As the post-pandemic economy takes shape, one thing is certain: The structural impact of remote work dramatically undermines central business districts that over-emphasize traditional office work.

Historically, U.S. office vacancy rates have hovered near 13 percent. As groups like CommercialEdge and Cushman & Wakefield have reported, office vacancy rates today are nearly 17 percent, with San Francisco at 20 percent and Houston above 23 percent. According to Brookings Institution estimates, office utilization is still less than 50 percent across major downtowns, indicating further headwinds for cities and landlords.

This change also hits city coffers, as lower utilization results in lower office building valuations and therefore lower tax revenue. Estimates vary on the magnitude of the effect on city revenue: New York City’s comptroller estimated a decline of up to $1.1 billion annually or 1.4 percent of city tax revenues; places like Atlanta are likely to be affected at a far larger scale given their heavy reliance on commercial property taxes. From there, the troubles compound: with fewer people coming downtown during office hours, the dominoes are already starting to fall, triggering second-order effects on small business performance and transit ridership.

The future of downtowns is already top of mind for local leaders, business chambers and commercial real estate investors given the outsized role these places have historically played in the life and rhythm of cities and metropolitan areas. These stakeholders are already acting to diversify uses of their downtowns. One strategy that has captured significant attention is the conversion of office buildings to multifamily housing. The allure of this strategy is clear: it can help ease the housing shortage in many U.S. metros and stabilize public revenues (including not only collections from real estate and sales taxes but also transit revenues) by keeping downtowns busy.

The future of downtowns is already top of mind for local leaders, business chambers and commercial real estate investors given the outsized role these places have historically played in the life and rhythm of cities and metropolitan areas.

The discussion of office-to-residential conversions has largely focused on architectural considerations (e.g., plumbing and bathrooms, access to windows, ceiling heights). These architectural difficulties are very real and have made office-to-residential conversions challenging. However, given the recent collapse of office valuations and the opportunity cost of vacant buildings, some conversions may be newly feasible from a financial perspective, especially with creative public-private financing tools.

In this article, we first introduce the basics of financing these conversions. Then, we introduce several examples where local leaders are already using a range of tools to make conversions a reality. We conclude with a call for new financial instruments and local policies and practices.

The basic economics of office-to-residential conversions

The economics of office-to-residential conversions (and almost any real estate project) turns on three major categories: the costs of the project, the income that the project will bring, and the financing arrangement of the redevelopment.

There are two overarching costs for conversions: the purchase or lease of buildings and the conversion costs. For purchasing or leasing the land, these costs are now at historic lows given low rents and high vacancy rates. While the purchase or lease price of the property may be low, the conversion costs for such properties are typically much higher. However, depending on the type of property and the location, the combined cost may still be lower than the cost of new construction.

Turning to the revenues for these conversions, the primary driver is the rental or sale revenue for the new residential units. In some cases, these properties may have opportunities for additional revenue, such as parking or retail space on the ground floor. Given the current housing shortage, such rents may be favorable for these conversions. However, many local leaders will rightfully want to ensure that at least some of the housing units are affordable for low- and moderate-income residents. Keen local leaders will be adept at balancing these needs and bring additional subsidies to the table.

Given the multi-domino effect that office closures may have in many downtowns, simply enabling these conversions may suffice in some cases.

The final major consideration in the economics of conversions is the financing of these projects, which bridges the gap between primarily upfront costs and future revenues. Bank debt is often used to finance up to 65 percent of these projects; however, the recent growth in interest rates has made construction financing more challenging to obtain. Equity from private investors or developers is typically a substantial portion of the capital stack as well – often around 35 percent.

To incentivize equity investments, however, local leaders need to show that the investors can make their money back, typically with a 15 to 20 percent annual return (depending upon the hold period). In addition to the source of capital, the timeline of conversion is important: the quicker the project can be completed, the cheaper the financing can be. For office-to-residential conversions, these projects can often take 1 to 2 years less to get units on the market than new builds.

Tools for office-to-residential conversions

The following list details the many powerful – but sometimes not well-known – tools that local leaders can use to incentivize office-to-residential conversions in their cities. Often, these tools can provide the necessary “boost” to complete a conversion where it would otherwise not be feasible.

1. Commission Architectural Feasibility Studies: Architecture and engineering requirements can have sizable implications for conversion costs and feasibility. However, these studies are unlikely to be funded by private investors or developers given their exceptionally high risk (investors are unlikely to spend considerable funds if there is a sizable chance the building cannot be converted economically). As a result, local leaders can commission these architectural feasibility studies in their cities (or provide loans to developers to do so) to better understand which office assets are best positioned for residential conversions and provide a “jump start” for investors and developers. Toronto has recently issued an RFP for such a study.

2. Modernize Zoning and Accelerate Permitting: One of the first steps local leaders can take is to review their local zoning codes and requirements (e.g., parking, Floor Area Ratio) that apply to structures that could be candidates for conversions. These regulations are often legacy codes written for different times with different goals (e.g., accessibility by car and urban sprawl) and do not align with the needs of the moment. By reviewing – and updating – these codes and regulations (e.g., including form-based overlay districts), local leaders can broaden the set of properties eligible for conversions.

New York City, for example, took a similar step with its recent Office Adaptive Reuse Study. Predevelopment costs and timeframes can be further reduced with accelerated construction permitting. Boston, for example, has hired a “permitting ombudsman” to serve as a project manager for the various permitting approvals a conversion would require.

3. Property Tax Abatements: Property taxes are an ongoing cost to office real estate projects. Local leaders can incentivize new projects by providing targeted tax abatements to conversion properties, helping make new conversions feasible. Such incentives have considerable precedent: in the 1990s, New York City created the 421-g program which generated over 12,000 units, totaling over 40 percent of the growth in housing units in lower Manhattan between 1990 and 2020. Several cities are now taking this step: in Boston, Mayor Wu recently announced a tax abatement of up to 75 percent of the standard tax rate for up to 29 years.

4. Tax Advantaged Equity: The federal government currently has a suite of tax incentives for multifamily housing, including historic preservation tax credits, low-income housing tax credits, new market tax credits and Opportunity Zones. These and other incentives can be layered creatively to help pencil out office-to-residential conversions. Earlier this year, for example, the City of Chicago stitched together Low-Income Housing Tax Credits and Rehabilitation Tax Credits (along with tax increment financing) to enable the largest office-to-residential conversion in the country on a series of LaSalle Street properties.

More targeted incentives are under consideration: federal legislation has also been proposed to create a Qualified Office Conversion Tax Credit, via H.R. 419, the Revitalizing Downtowns Act. The bill would create a 20 percent tax credit for expenses to convert office buildings to residential, commercial, or mixed-use properties. Qualifying residential conversion would be required to incorporate affordable housing.

