San Francisco artist and activist Megan Wilson’s work beautifies urban walls and spaces here and afar, while her text-driven murals offer solutions for conditions upsetting our neighborhoods and the globe.

“Putting work out there in these times is all we can do,” says Wilson. “It’s one of the few responses as artists we can have. I do feel like that’s my role–to reflect and respond to what I feel.”

Her most current multidisciplinary project, Manifest Differently, is a culmination of her work in San Francisco and Bay Area arts. Unveiled in Clarion Alley in the Mission in September with a celebration of spoken word, music and food, Manifest Differently opened with a daylong demonstration of resilience and resistance — a model for the future of the arts in perilous times.

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Currently on view in the alley and different locations citywide, Manifest Differently will be active through April 2024, including an opening reception on Oct. 26 for “Thinking and Feeling With the Marshall Islands,” an installation by Anita Chang at Artists’ Television Access in the Mission.

Wilson, from the initial tech boom in the 1990s through its bust in 2000, has made social and political statements by painting flowers. Merging bold petals with empowering slogans like “Tax the Rich,” “Stop the Corptocracy” and “Housing is a Human Right,” the florals have covered streets and facades from Civic Center to Yogyakarta, Indonesia.

“I use the flowers as a point of entry. People love the flowers and are attracted to the imagery,” says Wilson of the bright daisies and poppies scrolling and spilling around original fonts and block letters.

Beginning around 2000 when change was afoot to our built environment, Wilson crafted simple hand-painted signs with the word “Home” that were propped in San Francisco storefronts and residences under threat of eviction. Since then, she has worked on projects and murals opposing gentrification, war and worldwide polarization, both solo and collaboratively, most frequently with artists from the Clarion Alley Mural Project.

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Committed to art for political and social change since its inception in 1992, CAMP has evolved from a block of murals between Mission and Valencia streets in the Mission into a citywide project embracing installations and performances by artists across a spectrum of disciplines. Seamlessly merging the personal with the political, Wilson is co-director of the project with her partner, Christopher Statton. The couple sometimes collaborate, as they did with Clarion Alley’s 2014 project, “The Wall of Shame and Solutions.”

“It was calling out our city leaders and the legislation they’d passed, stripping away our communities and what had been beautiful about San Francisco,” says Wilson of the time when gentrification had taken a toll on immigrant families and low-income artists. What became known as the gentrification crisis led to unprecedented displacements, particularly for people for color, from San Francisco.

Wilson knew well the role art could play in resistance, having taken on displacement with her “Home” campaign during the first dot-com boom. She’s been a tenants’ right advocate since the 1990s when she lived in a rent-controlled apartment on Nob Hill and was doing graduate work at the San Francisco Art Institute.

“It was the beginning of the Ellis Act evictions,” she says of the statute that allows landlords to act as if they are “going out of the rental business,” but there are often loopholes in the process.

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“It was sort of working in opposition to the tech money that was coming in,” she says.

Thirty years later, the Mission District has seen a disproportionate amount of development and displacement compared to other parts of the city, and Clarion Alley, situated at its center, remains a hub for artists and activists.

“It’s very life affirming working with CAMP,” says Wilson. “It kept us going during the pandemic.”

Just prior to the shutdown, Wilson collaborated with Burmese-American poet and educator Maw Shein Win on Wall + Response, a project addressing social and racial injustice featuring 16 poets commenting on four murals in the alley: “Justice for Luís D. Góngora Pat” by Marina Perez-Wong and Elaine Chu; “What We Want!” by Emory Douglas, Black Panther Party and CUBA D8, Mace; “Affordable Housing/Vivienda Asequible” by the SF Print Collective working with the Western Regional Advocacy Project; and “The Arab Liberation Mural” by Art Forces, Arab Resource Organizing Center and Arab Youth Organizing.

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While streamed readings were popular at the start of the pandemic, filling an artistic gap, the outdoor space at Clarion turned out to be readymade for mural walks and tours.

Meanwhile, Wall + Response was slated to move indoors to the San Francisco Public Library until a public official took exception to the mural depicting Arab liberation. CAMP was asked for the work to be altered or removed from the installation.

“All of the artists were in solidarity against censorship and the exhibit at the library was tabled,” says Wilson.

