December 2, 2021

A measure to set aside $64 million for social housing was approved by the city’s Board of Supervisors by an 8-3 vote on Tuesday, according to 48 Hills. The measure allocates the money to a city program called the “Small Sites Housing Acquisition Program,” which purchases housing whose tenants are at risk of eviction and keeps the building permanently affordable. Mayor London Breed opposed the measure on the basis that the small sites program was problem-plagued. Breed will still need to approve spending on the program, but the measure’s approval gives advocates more leverage. As soon as the measure was passed, Breed announced a plan to reform the small sites program by adding an additional $10 million of funding, possibly a sign she will work with the board of supervisors on spending the money.

November 30, 2021

The Council of Community Housing Organizations noted:

This action by our City legislators was not simply about an installment of $64 million to invest in affordable housing, but about listening to the voters who passed the Proposition I ballot measure overwhelmingly in November 2020 with the intention of funding a wide range of social housing programs: from preservation of small apartment buildings facing Ellis Act evictions to large residential hotels deteriorating in the hands of private owners, from land trusts to homeownership cooperatives. This will result in real housing for real everyday people – from seniors and people with disabilities whose hard work built this city, to hotel and service workers, to the jobs we used to think of as middle-class, the educators, healthcare workers and electricians who can no longer afford a home in San Francisco’s inflated real estate market.

November 30, 2021

Despite the program's issues, affordable housing advocates deemed Tuesday's vote a victory.

"This action by our city legislators was not simply about an installment of $64 million to invest in affordable housing, but about listening to the voters who passed the Prop. I ballot measure overwhelmingly in November 2020 with the intention of funding a wide range of social housing programs — from preservation of small apartment buildings facing Ellis Act evictions to large residential hotels deteriorating in the hands of private owners, from land trusts to homeownership cooperatives,” said the Council of Community Housing Organizations — a coalition of affordable housing providers— in a statement on Tuesday.

November 2, 2021

However, the city’s Small Sites Program — an acquisition and rehabilitation loan program for small multi-family rental buildings that was launched in 2014 — is unable to respond to many requests for loans to acquire buildings through the program because of a shortage of money, according to District 5 Supervisor Dean Preston. On Tuesday, he announced legislation to create a $64 million emergency acquisition fund that he hopes will allow the city to scoop up of “hundreds of these units” in the current fiscal year.

The limited funding and disagreement over how it should be spent is causing the city to be more discerning in buildings it acquires through the program, but housing providers say that the lack of clarity on what type of buildings the city is prioritizing for acquisition is leaving some tenants at risk of displacement.

Smaller buildings have a higher per-unit cost than larger buildings, said Fernando Marti, co-director of the Council of Community Housing Organizations, adding that if the goal is save people's homes that have been targeted for eviction, "you might say it makes sense to pay higher per unit cost per building."