5. Unique Uses of Government-owned Land (Subsidized Sales, Ground Leases, Joint Ventures / Equity Investments): Many local governments own a considerable amount of property in their cities or towns (or they are held through various local agencies or authorities that local government holds considerable influence over). These properties are particularly interesting because they typically do not pay property taxes. Local governments can use this perk to incentivize conversions.

For example, they can provide long-term ground leases and / or enter into joint ventures with investors and developers who agree to the conversion. In the case of joint ventures, cities can also retain an equity stake in the project and participate in the financial upside to recoup their forgone tax revenue. For a simpler path, cities can also gift or sell these properties at a subsidized cost to developers that agree to convert the office property.

6. Providing Anchor Tenants: Local governments can also increase the revenues of these conversions by committing to bring tenants to the new developments, either by a) renting a number of new housing units via local vouchers or supportive housing programs; or b) leasing unconverted or ground-floor office or retail space (e.g., for non-profits and direct service agencies).

7. Government-Backed Lending: While tax-advantaged equity is helpful, residential developments are being curtailed by the current lending environment. There is a need, therefore, for the GSEs or HUD to increase liquidity for construction lending, potentially by creating a special construction-to-term product for office-to-residential conversions. In exchange for this new product, the federal government could insist on conditions, perhaps affordability restrictions or expedited permitting.

8. Direct Subsidy (e.g., from Philanthropy, Local Government): A straightforward way to incentivize conversions is to provide a subsidy to those developers making the change. In Calgary, for example, the city created a grant program that provides $75 per square foot for office-to-residential conversions, which has catalyzed 10 conversions with over 500 residential units to date.

Local philanthropy can also play a role in incentivizing these conversions through a variety of means. In a recent article, we discussed how philanthropies can catalyze the creation of local funds, through the contribution of patient capital. They can also serve as anchor tenants by funding nonprofits that rent units for supportive housing. Philanthropy can also provide grants, low-cost financing, or guarantees to developers, especially to incentivize affordable units or support minority- and women-owned contractors.

9. Downtown Development Corporations: As we have written before, both Cincinnati and Erie created Downtown Development Corporations to spur large-scale regeneration. These nonprofit corporations enable the acquisition of anchor properties in target areas, via patient capital raised via public, corporate, and civic investors. Capitalization of local corporations geared towards office-to-residential conversions could be a critical piece of the financial innovations needed to make this market work.

A Note on Subsidies

Many of these strategies require providing a public or philanthropic subsidy. Given the scarcity of such resources, when providing such an incentive, local public or civic leaders should ensure that their subsidy is enabling or enhancing broader impact objectives of the community. Given the multi-domino effect that office closures may have in many downtowns, simply enabling these conversions may suffice in some cases. In other cases, public or civic leaders can use these incentives on deals that might already be financially attractive to deepen the social value.

For example, in the LaSalle conversion in Chicago, the city stipulated that at least 30 percent of the new housing units must be affordable. Local leaders can also work to recoup their subsidy in creative ways. Chicago uses a Tax Increment Financing structure where some costs may be financed by the increase in future tax revenues. In Boston, the city attached a 2 percent fee associated with the future sales of office-to-residential conversions; thereby providing a subsidy upfront but a mechanism to recoup the initial loss in tax revenue later. All subsidies, if any, should be strategic and locally appropriate.

The Bottom Line

Office-to-residential conversions are unlikely to work in every market for every property. However, in certain markets and for the right properties – and, with the right tools and incentives – they may work in a surprising number of circumstances. A toolkit is emerging that combines local policies and practices with the blending of public, private, and civic investments. The time feels ripe for the creation either of a National Conversion Fund geared towards this purpose or a series of Local Conversion Funds. A small group of first mover cities, with corporate and philanthropic backing, could make this market and catalyze further state and federal action.

Given the travails of commercial real estate, the next six months will be critical.

Bruce Katz is the Founding Director of the Nowak Metro Finance Lab at Drexel University. Florian Schalliol is the founder of Metis Impact, a mission-driven consulting firm specializing in place-based impact. Andrew Gibbs is a Vice President of Real Estate at Arctaris Impact Investors, an impact investing firm that finances critical public-private partnerships, including office-to-residential conversions. Jonathan Tower is the Founder and Managing Partner of Arctaris Impact Investors. 

MORE FROM BRUCE KATZ

The post Resolve two actual property dilemmas by turning workplaces into properties appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

The 15-story Fidelity & Deposit Building in downtown Baltimore has stood empty for nearly two decades. In the lobby, the building’s former grandeur is evident in the ornate marble columns and faded gold detailing on the vaulted ceiling.

Built in 1894, the former office tower will soon find a new life. Developer Trademark Investments bought the building last year and plans to convert it into a mix of commercial space and 231 rental apartments.

“For us, this was a perfect opportunity,” said Patrick Grace, owner of Trademark Investments. “The location is great, the building is fantastic, it lends itself well to apartments.”

And it’s full of vintage charm, like the huge bank vault in a room Grace plans to convert into a restaurant and the intricately carved banister on the staircase. “That would be insanely expensive to recreate, and it looks nicer than a construction-grade staircase that we’re going to build now,” Grace said.

A vault in the Fidelity Building where the new owner wants to open a restaurant. (Amy Scott/Marketplace)

Remodeling an old building – built for an entirely different purpose – also comes with challenges, like adding a second staircase to meet housing regulations. Trademark bought the building last year for $6 million and will invest another $47 million in construction.

The Fidelity building went vacant well before the pandemic, but the recent shift to hybrid work has left office buildings underutilized across the country. Cities like Houston, San Francisco, Chicago and Washington, DC have office vacancy rates of over 15%, according to the National Association of Realtors. By the end of this decade, commercial real estate firm Cushman and Wakefield estimates that vacant office space will increase to 1.1 billion square feet, with 330 million square feet considered “excess vacancy due to remote and hybrid strategies.”

The lobby of the Fidelity & Deposit Building in Baltimore. (Amy Scott/Marketplace)

An architectural rendering of the lobby at 210 N. Charles Street in Baltimore known as the Fidelity Building, a former office tower being converted into apartments. (Courtesy of Trademark Investments)

To take advantage of that space and add much-needed housing, more developers are looking at remodeling, said Doug Ressler, who follows the commercial real estate market at Yardi Matrix, a research firm.

“It’s increased by about 5% to 10% each year for the last three years in terms of total square foot converted offices,” Ressler said.

Between 2020 and 2021, office-to-home conversions grew faster than new construction, according to Yardi data, adding 11,000 homes nationwide. New York City recently announced plans to create thousands of new homes by converting unused office space.