Dismayed that the city of San Francisco would co-sign censorship, Wilson nevertheless has continued to create work against oppression. As with all of her work, there are notes of the personal intermingled with the political. Wilson describes her own family as “settler colonizers” in the Americas, dating back to 1643.

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With relatives closely tied to the founding of the Mormon church, she says, “They migrated by wagon train and settled and destroyed the land to make Ogden,” though her father’s family ultimately took flight from the church. Her mother was biracial, with roots in the Native Nations of Canada.

Raised in Montana, Wilson studied printmaking at the University of Oregon (where she organized women against the Gulf War), then journeyed through Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua. After working in Boston for the suicide-prevention organization Samaritans, she applied to the Art Institute, where her combination of experience with Central America, political organizing and printmaking made her a natural fit within the activist art community here. She fell in with fellow artists Amy Berk and Carolyn Castaño, and continued to strengthen her ties to political public art.

Wilson’s current project with CAMP, Manifest Differently, is a co-curation with San Francisco poet laureate emerita Kim Shuck and collaboration with 38 artists and poets delving into the impact of imperialistic expansion commonly referred to as Manifest Destiny.

In CAMP’s words, Manifest Differently seeks to interrogate “the legacies of inherited and perpetuated violence, trauma, and addiction, and the outgrowth of resistance and resilience– giving fire to movements for social/cultural change.”

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“There seems to be such polarization socially and politically right now, but it feels like our arts community is inspired,” she says. “We’re doing really well, even without the structures we used to have. We don’t have the weekly arts publications, the art schools, the Geary Street galleries, those spaces where we could all go.”

She adds, “The censorship thing with the library is not over–it’s a public space. In the face of pushback, I just keep moving forward.”

Manifest Differently presents an opening reception for Anita Chang’s installation “Thinking and Feeling With the Marshall Islands” at 6 p.m. Oct. 26 at Artists’ Television Access, 992 Valencia St., San Francisco. Admission is free. For details, visit https://www.manifestdifferently.org/events.

For more information about Manifest Differently programs, go to manifestdifferently.org.

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Post News Group Co-Publisher Gay Cobb shares a laugh with San Francisco Foundation CEO Fred Blackwell at the organization’s 75th anniversary celebration on Sept. 28. The event brought together leaders of the non-profit, public, and private sectors and featured a land blessing by by Pomo nation community educator Ras K’Dee, poetry by Chinaka Hodge, and remarks from former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown. Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao was also present. The cities of San Francisco and Oakland each declared Sept. 28 as San Francisco Foundation Day, and the foundation received commendations from the City of San Jose and the California Legislature. Photo by Conway Jones.

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By Tanya Dennis

Gang violence is raging in Deep East Oakland, also known as “Bossland,” where gun shots are heard daily, and recently, youth and the East Bay Panthers football team had to duck and cover twice in one month at Verdese Carter Park at 9600 Bancroft Ave.  The Park has become the epicenter of violent activity despite a police station embedded there.

Jacob Davis, coach of the East Bay Panthers says, he will no longer bring his team to the park after shooting incidents on Aug. 24 and Aug. 29 where kids ages 5 -14 were caught in gang crossfire and had to take cover.

Tamu Lopez, treasurer of The East Bay Panthers, and accountant for Adamika Village#stopkillingourkidsmovement has two children on the team, Micah Lopez, 10, and Caleb Lopez, 14. Lopez says “My children are traumatized. My youngest, Micah, has had several nightmares since the violent encounters and neither of my sons want to play football anymore. Both are afraid to go to any park and want to leave Oakland.”

Davis notes that his team is a safety net, sometimes the only source of food for the kids, when they don’t have access to school meals or school activities.

“For many, belonging to the East Bay Panthers is their only positive outlet.  We thought we’d be safe in the park because, until now, we thought Verdese Carter Park was a neutral zone for the gangs, but no longer.  The police don’t respond, they don’t come here after 4 p.m. and we practice from 5:30 to 7.”

TrendingOakland Post: Week of October 4 – 10, 2023

The Panthers are not the only group of children who are in danger. “We have five organizations that need to practice where they are safe:  The Eastbay Warriors, 510 Legacy, Bay Area Lions, Oakland Dynamite and the East Bay Panthers for our girls and boys ages 5 – 14.”

