I had a grandmother and community who loved me. Wealth is nothing without love, without compassion."

Christensen, a North Beach neighborhood activist and businesswoman, also spoke of the need for the city to do more to protect current residents from being evicted.

"Allowing people to remain in their homes unthreatened by speculative evictions. Allowing rents to remain affordable so people can remain in the neighborhood they love. I understand that is job one, that is clear to me," said Christensen.

Mayor Ed Lee last week appointed her to fill the vacancy created when the former board president, David Chiu, resigned to join the state Assembly. She will go before the voters of District 3 this November to win election to serve out the remaining two years of the term.

"No one at City Hall wants to see seniors evicted from their homes or move out of the city," said Christensen. "So middle income housing is very important to me."

The incumbent supervisors who won re-election to second terms also spoke of the need to address the city's rising housing costs for both renters and homebuyers.

"There are so many challenges around housing and housing affordability," said gay District 8 Supervisor Scott Wiener. "Not only with people being evicted, but so many people are living in absolute terror if they lose their apartment they will have to leave this city."

District 6 Supervisor Jane Kim also highlighted the need for more affordable housing in the city, pointing to the passage by voters in November of a nonbinding policy that calls for 30 percent of the expected 30,000 new housing units to become available by 2020 in the city to be affordable to low- and moderate-income households, and 50 percent within reach of middle-class San Franciscans.

"We look forward to the introduction of legislation and funding to make that a reality ... affordable housing for everyone," said Kim, who on Tuesday introduced legislation calling on the planning department to track how many affordable units of housing are being created in the city. "Our homeless population is not growing but certainly is aging in place. We have to address that as well."

"This year I am really focused on how we can work together to deal with our affordability crisis in our city. We need all of our offices to work together to deal with this as much as we can," said Avalos, noting that he has seen San Francisco change before his eyes the last four years. "We need to make sure the widening disparities we are seeing can be closed and share what we can generate in wealth to as many people as possible."