“One of the things you’re seeing is tremendous pressure on governments, cities and states to be able to meet the affordable housing shortage that’s really been with us for almost a decade,” Ressler said.

However, Ressler and others doubt that office conversions will greatly affect this shortage. Last year, Moody’s Analytics analyzed around 1,100 office buildings in New York City for potential conversions.

“We basically found that about 3% could be profitable,” said Kevin Fagan, the company’s head of commercial real estate economic analysis.

There are just too many obstacles, Fagan said. Offices, for example, tend to have a larger footprint, with central areas cut off from natural light.

“There’s no need for natural light in the center,” he said. “You don’t live there, you’re there for a period of time, and you put your young analyst in a lightless office in the middle, and that’s fine.”

But that doesn’t work for housing, Fagan said. It can also happen that existing tenants have to be bought out or plumbing and windows have to be replaced.

“Often people in the developing world say it’s better to build from scratch than to do a renovation,” Fagan said.

Patrick Grace and Eva Hodsdon of Trademark Investments stand in a hallway of the old Fidelity & Deposit Building in Baltimore. (Amy Scott/Marketplace)

For Grace at Trademark Investments, the bottom line is worth the effort.

“It’s going to look amazing,” he said of the Fidelity Building, which Trademark estimates will be leasing by 2025.

Eva Hodsdon, Trademark’s asset manager, showed me what a finished office into an apartment might look like in another old building the company is converting nearby. Inside, the apartments look much like you would find in any new building, with quartz countertops and stainless appliances.

“This is probably – of all the units I have in my portfolio – the one that could feel the most ‘commercially converted’,” Hodsdon said as we walked into a large ground floor unit that may have housed a shop front .

In the bedroom, floor-to-ceiling glass windows looked directly onto the busy sidewalk.

“You have to be flexible with the conversion,” said Hodsdon. “When a renter comes in here and says, ‘I want this whole window to be screened, or I want some kind of soundproofing,’ that’s always a conversation we’re open to because we want this space to work for that too.” she.”

Hodsdon himself lives in a converted flat, in what was once a law firm. Aside from the dark wood paneling and some legal motives in the building, she said, you’d never know.

There’s a lot happening in the world. For everything, Marketplace is there for you.

They rely on Marketplace to break down world events and tell you how they affect you in a fact-based and accessible way. In order to continue to make this possible, we depend on your financial support.

Your donation today supports the independent journalism you rely on. For just $5/month you can help keep Marketplace going so we can keep reporting on the things you care about.

The post Can empty workplace area assist clear up the housing scarcity? appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

For every homeless person in San Francisco who becomes housed with the help of government, four more people become homeless, according to a new report. This Sisyphean track record offers important lessons for other cities. Unfortunately, measures on the city’s November ballot ignore proven solutions and double down on misguided policies.

San Francisco’s first mistake is misdiagnosing the problem. The city’s political class thinks homelessness is primarily caused by insufficient housing. In truth, homelessness is more often caused by substance abuse and mental illness. That mistake has caused the city to pour hundreds of millions of dollars into “affordable” or “permanent” housing programs.

In 2016, city leaders created the San Francisco Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing (HSH). Since its inception, HSH has received $3.5 billion, while the number of people experiencing homelessness in the city annually has increased by 63 percent. About 50-60 percent of HSH’s funding in a typical year supports various permanent-housing programs.

Up to 20,000 people experience homelessness in San Francisco over the course of a year. San Francisco is the most expensive place on Earth to build, according to construction consultant Turner & Townsend. One “affordable” unit costs developers an average of $750,000 to build in the city. It’s cheaper to buy units, but not by much. For example, San Francisco recently bought two buildings for permanent supportive housing containing 252 units for $162.3 million, or $644,000 per unit.

Even if the city had $15 billion to build 20,000 units, it would not solve the problem, as the services draw new homeless people to the city: another 20,000 homeless people would emerge the next year, followed by 30,000 the next, and so on. The inflow of people experiencing homelessness greatly exceeds the number of people who become housed. The “Housing First” vision of giving every homeless person a permanent home is an expensive fool’s errand.

City officials helped to put two measures, D and E, on the November ballot, which proponents claim will increase the production of affordable housing by streamlining permitting when a project meets certain thresholds of affordability and tenant income (the measures differ on those thresholds). But to appear union overlords, both measures require builders to pay construction workers higher “prevailing [union] wages” on projects of 10 units or more, which could drive up total project costs by more than 35 percent. That won’t make housing more affordable.

San Francisco needs more housing, but giving HSH more money will not solve the homelessness problem; doing so would ignore the actual causes of homelessness. And in a desperate attempt to salvage a morsel of legitimacy for HSH, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors put Measure C on the ballot, asking voters to create a seven-member Homelessness Oversight Commission to oversee HSH, adding another layer of government bureaucracy.

San Francisco has compounded its homelessness problems by recklessly handing out cash assistance, effectively subsidizing self-destructive behaviors. After just one month of residency, people can receive benefits up to $869 a month for food and general assistance.

In a 2022 viral video, a self-described “old-school junkie” from Louisiana explains how “they pay you to be homeless here [in San Francisco]… it’s free money.” He uses assistance to pay for Netflix and Prime Video on his cell phone as he lives in a tent on a sidewalk and uses fentanyl. More housing development won’t solve this problem. People experiencing homelessness will continue to stream into the city, lured by permanent homes at taxpayer expense, generous cash benefits, and, perhaps most importantly, tolerance from political elites.

While San Francisco pursues its impossible dream of permanent housing for every homeless person, incentivizing more people to come to the city with cash assistance and the promise of housing, its political class tolerates neighborhood decay. Officials uncaringly sacrificed certain neighborhoods (but not Nancy Pelosi’s Pacific Heights) to the street problems accompanying homelessness. The epicenter of San Francisco’s homeless population is the tenderloin, a nightmare of concentrated violence, theft, encampments, fires, drug dealing, drug use, and overdoses, which kill about two people a day in San Francisco. The Tenderloin, Mission District, South of Market, and other neighborhoods have become dangerous shelters of first resort, unsafe for housed and unhoused residents alike.

The root cause of this neighborhood decay is an unwillingness by government officials to enforce “the public purposes of public spaces” throughout the city. Parks, sidewalks, alleys, nature areas, and land along freeways and near transit systems have well-established public purposes that don’t include residential living. Since the city doesn’t preserve public spaces for their intended uses, unhoused people live in those areas, evading difficult choices such as receiving treatment, moving to designated safe sites, going to jail, or moving to another town.