Representing Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao, Pati Navalta responded that the Oakland Police Department (OPD) recognizes the uptick in violent crime and gun violence. “The Department is dedicated to utilizing all available resources to focus on individuals committing violent crimes, and we have increased our presence in areas experiencing this uptick. We are also collaborating with our neighboring law enforcement partners to address the recent surge,” Navalta said.

District Attorney Pamela Price responded saying, “The District Attorney’s office does not control or regulate the Oakland Police Department however, we are committed to prosecuting gang members and others who cause death or injury in our community to the full extent of the law.”

Davis said immediate safety solution is that Oakland Unified School District allow teams to practice on their fields.  The problem currently is OUSD charges a fee to utilize the fields that we cannot afford.”

When asked if Oakland Unified would consider this proposal, John Sasaki, director of Communications promised to investigate the feasibility of Davis’ proposal.

Adamika Village#stopkillingourkidsmovement believe they have the solution to ending gang violence at Verdese Carter.

CEO Daryle Allums says. “Adamika Village hosts Town Night events funded by the Department of Violence Prevention and prior to, during, and a month after our last town night, crime and violence plummets. That’s because Adamika Village brings a different type of energy and people feel it!  We bring love, hope, gifts, money, testing for COVID and flu, food, entertainment, and a kid zone.  We provide a safe place; we are out here actively making a difference!”

Give Adamika Village the park for one year, before the city starts remodeling,  Allums said, and “we will create ongoing ‘Town Nights’ with education, cooking programs that provide food to eat while they learn good nutrition.  We’ll get Alcohol Anonymous out here to intervene in the drug culture and we’ll invite the Black Muslims to speak on health, lifestyle and self-control.”

When questioned about the cost Allums responded, “As we organize in the streets, we need people to organize behind the desk.  Our Black girls are being kidnapped, our elder women are getting robbed, our people have stopped coming out.

“Let Adamika rebuild what has been lost. The soil at the park is corrupted. It’s contaminated with community violence, it’s toxic. Adamika will shift that energy so we can heal our people who are addicted to violence, who know nothing else.”

The post San Francisco Basis Celebrates 75 Years of Social Justice within the Bay Space appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — A social media post sparked further controversy in San Francisco’s so-called “red light district.”

SFMTA installed new barriers along Capp Street in the Mission District, replacing existing barriers erected a few weeks ago to curb ongoing prostitution in the area. The cinder block barricades are a concern for the San Francisco Fire Department.

“I think it’s the best thing they’ve done in . . . forever,” said Carl Connell, a longtime resident who lives down the street on Capp Street and sees no exploited women on the street.”

For the first time in 41 years, Connell says he genuinely enjoys his neighborhood — even if it means his newfound sense of peace shifts the issue elsewhere.

“I don’t know, it’s someone else’s turn to have this stuff for 40 years,” Connell said.

EXCLUSIVE: SF residents say this street has turned into a “Las Vegas Strip” filled with alleged sex workers

A turn his neighbors down the street won’t take.

“That’s just obviously stupid,” said Steve Bower, who owns a wood and paint shop on Capp Street. “There has to be a safe place for sex workers to work.”

The irony of barriers designed to block the problem may just create another.

“It endangers public safety,” Bower said.

Over the weekend, the local San Francisco Fire Department union tweeted, “Self-serving decisions that put others at risk can have dire consequences. The tweet included a photo of the barricades and referenced a large fire that affected their ability to save the 300 block of Capp Street.

RELATED: Video shows street barriers aimed at curbing alleged sex work being torn down in SF’s ‘red light district’

Word got around quickly.

“I heard there was this massive explosion and the fire engines couldn’t get in to do their job,” Bower said. “Seems to be a pretty steep price to pay for complaints from neighbors who don’t like people pulling up and asking for sex.”

But according to resident and city records, there was no fire on Capp St over the weekend. The tweet actually confused many in the neighborhood.

“We were a little worried,” said a Capp Street resident. “We thought, oh, are the barriers causing problems? But speaking to other residents, we found that there hadn’t been a fire, not in the 300 block of Capp St. or anywhere else on Capp St., since the barriers were put up.”

Several neighbors told the I-Team that they felt the tweet misrepresented the reality of what happened. But rescue workers argue that every second counts when responding to life-threatening situations.

