2024 General Election

Since arriving in Sacramento, Assemblymember Matt Haney has immediately gotten to work to champion housing. In addition to strong votes, he carried an important bill, AB 1114, to close loopholes abused by San Francisco to delay housing. Haney has also worked on office-to-housing conversions and prioritized limiting the cost burdens for renters, bringing his perspective as one of the few renters and chairing the California Legislative Renters’ Caucus.

One might assume that the Supervisor representing wealthy neighborhoods like Pacific Heights and the Marina would be a NIMBY against housing. However, we are excited to endorse Supervisor Catherine Stefani who far exceeds expectations. While she may not be the loudest pro-housing voice, Supervisor Stefani stands for the rule of law and consistent standards applied to housing. Although the San Francisco Board of Supervisors is majority anti-housing, Catherine Stefani has bravely voted for housing projects and against baseless appeals. She voted in support of headline housing projects like 469 Stevenson Street (the Nordstrom parking lot project) and 1151 Washington Street.

We expect Catherine Stefani to continue her pro-housing goals in the Assembly, a body that is much more supportive of housing. She explicitly supports more housing in her Assembly District. She also writes unambiguously in our questionnaire “we need to prioritize building all types of housing in exclusionary communities.” Further, she writes “I am also committed to ensuring that cities and counties across the state do their fair share in terms of building housing, and if they don’t, hold them accountable through closing loopholes within the Housing Accountability Act. “

We encourage Supervisor Stefani to sponsor legislation in the Assembly that aligns with her good-governance ethos, such as strengthening the Housing Accountability Act where it may conflict with the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).

Scott Wiener continues to be an exemplary leader on housing. He has passed numerous bills in the recent session, including SB423, extending and expanding upon one of the most productive affordable housing bills of the past decade, SB35, as well as SB4 (YIGBY), which will allow for affordable housing on religious properties, opening up tens of thousands of acres for new housing. We are also now seeing the dividends of his early work to strengthen state law and put teeth into the RHNA process by strengthening the Housing Element process, meaning jurisdictions all over California have to build the housing they say they will or face consequences from the state.

We support Prop 5 because we support more funding for affordable housing. Prop 5 would make it easier for local governments to raise money for affordable housing by allowing bonds to pass with 55% of the vote. This will make it easier for the state legislature to pass bills that fund housing and critical public infrastructure. We wholeheartedly support this effort.

This campaign needs a lot of help to get across the finish line, so sign up for more information here.

We oppose Prop 33 because it would allow NIMBY cities to completely block new housing, driving up the cost of housing for everyone over the long term.

Prop 33 would repeal the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act, a 1995 state law that generally prevents local governments from limiting what landlords can charge new tenants when they first move in. It also prevents cities from limiting rent increases that existing tenants can be charged in housing built on or after Feb. 1, 1995.

YIMBY Action has supported measures that would curb dramatic year-over-year increases in rent, such as the 2019 anti-rent gouging measure in the CA Legislature (AB 1482). But Prop 33 is poorly written and will allow wealthy cities to block new affordable homes from being built.

Prop 33 blocks the state from putting any reasonable checks on local rent control policies, allowing local governments to “maintain, enact or expand residential rent control.” This is a recipe for systemic denial of new housing because wealthy cities constantly look for ways to avoid building more homes. We can already see what anti-housing jurisdictions are planning, for example Former Huntington Beach Mayor Tony Strickland has already openly stated that he’s excited for this measure because it will allow them to block new homes.

We oppose Prop 33 because it is poorly written and will give wealthy communities a powerful tool to block housing all income levels.

Mayor Breed has been a strong champion for housing in her time as Mayor and looks to build upon that work with another term. She has led the City through a transformative period, ushering in the changes needed to implement our Housing Element despite a Board that is not always cooperative. She has supported state legislation that is key to making it easier to build homes in San Francisco such as SB423. These are just a few of the actions she has taken in her time to change how we build housing in San Francisco

SF YIMBY is endorsing Bilal Mahmood early in this race because we don’t have time to wait. We need housing champions at City Hall who have actual solutions to our housing shortage. The time for grandstanding is over, the time to build homes is now, and Bilal gets that.

As Supervisor, Myrna Melgar has helped usher in important legislation as the chair of the Land Use and Transportation Committee, working with Mayor Breed to implement parts of the Housing For All plan and pass important pieces of legislation such as our local constraints reduction package.

She has also championed the redevelopment of Stonestown, a key opportunity that will eventually bring 3,500 new homes to the Westside of San Francisco, which has traditionally not built as much housing as the eastern portion.

We look forward to continuing to work with her to pass important legislation that will bring more housing throughout San Francisco

EJ has a background in working extensively on these issues from his previous work experiences and knows what it takes to build more housing

The bond has four main components, with $50,000,000 going to fund family housing and shelter, including potential site acquisition or renovation. It's critically important that we continue to fund supportive housing and shelter

San Francisco continues to suffer a housing crisis driven by a shortage of housing. As a representative of the entire city, the Mayor tends to be pro-housing. Unfortunately, the Board of Supervisors can totally stop a Mayor’s pro-housing agenda: not only can they appoint their own members to commissions, but they can also veto the Mayor’s appointees. This is the same Board of Supervisors which…

• blocked 495 homes at 469 Stevenson Street in 2021, even though the project would not displace anyone and provide affordable homes to low-income seniors
• sabotaged the pro-housing ballot measure Proposition D in 2022 to encourage and streamline new housing, by authoring a competing measure, Proposition E
• raised taxes on new housing, making it even harder to build, with Proposition I in 2020

The Board of Supervisors, which has meddled to block and delay ten-thousands of homes, has too much say on housing in San Francisco. If we want to seriously address our housing crisis, we have to fix the Planning Commission.

Vote YES on D to reform our city commissions so they can focus on solving our housing crisis, not prolonging it.

Proposition E is a ballot measure that is a San Francisco special. It will do nothing, and confuses voters about a measure that actually stands a chance of improving our morass of commissioners and unelected commissioners who delay and deny housing.

Vote No on Prop E, we need real change, not this

We have an exciting opportunity to permanently create a large oceanfront park where Great Highway currently is. This makes for a more liveable and enjoyable city for all of us to call home. In the coming years, as we add more homes on the Westside, residents deserve a place for recreation like Ocean Beach Park

Pro-housing groups urge Yes on L

We are advocates for building more housing in San Francisco because housing is too expensive. Being pro-housing also means being pro-transit: We must fund and expand Muni, which can efficiently move around lots of people without adding more cars on the streets. Fast, frequent, and reliable transit will reduce traffic congestion and make sure everyone has quick and reliable options to move around San Francisco.

Vote Yes on L because abundant housing and great transit go together.

As BART continues to recover from the pandemic, we look to the BART board for vision on transit AND support of more housing at BART stations throughout East Bay. While organizing with Latine Young Dems and CA Young Dems, Victor Flores has fought for the state housing laws that are turning the tide on our housing crisis, including SB 9, SB 423, and AB 2011.
In his words: "Building more houses and equitable urban planning isn't just good housing policy, it's great transit and environmental policy!"

SF YIMBY is proud to endorse Joe Sangirardi in his run for BART Board District 9. An unabashed YIMBY, we've been thrilled to see the energy he brought in his DCCC race and we're happy to support him out of the gate as he looks to bring that same attention to detail to BART. Transportation and housing go hand-in-hand and he'll be a strong new voice!