Homelessness should never be a crime, but specific actions by an individual experiencing homelessness—or anyone else—should be crimes. That includes defecting in public, open drug use, littering, trespassing, assault, battery, and living on sidewalks and roadways. Residents of the Tenderloin—or any neighborhood—deserve a safe, clean community in which to raise their kids, where parks are used for recreation, not drug injection.

That leaves the question of where unhoused people should go. Housing First addresses the symptom of homelessness but leaves the root causes of homelessness—personal trauma, substance abuse, mental-health issues, disaffiliation—largely untreated, with deadly consequences.

From 2016 to 2021, 869 homeless people died in San Francisco, according to a 2022 study by medical researchers. The highest number of yearly deaths, 331, occurred during the peak of the Covid lockdowns, from March 2020 to March 2021, when people experiencing homelessness were shunted into their Housing First rooms. A full 82 percent of the 331 deaths were due to overdoses, the majority involving fentanyl, because underlying causes weren’t addressed. Without treatment, “Housing First” too often becomes ‘Death Second.’

In contrast, San Antonio, Texas, provides a proven compassionate model that focuses on the root causes of homelessness. Moreover, it can be scaled up relatively cheaply, compared to San Francisco’s approach.

Haven for Hope, which opened in 2010, is the vision of San Antonio business leader Bill Greehey, who raised $103 million to build the nonprofit facility. Most of the money came from private sources, and the City of San Antonio donated the land. Haven for Hope is an integrated “one stop” 22-acre campus for the safe housing and treatment of homeless people in Bexar County. It collaborates with 183 partners, 70 of whom are on-site, and it provides transportation to off-site providers.

The 17-building complex offers a low-barrier emergency shelter called The Courtyard, where meals, showers, toilets, laundry, medical care, and case management services are provided. The complex also has a transformational campus of long-term housing with no time limit and individualized services for addiction recovery, mental health care, life skills, and job training. The staff are well-trained, and around-the-clock security ensures the safety of the 1,700 residents and the surrounding neighborhoods. The operating budget for fiscal year 2021 was $24.7 million.

Since 2010, more than 40,000 people have been helped at Haven for Hope. Almost 6,000 people have found permanent housing through the transformational program, with 92 percent remaining stable and housed after one year. Judges in Bexar County offer many individuals facing criminal charges who have mental-health or substance-abuse problems a choice: jail or a recovery program at Haven for Hope. Results for individuals entering Haven for Hope through courts are reportedly as good as those for individuals entering without court intervention. The results are impressive.

In 2009, San Antonio and San Francisco had similar levels of homelessness, but during the decade that followed, the homeless population in San Antonio decreased 11 percent (including 77 percent fewer homeless downtown), while the homeless population in San Francisco surged nearly 80 percent . San Antonio is committed to getting people off the streets and into safe facilities dedicated to healing underlying traumas and tackling the true causes of homelessness through personalized treatment and job training. A similar commitment is needed in San Francisco.

For starters, the State of California should donate the underused 62-acre Cow Palace for a Haven for Hope-style campus for San Francisco. It should be staffed by trained professionals who collaborate with nonprofit service providers with proven track records of success. Business leaders should raise private funds to build the facility.

Subscribe Today

Get weekly emails in your inbox

San Francisco should preserve its public spaces and revitalize its neighborhoods by directing people experiencing homelessness to designated, safe, state-of-the-art campuses that combine a low-barrier shelter with transitional housing and personalized treatment for substance abuse, mental illness, and job training. A campus is cheaper to build and scale than the permanent housing approach. Enforcement of the public purposes of public spaces must be consistent and citywide. Selective neighborhood enforcement will only push problems to other parts of the city.

With few exceptions, San Francisco should stop providing cash payments, debit cards, or anything that can be easily converted into cash. Assistance from governments and nonprofits should consist of services. Cash should come from employment.

San Francisco’s policy mistakes have turned the city into a national theme park for human misery. Cities should learn from those mistakes. As demonstrated by San Antonio, a holistic, integrated approach that tackles the root causes of homelessness can prevent communities from sliding into an abyss.

The post How San Francisco Can Clear up Its Homelessness Downside appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

There’s no shortage of ideas for how to fix things in San Francisco.

We know, because you told us.

Last month, the San Francisco Chronicle published an investigation that shone a spotlight on one of the biggest challenges: The pandemic has depressed tourism and office attendance, hurting the downtown area’s local economy and putting the city’s long-term fiscal health into question.

The story struck a nerve. It was the Chronicle’s most read article the day it was published, and remained in the top 10 for a week. Digital readers didn’t just click it, they pored over it, our analytics show, and shared reactions in comments, tweets and emails. One person channeled a widely held sentiment: “I love San Francisco and hate to see it suffer.”

Positive reception to a follow-up story, about proposed changes to the urban environment to help downtown bounce back, showed that readers don’t just want to hear about problems — they want solutions.

What’s SFNext

SFNext is a Chronicle special project to involve city residents in finding solutions to some of San Francisco’s most pressing problems.

Send feedback, ideas and suggestions to sfnext@SFChronicle.com

Where to find more SFNext content

So there we go. This package of stories was the kickoff of the Chronicle’s SFNext project, designed to engage residents in finding fixes to problems facing the city. One after another, many readers offered up creative solutions to the city’s woes. Here are some that stood out (and we want to hear yours; email us at sfnext@sfchronicle.com):

Addressing homelessness

Perhaps the most cited problem was the homelessness crisis, which people find daunting and dispiriting.

One person offered a plan, with cost estimates, for relocating homeless people from the streets to ships docked in the Bay Area, where they could live and receive food, social services and treatment. For some people, admission would be compulsory. Key elements of this idea are not new — in 1989, the US Navy sent ships and personnel to shelter San Franciscans displaced by the Loma Prieta earthquake, and in 2016 former mayor Art Agnos said the city should use the approach to immediately house all unsheltered people .

Some readers suggested moving homeless people from the streets into the empty offices downtown. This might resemble City Hall’s partnership with hotels that have housed homeless people during the pandemic as an alternative to congregate shelters, where the virus could spread more easily.

SF Next Public Square

Residents share ideas for fixing San Francisco

See the responses here

One person said the city should create a mobile app that would let members of the public collaborate with the government and help people out of homelessness. For example, housed residents might talk with nearby encampment dwellers to learn about their backgrounds and needs, then feed that information to the app so that outreach workers could better target their assistance. By getting involved, citizens might feel less helpless, the reader said.

Another person said they’re trying to start a networking service, styled after LinkedIn, specifically for homeless and low-income job seekers. (Here is a prototype web page.)

And then there was the idea of ​​offering more and better public bathrooms to cut down on street defecation.