RELATED: Resolution legalizing sex work in CA introduced by SF overseer

More than 170 neighbors signed a letter expressing their support for the barricades, adding that they have reduced violence and restored peace to the area. The letter was presented to Mayor Breed and other city officials during a meeting Tuesday to discuss next steps.

“In the meantime, the mayor has decided that we will keep the barricades up,” said Sup. Hillary Ronen, adding that there will be minor delays in the event of emergencies. “But on the other hand, the danger on the street from violence and gunfire and a pedestrian being hit was so great that we have to balance all these competing factors.”

“Are you concerned about the impact on response times?” ABC7’s Stephanie Sierra asked Connell. “Nah. You just have to know how to get in,” he said.

But other residents aren’t happy with the idea — they expect more traffic, parking problems and delayed deliveries.

“It’s a danger,” Bower said. “That is no solution.”

Excellent. Ronen says the city will design and build a new barricade system that will be bolted to the ground over the next six weeks. At this point, the firefighters can use a tool to remove the barricades in an emergency.

Check out more stories from the ABC7 News I-Team.

If you’re on the ABC7 News app, click here to watch live

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After much back and forth on the subject, and despite acknowledging it may not be financially feasible any time soon, the South San Francisco City Council indicated it is now ready to place a question on November’s ballot that could allow the city to own and operate public housing.

The measure, spearheaded by Councilmember James Coleman, would permit the city to build or buy low-income housing with public dollars, something that requires voter approval as a result of Article 34 of the state Constitution.

Coleman’s argued the move could not only allow the city to bypass the 1950 amendment that’s been widely criticized as racist, but allow the city to more efficiently provide below-market-rate apartments. The prevailing method in the state is for jurisdictions to subsidize nonprofit developers to carry out the task.

During previous meetings, however, his colleagues have been less enthusiastic, both pointing to untenable cost projections and lost funding for schools that would not receive property tax revenue from city-owned developments.

But while those concerns were largely maintained this week, the council appeared swayed by impassioned input from residents, many of whom pointed to the state law’s beleaguered legacy.

“If we want to move forward with progressive, inclusive and equitable [policies] … it starts with changing laws that were just unjust, that were not supposed to be,” Councilmember Eddie Flores said. “These numbers, right now, don’t pan out, I’m fully aware of that, but we’re not building right now.”

The ballot question will request permission to add the equivalent of 1% of the city’s housing stock, roughly 225 units, annually over the course of the next eight years. The numbers would roll over and not expire, meaning the city could build all 1,800 units at any point in the future.

However, Councilmember Mark Addiego said the housing may not be built within the current council’s tenure, the measure, more importantly, would gauge public interest and allow the city to be ready to build if state funding became available.

“Even if it’s not right for today, things change,” he said.

A city study found that in current conditions, a 150-unit apartment building, with rents set at $1,713 to $2,375 depending on bedrooms (considered affordable for “very-low income” residents, per the state) would cost the city roughly $84.8 million to construct and operate. That cost could be reduced to $47.1 million with the use of low-income housing tax credits — federal and state assistance for which the city would need to compete.

The council also looked at the potential of a mixed-income project, with half the apartments affordable and the others set at market rates. That project wouldn’t qualify for the state assistance, and would still cost the city $53.8 million, according to the report. The market-rate units would also cost $463,000 in lost property taxes, $320,000 from school district earmarks (The below-market rate units would similarly not pay taxes, though, it was noted that would be the case even if provided by a private developer) .

“The taxes that would not be going to the school district, those are the things that scare me,” said Vice Mayor Buenaflor Nicolas, who also conceded her support after recognizing the “racial tone.”

At the time of its passing, Article 34 was backed heavily by the real estate industry, with proponents arguing taxpayers should have a say on low-income housing projects, as they were publicly funded. But ads at the time also played heavily into fears of neighborhood integration and socialism. The law also came on the heels of a 1949 federal law that outlawed segregation in public housing.

Constitutional amendments require two-thirds voter approval, a threshold not met during at least three attempts to change the rule, most recently in 1993. While there have been efforts more recently, it’s unclear when repeating the rule could again land on the state ballot.

A bill that would create a state authority for public housing, however, made its way to the Senate, where it fell one vote short of passage out of the Governance and Finance Committee. Assembly Bill 2053, authored by South Bay Assemblymember Alex Lee, would not repeal Article 34, but would support public housing construction. It will likely be reintroduced.

