City leaders trying to get social housing measure on the ballot

SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO >> In an effort to build more affordable housing, council members are hoping to put a measure on the November ballot that would allow the city to build, own and operate social housing without the need for developers.

For decades, developers and investors have been the engine for housing production in the Bay Area and the country, but South San Francisco council members unanimously agreed residents should decide whether the city could be more like Singapore and Vienna, cities with attractive and stable mixed-income public housing.

Under Article 34 of the California Constitution — approved in 1950 as Proposition 10 — voters are required to grant prior approval before any federal, state or local public entity can develop, build or acquire low-rent housing projects in the city. “Low rent housing project” means any urban or rural housing for low-income people financed by public money.

After unanimous approval during a special meeting of the City Council on Wednesday, council members are getting the ball rolling in hopes of getting the ballot measure on the November ballot. The draft ballot measure would authorize South San Francisco to develop, build or acquire a number of units equal to 1% of the total number of units existing in the city year over year for three decades.

But Mayor Mark Nagales said in an interview that the council is going back to the drawing board in hopes of increasing the number from 1% to something more substantial, making the city one of the first in the Bay Area and the country to consider investment in new, mixed-income publicly-run housing.

To the north, San Francisco voters approved Proposition K in 2020, which will allow the city to own and run up to 10,000 units of low-income rental housing. The proposition was championed by the city's progressive leaders, including State Senator Scott Weiner, assemblyman Phil Ting, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and a number of tenant and housing justice groups.

If South San Francisco proves to be as progressive as its neighbor, the move to build social housing would launch the city into a new and little-tried housing approach derided by people who fear a return to the public housing of the 1960s and 1970s.

But Councilman James Coleman — who is championing the ballot measure effort — said the housing South San Francisco could build will look nothing post-war era public housing like St. Louis's Pruitt Igoe, Chicago's Cabrini Green or San Francisco's Geneva Towers.

“We're trying to deviate from the history of public housing in the US and take the example of Vienna

and Singapore and other European and East Asian countries who have done it very successfully,” Coleman said. “The reason public housing failed here is because we built it for solely low-income people. Housing like that isn't sustainable. It's the patterns of disinvestment which have caused public housing to have such a negative connotation in the US.”

Coleman said South San Francisco is exploring every possible way to build more affordable housing and deal with the affordable housing crisis which has forced many long-term residents to leave. Since 2010, South San Francisco has lost about a thousand people, according to 2020 census data, a clear sign that the city has become expensive to live in.

“We've only been relying on the private market to meet our housing needs and that hasn't worked,” Coleman said. “In Singapore and Vienna they have a large portion of housing owned and operated by the state. When housing is built, it's not treated as a vehicle for profit, it's treated as a human right.”

Mayor Nagales said the next steps are for a subcommittee of the city council to decide whether to increase the 1% figure, after which the council will likely meet in the coming months to approve the ballot measure.

“What this pandemic showed us is that we need to think outside the box,” Nagales said. “What we did before doesn't work anymore. We have to adapt and think of new ways to build more affordable housing because our most vulnerable are looking to us for help. We have to provide that for them.”