Reimagining the urban landscape

More than one person said that San Francisco deserves its own version of the High Line — a park in Manhattan that runs along an elevated old railroad just above street traffic, serving as a tourist attraction and a pleasant route for residents. San Francisco’s nearest equivalent is probably Salesforce Park, but our readers wanted something at street level along a main thoroughfare rather than on a rooftop. Bicycling would be safer if riders could use it instead of sharing the street with cars, one person suggested.

Or San Francisco could become a destination for conventional and alternative medicine by transforming the Embarcadero Center into a hub for the healing arts. “Imagine,” a reader said by email, “yoga studios and dance studios, health spas with Himalayan salt saunas. Spaces for individual massage therapists and chiropractors and osteopaths.” Some of the services could focus on treating long COVID.

Someone pitched a San Francisco Vision Corps: This team of high school and college graduates, compensated with grants and housing, would work with the government to brainstorm and carry out urban planning and design solutions to the city’s problems.

How to bring people downtown

People had many ideas to help revitalize downtown, which is struggling post-pandemic, with a majority of workers still preferring to work from home.

The defunct retail spaces in that area, with their long glass windows, could host pop-up businesses or workspaces for artists whom passers-by could observe, said Desi Danganan, who leads economic development strategies for SOMA Pilipinas cultural district.

Maybe office workers would return if they received free vouchers to the area’s restaurants, one reader said, adding that the city and BART could make public transit free on days when workers were generally downtown in the lowest numbers, such as Fridays through Mondays. Another reader asked that MUNI bring back its express lines from the city’s outlying neighborhoods to the downtown area.

One reader proposed that, similar to the model for streaming television, people could buy monthly “subscriptions” of discounted, bundled downtown services, such as access to public transit and credits toward restaurants and bars. Because people would feel inclined to keep using the services they were already paying for, businesses would get a steady clientele.

Convert office buildings to housing

By far, the most popular idea among readers was converting vacant office buildings to homes, to foster a “15 minute neighborhood” where everything a resident needed was within a quarter-hour’s walk from their doorstep.

Many argue that such conversions are economically unfeasible. It’s true that this is a complex and expensive way to produce housing because it entails major structural alterations, but the potential benefits are great. It would inject new residents into the downtown area, increasing foot traffic beyond business hours to make the area feel generally safer and help small businesses, restaurants and retailers operate more sustainably. This could also help ease the city’s housing shortage.

“People WANT to live near where they work!” wrote one reader. “If you build the apartments they will come.”

Many people said this should include homes for low- and middle-income residents, rather than just homes priced at the market rate. But affordable housing is one of the elements that can make it difficult for conversion projects to pencil out, developers say, and a plan to scale up this type of real estate development would need to account for that somehow.

Other uses for empty offices

If the office workers don’t want their workspaces, then maybe others can have them?

City Hall could acquire empty commercial space and give the deeds to local nonprofits, freeing up their resources to amplify their impact instead of paying rent, said Mabel Teng, executive director of the Chinatown Media and Arts Collaborative and a former city supervisor and assessor-recorder . Nonprofits “are collectively the safety net for the working families in the city,” Teng said, and those services are vital while San Francisco continues to claw its way toward recovery. Organizations providing complementary services could be on the same floor, to better coordinate and serve clients.

Maybe some high-rise office buildings could be converted for light industrial or manufacturing uses, said Malcolm Yeung, executive director of Chinatown Community Development Center.

“The pandemic exposed significant supply chain weakness,” he said, and the city could explore using these spaces to mitigate the damage of similar upsets in the future. The result would be “working class jobs that might not be so reliable on the boom and bust (and seasonality and exploitation) of the service industry,” Yeung said by text message.

Readers suggested other uses for vacant spaces: live-work housing, urban gardens and farming, aquaponics and more.

The government could encourage certain uses with subsidies for the buildings’ owners, readers suggested.

Many more ideas

Readers submitted many other ideas:

• New tax: Tax companies whose employees work from home, and use the tax revenue to buy office space for conversion to housing.

• Tax break: Approve a new version of the tax break that city officials passed in 2011 to entice companies, especially those in the tech industry, to settle in the mid-market area. But the new policy would give greater breaks to companies with more employees living in ZIP codes that were the same as, or adjacent to, the company’s. This would give companies an incentive to have more staff live near San Francisco’s economic core.

• Private security: Hire a team to patrol the downtown area and make visitors feel safer, handling low-level confrontations so that the police don’t have to. This could follow the example of the “Purple Patrol,” in Los Angeles.

• Police booths at all BART entrances: This, too, could attract visitors by making them feel safer.

• Clean the sidewalks and streets.

• Open more navigation centers: These alternatives to emergency shelters could help more homeless people off the streets.

• Open more mental health hospitals.

• New rehabilitation facilities elsewhere: San Francisco and other counties could partner with the state to establish top-notch rehabilitation facilities in parts of California where they’re cheapest to build. San Franciscans battling addiction could go there to get help.

• Make it easier to open a business: The city should remove all obstacles to starting a business, like fees, long permitting processes and opportunities by the public to oppose an opening. People should receive subsidies to start businesses.

• Give businesses one or two months’ free rent: This could attract businesses to settle in empty retail spaces that aren’t producing revenue for their owners.

• Coronavirus testing on site prior to entering a business: “I won’t feel as concerned about getting sick if I know everyone in the building is most likely not sick,” said one reader.

• Businesses draw out remote workers: Entice remote workers to downtown restaurants and cafes, with more comfortable furniture, free WiFi and the ability to spend long hours there working on laptops.

• More childcare services: The city should make policies that help businesses either pay for their employees’ childcare or provide it on site at reduced cost, making use of all that empty office space.

• Citywide elections for supervisors: A district’s voters elect their supervisor, so that person has a political incentive to consider their constituents’ needs over those of other residents — and this can make it hard for supervisors to agree on important citywide matters. The city should switch to citywide elections for supervisors.

• All public employees must work on site: Discontinue remote work among all staff of the City and County of San Francisco. If they have to work in the city, then they’re more likely to spend money at local businesses, and that could help the economic core recover.

• Make downtown the Florence of the 21st century: Recruit universities from around the world to open foreign campuses in the empty office buildings downtown.

We’ll keep digging into the city’s problems and seeking out solutions. Please keep the ideas flowing.

Noah Arroyo (he/him) is a San Francisco Chronicle writer. Email: noah.arroyo@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @noah_arroyo

The post What might assist remedy San Francisco’s issues? Readers weigh in with concepts appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

For every homeless person in San Francisco who becomes housed with the help of government, four more people become homeless, according to a new report. This Sisyphean track record offers important lessons for other cities. Unfortunately, measures on the city’s November ballot ignore proven solutions and double down on misguided policies.