“There has been an unprecedented amount of movement in the state Legislature to pass pro-social housing bills,” Coleman said. “If South San Francisco passes Article 34, guess what, we’re first in line to access that funding.”

The council will ultimately vote on whether to place the question on the ballot during a future meeting, ahead of an Aug. 12 deadline for items to make it to the Nov. 8 election.

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In California overall, prices dropped year-over-year, as sales collapsed, supply more than doubled. No dear, this isn’t just a seasonal dip.

By Wolf Richter for WOLF STREET.

San Francisco and Silicon Valley are now in the solid leadership role of the housing bust playing out in California with sales collapsing and prices heading south from the peak in April at an astonishing pace.

Just about everything that could come together came together. After a two-year outflux of workers due to working from anywhere, there came the collapse of the startup and crypto scenes, starting in 2021 and continuing unabated, leading to the early entries into my pantheon of Imploded Stocks. In early 2022 came the spike in mortgage rates. In mid-2022 came the downturn in employment at Big Tech. By that time, the Fed had been hiking its policy rates relentlessly, and Quantitative Tightening had kicked off. This was punctuated over the past two months by the chaotic dismantling of the workforce at Twitter and its ecosystem.

Local budgets have fallen into deep deficits – although most are still flush with cash from the pandemic funds received from the federal government and the state.

Vacant office space that is on the market for lease and sublease continues to balloon, while landlords have started to file for huge reductions in assessment values ​​to lower their property taxes, which is going to cut revenues further.

This comes garnished by stories in the New York Times that Twitter stopped paying rent on its leased office spaces, and that it was instructed not to pay vendors. At least one of those unpaid vendors – a Silicon Valley company whose software Twitter had licensed – filed a lawsuit last week in the San Francisco Superior Court for nonpayment. It stated, “shortly after Musk’s purchase of Twitter closed, Twitter refused to pay the outstanding quarterly invoice, which was due on November 30, 2022, and Twitter disclaimed any obligation to pay any future invoices…”

These are all signs that the housing market is going to get a lot messier. Prices have plunged the most in San Francisco, followed by the Silicon Valley counties of San Mateo and Santa Clara.

In San Francisco.

The median price of single-family houses sold in November in San Francisco plunged by 11.4% from October to $1.50 million, and by 27% from the peak in April, according to the California Association of Realtors. A nasty-looking chart:

Condo prices plunged by 4.3% from the prior month to $1.15 million, and by 9.5% year-over-year. Since the peak in April, the median condo price is down by 15.5%. Condo sales in November have collapsed by 49%.

Seasonally, the lowest months are December and January. So that’s still to come.

But who is going to buy in the spring selling season? Prices normally rise as demand picks up in the spring; but who will be the exuberant tech workers that will want to overpay for a house by borrowing against the collapsed value of their stock options? Those lucky ones that still have jobs and stock options?

The housing markets in San Francisco and Silicon Valley are tied to the boom-and-bust cycles of the startup scene – now combined with the crypto scene and cryptos – and they’re tied to the stocks of startups and big tech and social media companies in the area, to the jobs that have to be done locally, and to the value of the stock options. All of them are puking.

Year-over-year, the median price of single-family houses in San Francisco plunged by 21%, the sixth month in a row of year-over-year declines. It was the biggest year-over-year plunge since the peak of Housing Bust 1:

Silicon Valley, San Mateo County.

The median price of single-family houses in San Mateo County, which forms the northern part of Silicon Valley, plunged by 6.2% from October to $1.78 million, and by 26% from the peak in April.

Year-over-year, the median house price plunged by 20%.

Silicon Valley, Santa Clara County.

Santa Clara County, which forms the southern part of Silicon Valley and includes the Bay Area’s largest city, San Jose, is lagging behind but is moving right along. The median price of single-family houses dropped by 1.5% in November from October to $1.60 million, and by 19% from the peak in April:

Year-over-year, the median house price dropped by 5.5%, the first significant year-over-year decline in this cycle. Prices had already undergone significant year-over-year declines in 2018 and 2019, and were on a downward path until the trillions in money-printing, the surge in the stock market, and the interest rate repression began to boost prices again.

