Recent polling for a $300 million affordable-housing bond measure on the March 5 ballot showed support hovering just shy of the two-thirds-plus needed for passage, San Francisco Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin warned this week at a get-out-the-vote rally.
The note of concern about the affordable-housing measure came amid a surge of spending on ballot measures and candidates by wealthy interests aimed at reducing the influence of progressive politicians and policies on city politics.
“Let's be very clear, this requires a two-thirds supermajority, which San Francisco voters have historically given to affordable housing bonds,” said Peskin at a Wednesday gathering on U.N. Plaza featuring advocates for women’s shelter programs, who were excited about Prop. A’s provision of $30 million for housing for low-income victims of traumas like sex trafficking, domestic violence and homelessness.
“But these are complicated times. People are cranky. This has been polling right on the margin of 65 to 66%,” said Peskin, who said he was “cautiously optimistic” about the bond measure he introduced with Mayor London Breed last September. “So we're a point or two below where we need to be, and it's all hands on deck.”
The razor-thin gap existed despite Prop. A having unanimous support from city supervisors, a campaign that had disclosed raising $709,239 as of Friday afternoon, and no opposition having disclosed campaign contributions against the measure. Larry Marso, a local Republican activist, had filed the ballot arguments in opposition.
All 11 of The City’s supervisors voted in favor of the measure, and it received support from both for-profit and nonprofit housing developers.
Michael Redmond, the Yes on A campaign manager, said the bond money could be matched with state and local funding, “and it won't raise anyone's tax rate.”
Prop. A’s prospects might have darkened some, however, when a “No B.S. Voter Guide” slate mailer from a shadowy organization called TakeActionSF appeared online and in mailboxes recommending against the bond measure. A message left at a phone number registered with the Secretary of State's office for TakeActionSF was not returned.
The mailer said Prop. A would cost taxpayers $544 million with interest payments, which is the amount estimated by City Controller Ben Rosenfield. It suggested that bureaucratic red tape was top among factors to blame for The City’s housing shortage and called Prop. A “another financial sinkhole.”
The mailer also made recommendations on various other measures and candidates, devoting the most space to attacking Prop. B, the so-called “Cop Tax,” which, among other things, would allow the setting and funding of minimum police staff levels only if voters amend an existing tax or approve a new tax to pay for staffing and recruitment.
Marso, an attorney and delegate to the San Francisco Republican County Central Committee, filed the No on Prop. A ballot arguments with the county elections department and said he was not involved in producing the mailer. He disputed Prop. A proponents’ contention that the measure will not raise taxes, saying that debt does have costs.
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“General obligation bonds should be reserved for critical infrastructure,” he said.
In addition, Marso wants voters to reject Prop. A as a way to push back against the state’s mandate that The City build 82,000 units of housing, including 46,598 affordable housing units, by 2031. Marso calls that level of development “insane” and said it would “change the neighborhood character of San Francisco.”
Supervisor Dean Preston, who attended the Prop. A rally, said it would be a “massive setback” to the effort to meet The City’s affordable housing goals if Prop. A does not pass.
“San Francisco for many years, in contrast to a lot of other cities, the voters have really come together around affordable housing bonds, and other bonds actually,” Preston said. “But amid a climate of a lot of very reactionary, conservative messaging that is nonstop anti-government, we can't take these bonds for granted.”
Preston cited the example of the $400 million transit bond that failed at the ballot in 2022, when it got just over 65% of the vote, short of two-thirds, despite supporters raising nearly $1.4 million. Marso also filed the arguments against that measure, which was opposed by a coalition of groups that he said did not raise enough money to require disclosure filings.
Joining Peskin and Preston at the U.N. Plaza rally Wednesday were representatives of organizations dedicated to helping vulnerable women, many of whom may have experienced sex trafficking, domestic violence and homelessness.
The Prop. A bond would set aside $30 million to secure housing for low-income people who have experienced such traumas. Priority should also be given to funding housing for seniors, the bond measure states.
Advocates said the housing options for women in crisis are often not safe. According to the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing, women and women-identified individuals made up 31 percent of the homeless and marginally housed who had been documented in San Francisco, yet only 92 out of 23,500 units of permanent affordable housing and 101 out of 3,084 shelter beds were dedicated to such people.
Toni Eby, the chief executive officer of San Francisco SafeHouse, said her organization recently bought a 21-unit building for $4 million to house women and children. If the bond passes, Eby said her organization will go to the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development to ask for money to rehabilitate the place, which she predicted could cost another $4 million.
“It's a 1912 building that needs a lot of work,” Eby said. “It'll be for survivors and their children.”