San Francisco’s first mistake is misdiagnosing the problem. The city’s political class thinks homelessness is primarily caused by insufficient housing. In truth, homelessness is more often caused by substance abuse and mental illness. That mistake has caused the city to pour hundreds of millions of dollars into “affordable” or “permanent” housing programs.

In 2016, city leaders created the San Francisco Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing (HSH). Since its inception, HSH has received $3.5 billion, while the number of people experiencing homelessness in the city annually has increased by 63 percent. About 50-60 percent of HSH’s funding in a typical year supports various permanent-housing programs.

Up to 20,000 people experience homelessness in San Francisco over the course of a year. San Francisco is the most expensive place on Earth to build, according to construction consultant Turner & Townsend. One “affordable” unit costs developers an average of $750,000 to build in the city. It’s cheaper to buy units, but not by much. For example, San Francisco recently bought two buildings for permanent supportive housing containing 252 units for $162.3 million, or $644,000 per unit.

Even if the city had $15 billion to build 20,000 units, it would not solve the problem, as the services draw new homeless people to the city: another 20,000 homeless people would emerge the next year, followed by 30,000 the next, and so on. The inflow of people experiencing homelessness greatly exceeds the number of people who become housed. The “Housing First” vision of giving every homeless person a permanent home is an expensive fool’s errand.

City officials helped to put two measures, D and E, on the November ballot, which proponents claim will increase the production of affordable housing by streamlining permitting when a project meets certain thresholds of affordability and tenant income (the measures differ on those thresholds). But to appear union overlords, both measures require builders to pay construction workers higher “prevailing [union] wages” on projects of 10 units or more, which could drive up total project costs by more than 35 percent. That won’t make housing more affordable.

San Francisco needs more housing, but giving HSH more money will not solve the homelessness problem; doing so would ignore the actual causes of homelessness. And in a desperate attempt to salvage a morsel of legitimacy for HSH, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors put Measure C on the ballot, asking voters to create a seven-member Homelessness Oversight Commission to oversee HSH, adding another layer of government bureaucracy.

San Francisco has compounded its homelessness problems by recklessly handing out cash assistance, effectively subsidizing self-destructive behaviors. After just one month of residency, people can receive benefits up to $869 a month for food and general assistance.

In a 2022 viral video, a self-described “old-school junkie” from Louisiana explains how “they pay you to be homeless here [in San Francisco]… it’s free money.” He uses assistance to pay for Netflix and Prime Video on his cell phone as he lives in a tent on a sidewalk and uses fentanyl. More housing development won’t solve this problem. People experiencing homelessness will continue to stream into the city, lured by permanent homes at taxpayer expense, generous cash benefits, and, perhaps most importantly, tolerance from political elites.

While San Francisco pursues its impossible dream of permanent housing for every homeless person, incentivizing more people to come to the city with cash assistance and the promise of housing, its political class tolerates neighborhood decay. Officials uncaringly sacrificed certain neighborhoods (but not Nancy Pelosi’s Pacific Heights) to the street problems accompanying homelessness. The epicenter of San Francisco’s homeless population is the tenderloin, a nightmare of concentrated violence, theft, encampments, fires, drug dealing, drug use, and overdoses, which kill about two people a day in San Francisco. The Tenderloin, Mission District, South of Market, and other neighborhoods have become dangerous shelters of first resort, unsafe for housed and unhoused residents alike.

The root cause of this neighborhood decay is an unwillingness by government officials to enforce “the public purposes of public spaces” throughout the city. Parks, sidewalks, alleys, nature areas, and land along freeways and near transit systems have well-established public purposes that don’t include residential living. Since the city doesn’t preserve public spaces for their intended uses, unhoused people live in those areas, evading difficult choices such as receiving treatment, moving to designated safe sites, going to jail, or moving to another town.

Homelessness should never be a crime, but specific actions by an individual experiencing homelessness—or anyone else—should be crimes. That includes defecting in public, open drug use, littering, trespassing, assault, battery, and living on sidewalks and roadways. Residents of the Tenderloin—or any neighborhood—deserve a safe, clean community in which to raise their kids, where parks are used for recreation, not drug injection.

That leaves the question of where unhoused people should go. Housing First addresses the symptom of homelessness but leaves the root causes of homelessness—personal trauma, substance abuse, mental-health issues, disaffiliation—largely untreated, with deadly consequences.

From 2016 to 2021, 869 homeless people died in San Francisco, according to a 2022 study by medical researchers. The highest number of yearly deaths, 331, occurred during the peak of the Covid lockdowns, from March 2020 to March 2021, when people experiencing homelessness were shunted into their Housing First rooms. A full 82 percent of the 331 deaths were due to overdoses, the majority involving fentanyl, because underlying causes weren’t addressed. Without treatment, “Housing First” too often becomes ‘Death Second.’

In contrast, San Antonio, Texas, provides a proven compassionate model that focuses on the root causes of homelessness. Moreover, it can be scaled up relatively cheaply, compared to San Francisco’s approach.

Haven for Hope, which opened in 2010, is the vision of San Antonio business leader Bill Greehey, who raised $103 million to build the nonprofit facility. Most of the money came from private sources, and the City of San Antonio donated the land. Haven for Hope is an integrated “one stop” 22-acre campus for the safe housing and treatment of homeless people in Bexar County. It collaborates with 183 partners, 70 of whom are on-site, and it provides transportation to off-site providers.

The 17-building complex offers a low-barrier emergency shelter called The Courtyard, where meals, showers, toilets, laundry, medical care, and case management services are provided. The complex also has a transformational campus of long-term housing with no time limit and individualized services for addiction recovery, mental health care, life skills, and job training. The staff are well-trained, and around-the-clock security ensures the safety of the 1,700 residents and the surrounding neighborhoods. The operating budget for fiscal year 2021 was $24.7 million.

Since 2010, more than 40,000 people have been helped at Haven for Hope. Almost 6,000 people have found permanent housing through the transformational program, with 92 percent remaining stable and housed after one year. Judges in Bexar County offer many individuals facing criminal charges who have mental-health or substance-abuse problems a choice: jail or a recovery program at Haven for Hope. Results for individuals entering Haven for Hope through courts are reportedly as good as those for individuals entering without court intervention. The results are impressive.

In 2009, San Antonio and San Francisco had similar levels of homelessness, but during the decade that followed, the homeless population in San Antonio decreased 11 percent (including 77 percent fewer homeless downtown), while the homeless population in San Francisco surged nearly 80 percent . San Antonio is committed to getting people off the streets and into safe facilities dedicated to healing underlying traumas and tackling the true causes of homelessness through personalized treatment and job training. A similar commitment is needed in San Francisco.