Currently, Santa Clara County lags San Francisco and San Mateo by a few months, it seems.

In all of California.

Sales of single-family houses in California collapsed by 47.7% in November, compared to a year ago, the biggest decline since 1980, according to the California Association of Realtors. Condo sales collapsed by 46%.

Unsold inventory more than doubled year-over-year to a supply of 3.3 months, and days on the market also more than doubled – before sellers pulled the unsold homes off the market again.

For all of California, the median price of single-family houses plunged another 3.0% in November from October, which pushed the price down year-over-year (-0.6%). The median condo price fell 2.1% in November from October, which whittled down the year-over-year gain to just 2.7%.

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A Bay Area chef dedicated to Cajun gumbo with California twists is opening a permanent restaurant in San Francisco.

Dontaye Ball of Gumbo Social, whose steaming pots of chicken-sausage and smoked turkey gumbo have drawn a following at the Outer Sunset’s weekly Sunset Mercantile on Sundays, will open his first restaurant at 5176 Third St. in San Francisco’s Bayview neighborhood. The space was previously home to longtime soul food restaurant Frisco Fried, which closed in late August.

The restaurant will open early next year with Ball’s popular gumbo, lauded by San Francisco Chronicle restaurant critic Soleil Ho, who declared Ball’s gumbo one of the region’s best for its unapologetically Californian additions, like local okra and chicken brined in kombu. Ball wants diners at the new restaurant to be able to “hack” the Gumbo Social menu, with a melange of add-ons in homage to the build-your-own gumbo bars he hosted in the early days of the business. People can opt to add pork belly or lobster to the chicken-sausage gumbo, or roasted jackfruit to a vegan gumbo that will always be available.

“If you want the smoked turkey gumbo with scallops, crab and shrimp, you can do it,” Ball said.

Gumbo Social will serve several kinds of po’boy sandwiches, including shrimp, above.

Stephen Lam/The Chronicle

The restaurant will also serve more po’ boys than the single sandwich offered at the Gumbo Social farmers’ market stand (there, it’s either grilled shrimp, chicken or sausage). Ball plans to come up with new, seasonal vegetable dishes using produce sourced from the farmers he’s connected to at the Outer Sunset market. To start, dessert will also come courtesy of another popular market purveyor: Yes Pudding, known for its luscious banana pudding. That and bottled lemonades from Oakland’s Gourmonade will also be sold in a retail section.

Ball plans to apply for a beer and wine license; if he gets it, expect to see local producers like Harmonic Brewing, Speakeasy Ales & Lagers and the Bayview’s Gratta Wines. He hopes to decorate the space with art from Bayview artists, including possibly a mural.

Gumbo Social will be open during the day to start, with the possibility of dinner based on demand, Ball said. He’s envisioning banquette seating and a sit-in counter to enable the kind of interaction he’s able to have with customers at the farmers’ market stand. (Even after the restaurant opens, Gumbo Social will continue serving food in the Outer Sunset.)

Gumbo Social owner Dontaye Ball is bringing his gumbo to a permanent Bayview restaurant.

Felix Uribe/Special to The Chronicle

Ball is launching a Kickstarter campaign to raise money for renovations. “It’s challenging for Black-owned businesses to get funding through traditional banking and lending services,” he said in an announcement. “This Kickstarter is a way for us to negate some of those challenges.”

Ball, a San Francisco native who calls himself “Mr. Gumbo,” learned to make the dish from his grandmother. He went on to work at restaurants in France and San Francisco, including Italian institution Delfina, before devoting himself to what he’s called “the most important food to American culture.”

Despite Gumbo Social’s popularity, he said, he realized he needed to expand beyond pop-ups to keep the business going. He’s excited to open in the Bayview, where he started his gumbo pop-ups, and hopes his food will draw more people to the neighborhood.

“It gives us a foothold,” Ball said. “It gives me an opportunity to start building something special in the community.”

Gumbo Social. Opening spring 2023. 5176 Third St., San Francisco. gumbosocial.com

Elena Kadvany (she/her) is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: elena.kadvany@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @ekadvany

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Additionally, mass-produced ADUs and St. Louis can impose fines for deconversion.