For starters, the State of California should donate the underused 62-acre Cow Palace for a Haven for Hope-style campus for San Francisco. It should be staffed by trained professionals who collaborate with nonprofit service providers with proven track records of success. Business leaders should raise private funds to build the facility.

San Francisco should preserve its public spaces and revitalize its neighborhoods by directing people experiencing homelessness to designated, safe, state-of-the-art campuses that combine a low-barrier shelter with transitional housing and personalized treatment for substance abuse, mental illness, and job training. A campus is cheaper to build and scale than the permanent housing approach. Enforcement of the public purposes of public spaces must be consistent and citywide. Selective neighborhood enforcement will only push problems to other parts of the city.

With few exceptions, San Francisco should stop providing cash payments, debit cards, or anything that can be easily converted into cash. Assistance from governments and nonprofits should consist of services. Cash should come from employment.

San Francisco’s policy mistakes have turned the city into a national theme park for human misery. Cities should learn from those mistakes. As demonstrated by San Antonio, a holistic, integrated approach that tackles the root causes of homelessness can prevent communities from sliding into an abyss.

The post How San Francisco Can Remedy Its Homelessness Downside: Information: The Unbiased Institute appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

There’s no shortage of ideas for how to fix things in San Francisco.

We know, because you told us.

Last month, the San Francisco Chronicle published an investigation that shone a spotlight on one of the biggest challenges: The pandemic has depressed tourism and office attendance, hurting the downtown area’s local economy and putting the city’s long-term fiscal health into question.

The story struck a nerve. It was the Chronicle’s most read article the day it was published, and remained in the top 10 for a week. Digital readers didn’t just click it, they pored over it, our analytics show, and shared reactions in comments, tweets and emails. One person channeled a widely held sentiment: “I love San Francisco and hate to see it suffer.”

Positive reception to a follow-up story, about proposed changes to the urban environment to help downtown bounce back, showed that readers don’t just want to hear about problems — they want solutions.

What’s SFNext

SFNext is a Chronicle special project to involve city residents in finding solutions to some of San Francisco’s most pressing problems.

Send feedback, ideas and suggestions to sfnext@SFChronicle.com

Where to find more SFNext content

So there we go. This package of stories was the kickoff of the Chronicle’s SFNext project, designed to engage residents in finding fixes to problems facing the city. One after another, many readers offered up creative solutions to the city’s woes. Here are some that stood out (and we want to hear yours; email us at sfnext@sfchronicle.com):

Addressing homelessness

Perhaps the most cited problem was the homelessness crisis, which people find daunting and dispiriting.

One person offered a plan, with cost estimates, for relocating homeless people from the streets to ships docked in the Bay Area, where they could live and receive food, social services and treatment. For some people, admission would be compulsory. Key elements of this idea are not new — in 1989, the US Navy sent ships and personnel to shelter San Franciscans displaced by the Loma Prieta earthquake, and in 2016 former mayor Art Agnos said the city should use the approach to immediately house all unsheltered people .

Some readers suggested moving homeless people from the streets into the empty offices downtown. This might resemble City Hall’s partnership with hotels that have housed homeless people during the pandemic as an alternative to congregate shelters, where the virus could spread more easily.

SF Next Public Square

Residents share ideas for fixing San Francisco

See the responses here

One person said the city should create a mobile app that would let members of the public collaborate with the government and help people out of homelessness. For example, housed residents might talk with nearby encampment dwellers to learn about their backgrounds and needs, then feed that information to the app so that outreach workers could better target their assistance. By getting involved, citizens might feel less helpless, the reader said.

Another person said they’re trying to start a networking service, styled after LinkedIn, specifically for homeless and low-income job seekers. (Here is a prototype web page.)

And then there was the idea of ​​offering more and better public bathrooms to cut down on street defecation.

Reimagining the urban landscape

More than one person said that San Francisco deserves its own version of the High Line — a park in Manhattan that runs along an elevated old railroad just above street traffic, serving as a tourist attraction and a pleasant route for residents. San Francisco’s nearest equivalent is probably Salesforce Park, but our readers wanted something at street level along a main thoroughfare rather than on a rooftop. Bicycling would be safer if riders could use it instead of sharing the street with cars, one person suggested.

Or San Francisco could become a destination for conventional and alternative medicine by transforming the Embarcadero Center into a hub for the healing arts. “Imagine,” a reader said by email, “yoga studios and dance studios, health spas with Himalayan salt saunas. Spaces for individual massage therapists and chiropractors and osteopaths.” Some of the services could focus on treating long COVID.

Someone pitched a San Francisco Vision Corps: This team of high school and college graduates, compensated with grants and housing, would work with the government to brainstorm and carry out urban planning and design solutions to the city’s problems.

How to bring people downtown

People had many ideas to help revitalize downtown, which is struggling post-pandemic, with a majority of workers still preferring to work from home.

The defunct retail spaces in that area, with their long glass windows, could host pop-up businesses or workspaces for artists whom passers-by could observe, said Desi Danganan, who leads economic development strategies for SOMA Pilipinas cultural district.

Maybe office workers would return if they received free vouchers to the area’s restaurants, one reader said, adding that the city and BART could make public transit free on days when workers were generally downtown in the lowest numbers, such as Fridays through Mondays. Another reader asked that MUNI bring back its express lines from the city’s outlying neighborhoods to the downtown area.

One reader proposed that, similar to the model for streaming television, people could buy monthly “subscriptions” of discounted, bundled downtown services, such as access to public transit and credits toward restaurants and bars. Because people would feel inclined to keep using the services they were already paying for, businesses would get a steady clientele.

Convert office buildings to housing

By far, the most popular idea among readers was converting vacant office buildings to homes, to foster a “15 minute neighborhood” where everything a resident needed was within a quarter-hour’s walk from their doorstep.

Many argue that such conversions are economically unfeasible. It’s true that this is a complex and expensive way to produce housing because it entails major structural alterations, but the potential benefits are great. It would inject new residents into the downtown area, increasing foot traffic beyond business hours to make the area feel generally safer and help small businesses, restaurants and retailers operate more sustainably. This could also help ease the city’s housing shortage.

“People WANT to live near where they work!” wrote one reader. “If you build the apartments they will come.”

Many people said this should include homes for low- and middle-income residents, rather than just homes priced at the market rate. But affordable housing is one of the elements that can make it difficult for conversion projects to pencil out, developers say, and a plan to scale up this type of real estate development would need to account for that somehow.

Other uses for empty offices

If the office workers don’t want their workspaces, then maybe others can have them?

City Hall could acquire empty commercial space and give the deeds to local nonprofits, freeing up their resources to amplify their impact instead of paying rent, said Mabel Teng, executive director of the Chinatown Media and Arts Collaborative and a former city supervisor and assessor-recorder . Nonprofits “are collectively the safety net for the working families in the city,” Teng said, and those services are vital while San Francisco continues to claw its way toward recovery. Organizations providing complementary services could be on the same floor, to better coordinate and serve clients.