$ 64 million for San Francisco council housing vote

A measure to provide US $ 64 million for social housing was approved by the city’s board of directors 8-3 on Tuesday. after 48 hills. As part of the measure, the money will be channeled into a municipal program called the Small Sites Housing Acquisition Program, which will buy apartments whose tenants are at risk of eviction and keep the building affordable over the long term. Mayor London Breed rejected the measure on the grounds that the Small Sites program was problematic. Breed has yet to approve spending on the program, but approving the measure gives advocates more leverage. Once the move was passed, Breed announced a plan to reform the small site program by adding an additional $ 10 million in funding, possibly a sign that she will work with the board of directors to spend the money.

The money was raised through a property transfer tax on property sales valued at more than $ 10 million confirmed by voters last year. The money from this tax goes to the city’s general fund, and the Mayor of San Francisco, London Breed, has been reluctant to use it for affordable housing. Proponents of the development disagree with spending on social housing, saying that given the city’s supply problem, money should be put into building, not renovating, housing. Proponents of the measure assume, however, that the city could use the income from an expanded housing stock in the long term to eventually build new units.

The vote, supported by a coalition of tenants, workers’ and community organizations, was a huge win for proponents of housing. The program’s ability to buy property on a large scale, keep it affordable and build new units will be a test of the viability of social housing as a sustainable solution to current housing pressures.

In one tweeted, wrote the council of municipal housing organizations: “Next step: quickly acquire apartments in each neighborhood and secure the political commitment to permanent allocation of the annual income.”

Developers are building more mass-produced “granny apartments”

In response to new statewide laws making it easier to build additional housing units on private land, some property developers are experiencing a boom in the production of mass-produced “granny flats”. A company that makes mass-produced homes, HomeQuest, tThe old OC register had increased its business by 300 percent after the legal changes. ADUs do not always contribute to the housing stock – it can be home offices or guest houses, but ADUs that are operated as rental apartments are usually cheaper than market-driven apartments in an apartment building.

California Flunks Housing ‘Report Card’

Downsizing California’s Housing Landscapes: The Southern California News Group released a “Housing Permit Report” showing the state is lagging behind in affordable housing. According to the OC Register – owned by the News Group – the state’s cities and counties combined issued 109,000 housing permits in 2020, 73 percent of which were for building units for high-income earners and only 16 percent for low-income earners. This does not correspond to the demand, which, according to the News Group, is around 41.5 percent for low and high earners and the remaining 17 percent for middle earners. According to the certificate, only 20 of the state’s 538 jurisdictions are on track to fulfill their housing mandate for each income bracket.

St. Louis may charge a conversion fee to obtain apartment buildings

A St. Louis city council is working on a bill to impose a fee on developers converting apartment buildings into single-family homes St. Louis Public Radio. The city lost 400 residential units as a result of these renovations. Although the legislation has not yet been written, it is based on the legislation passed in Chicago, which only applies to the Pilsen district and the area of ​​hiking trails 606. Chicago’s legislation was enacted this April and expires in April 2022; The cost of demolishing an apartment building to be replaced by a single family home is $ 5,000 per unit and demolishing a two-family or townhouse is $ 15,000. It’s unclear whether such a low markup would deter deconversion in Chicago, which hasn’t released data on the ordinance’s success, or in St. Louis, but lawmakers are under increasing pressure to try different tactics to deliver apartment buildings in.

Roshan Abraham is Next City’s Housing Correspondent and a former Equitable Cities Fellow. He is based in Queens. Follow him on Twitter at @roshantone.

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WASHINGTON (AP) – Top Democrats abruptly postponed an expected House vote on Friday on their $ 1.85 trillion ten-year social and environmental measure as the struggle between progressives and moderates re-emerged as the pillar of the president’s domestic agenda Distracted Joe Biden.

To give him the victory he needed, leaders were still preparing to push an accompanying package of $ 1 trillion in road and other infrastructure projects through the chamber and to his desk. But even the fate of this popular bill designed to create jobs in all states was questionable.

The messed up plans put a new face on a party that has been struggling for weeks to take advantage of its control of the White House and Congress by advancing its top priorities. That was difficult, in part because of the low Democratic majorities as bitter internal divisions are forcing House leaders to miss several self-imposed deadlines for voting.

“Welcome to my world,” House spokeswoman Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Told reporters, adding, “We are not a lock-step party.”

TO UPDATE: House of Representatives Approves $ 1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill passed by the Senate

Democratic leaders had hoped the House of Representatives would approve both measures on Friday, bringing double triumphs to a president and a party that recover from this week’s deflationary elections and want to show they can rule.

The party’s gubernatorial candidates were defeated in Virginia and squeaked through in New Jersey, two blue-leaning states. Democrats can hardly afford to be in disarray a year before the midterm elections, which could result in Republicans regaining control of Congress.

The president and first lady Jill Biden delayed their plans to travel to their home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, Friday night so he could try to break the traffic jam. He spoke to House leaders, moderates and progressives, said a White House official, who described the talks on condition of anonymity.

Instead of approving the Infrastructure Bill to give Biden a chance at a winning lap, a group of progressives threatened to vote against it. They have long been calling for the two bills to be voted on jointly in order to put pressure on the moderates to support the larger, more expansive social measure.

With the Democrats only losing three votes and able to prevail in the narrowly divided house, Pelosi said she would move forward anyway, saying she “felt pretty good” about the support.

Pelosi has refused to vote on bills for years unless she had any certainty that they would go through to avoid embarrassing defeat.

Democrats’ day shattered when, after hours of discussion, half a dozen moderates insisted they would vote against the massive package of health, education, family and climate initiatives unless the congressional bipartisan budget bureau first put forward its cost estimate for the measure.

Democratic leaders said it would take days or more. With Friday’s delay and legislators’ plans to leave town for a week-long hiatus, it could mean budget estimates are ready by the time the vote is taken.

Adjusted the party’s timetable for the final passage of the $ 1.85 trillion measure to reflect political reality, Pelosi said that once the CBO numbers are in, “we will have a Thanksgiving present for the American people” .

In a letter to her colleagues announcing the new voting plan, she wrote: “The agenda we are advancing is transformative and historic, and therefore challenging.”

The infrastructure move smoothly cleared the Senate in August with bipartisan support including support from Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. The package would allocate huge sums to each state for freeway, mass transit, broadband, airport, drinking and sewage, power grids, and other projects.

But it became a pawn in the long struggle for leverage between the progressives and moderates of the Democrats. Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., Who heads the 95-member Congressional Progressive Caucus, said the bipartisan joint White House and Congress tax committee provided all the tax information lawmakers needed to draft the sweeping bill.

“If our six colleagues still want to wait for a CBO score, we would give them this time – after that we can vote on both bills together,” she wrote. That strongly suggested that at least some progressives would vote against the infrastructure bill on Friday.

Early Friday, when Biden met reporters to present a strong monthly job report, he said he would “make some calls” to lawmakers. He said he would ask them “to vote yes to these two laws now”.

The House’s approval of Biden’s larger measure would send her to the Senate, where she would face certain changes and more democratic dramas. This is mainly due to the demands of Sens. Joe Manchin from West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema from Arizona to contain the costs of the measure and to curb or stop some of their initiatives.

Pelosi met with Hispanic lawmakers late Thursday who wanted the immigrants to stay in the US as much as possible. However, your chances of taking bold action are limited by the strict regulations of the Senate. Rep. Adriano Espaillat, DN.Y., said Friday that they had discussed other bills to move the issue forward and saw Pelosi as an ally.

Pelosi’s strategy seemed to be geared towards getting the most robust social and climate legislation possible, leaving it to the Senate to change or drop parts that its members disagree with. Because of Manchin and Sinema, the 2,100-page size was cut to about half the original $ 3.5 trillion.

Republicans reject the measure as too expensive and harmful to the people.

The package would help large numbers of Americans pay for health care, child-rearing, and home care for the elderly. There would be lower prescription drug costs as Medicare would be able, for the first time, to negotiate lower prices for some drugs with drug companies, a long-term Democratic priority.

The package would provide about $ 555 billion in tax breaks to promote cleaner energy and electric vehicles. The Democrats added important provisions in the last few days and re-established a new program of paid family vacations and work permits for immigrants.

Much of the cost of the package would be covered by higher taxes for wealthier Americans and large corporations.

Manchin has planned the new family vacation program, which is expected to include four weeks of paid time off, less than the original 12 weeks.

The Senators are also likely to remove a just-added immigration rule that would allow 7 million immigrants in the country to apply for up to two five-year work permits.

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