Maybe some high-rise office buildings could be converted for light industrial or manufacturing uses, said Malcolm Yeung, executive director of Chinatown Community Development Center.

“The pandemic exposed significant supply chain weakness,” he said, and the city could explore using these spaces to mitigate the damage of similar upsets in the future. The result would be “working class jobs that might not be so reliable on the boom and bust (and seasonality and exploitation) of the service industry,” Yeung said by text message.

Readers suggested other uses for vacant spaces: live-work housing, urban gardens and farming, aquaponics and more.

The government could encourage certain uses with subsidies for the buildings’ owners, readers suggested.

Many more ideas

Readers submitted many other ideas:

• New tax: Tax companies whose employees work from home, and use the tax revenue to buy office space for conversion to housing.

• Tax break: Approve a new version of the tax break that city officials passed in 2011 to entice companies, especially those in the tech industry, to settle in the mid-market area. But the new policy would give greater breaks to companies with more employees living in ZIP codes that were the same as, or adjacent to, the company’s. This would give companies an incentive to have more staff live near San Francisco’s economic core.

• Private security: Hire a team to patrol the downtown area and make visitors feel safer, handling low-level confrontations so that the police don’t have to. This could follow the example of the “Purple Patrol,” in Los Angeles.

• Police booths at all BART entrances: This, too, could attract visitors by making them feel safer.

• Clean the sidewalks and streets.

• Open more navigation centers: These alternatives to emergency shelters could help more homeless people off the streets.

• Open more mental health hospitals.

• New rehabilitation facilities elsewhere: San Francisco and other counties could partner with the state to establish top-notch rehabilitation facilities in parts of California where they’re cheapest to build. San Franciscans battling addiction could go there to get help.

• Make it easier to open a business: The city should remove all obstacles to starting a business, like fees, long permitting processes and opportunities by the public to oppose an opening. People should receive subsidies to start businesses.

• Give businesses one or two months’ free rent: This could attract businesses to settle in empty retail spaces that aren’t producing revenue for their owners.

• Coronavirus testing on site prior to entering a business: “I won’t feel as concerned about getting sick if I know everyone in the building is most likely not sick,” said one reader.

• Businesses draw out remote workers: Entice remote workers to downtown restaurants and cafes, with more comfortable furniture, free WiFi and the ability to spend long hours there working on laptops.

• More childcare services: The city should make policies that help businesses either pay for their employees’ childcare or provide it on site at reduced cost, making use of all that empty office space.

• Citywide elections for supervisors: A district’s voters elect their supervisor, so that person has a political incentive to consider their constituents’ needs over those of other residents — and this can make it hard for supervisors to agree on important citywide matters. The city should switch to citywide elections for supervisors.

• All public employees must work on site: Discontinue remote work among all staff of the City and County of San Francisco. If they have to work in the city, then they’re more likely to spend money at local businesses, and that could help the economic core recover.

• Make downtown the Florence of the 21st century: Recruit universities from around the world to open foreign campuses in the empty office buildings downtown.

We’ll keep digging into the city’s problems and seeking out solutions. Please keep the ideas flowing.

Noah Arroyo (he/him) is a San Francisco Chronicle writer. Email: noah.arroyo@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @noah_arroyo

The post What might assist clear up San Francisco’s issues? Readers weigh in with concepts appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

The San Francisco Chronicle is excited to unveil the SFNext initiative. A new team of seven talented journalists will focus on tapping into our diverse city to find solutions to its most challenging problems.

SFNext wants to take a different approach to local journalism. The project, which launched Friday, June 10, will be solutions-focused and include public forums, polling, reported stories, a newsletter and a weekly podcast called “Fixing Our City,” which debuts June 21. In SFNext’s first story, reporter Noah Arroyo examines the tough road to economic recovery for Downtown San Francisco.

Let’s meet the team behind SFNext:

SFNext Director Jonathan Krim

Courtesy of Jonathan Krim

Jonathan Krim
ProjectDirector

Krim joins The Chronicle with over four decades of experience in print and digital journalism. His career includes stints at the San Jose Mercury News, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal, during which he focused on local, international and business/tech news. He supervised coverage that won two Pulitzer Prizes and launched numerous digital initiatives.

“Civic engagement is vital to the health of any community,” he said. “We hope to connect with San Francisco residents from all areas and walks of life in a collaborative effort to address our great city’s most pressing difficulties.”

Krim is a native of New York and a graduate of the University of Montana. He currently lives in Oakland with his wife, Joyce; their dog, Toast, and their cat, Kona.

Courtesy of Noah Arroyo

Noah Arroyo
reporter

Arroyo is an award-winning, versatile journalist with a decade of experience covering local issues in San Francisco. He has spent most of his career examining the city’s intractable homelessness and housing-affordability crises, and is at home building reporting projects from the ground up. He previously wrote for the San Francisco Public Press and Mission Local.

“I thought for about a year that I was going to be a geologist,” Arroyo said. “Turns out there’s a lot of overlap, looking at minerals out in the field and poring over government documents.”

A native of Whittier, he attended San Francisco State University. He currently lives in the Tenderloin.

Courtesy of Adriana Rezal

Adriana Rezal
Data reporter

In addition to writing stories that focus on data as the key element, Rezal collaborates with other reporters to collect and analyze data.

Rezal covered local business, government and education news in the Greater Houston area while working as a reporter for the Community Impact newspaper. She then spent a summer in Chicago as a reporting intern for Borderless Magazine and wrote about immigration in the Midwest. She later gained national news experience while working as a data journalism intern for US News and World Report.

“I’m excited to play an active role in discussing the future of San Francisco by diving into the city’s data,” she said.

Rezal was raised in Baytown, Texas, a suburb east of Houston. She attended the University of Texas at Austin and graduated in 2019 with a degree in international relations and global studies with a minor in journalism.

Courtesy of Laura Wenus

Laura Wenus
Podcast host/reporter

Wenus will host SFNext’s upcoming podcast, “Fixing Our City.” She is a local multimedia journalist who has worked in digital, print and radio newsrooms on daily, breaking and enterprise stories.

Wenus comes to The Chronicle from the nonprofit San Francisco Public Press, where she helped launch and hosted the podcast “Civic,” examining local social and political issues, with a special focus on nonpartisan election coverage.

“The things that affect our day-to-day lives the most tend to be local, so I want to keep digging into how we as a city do things, what that means for people who live and work here, and what new approaches we could try,” Wenus said.

She has also covered San Francisco housing and development news for Mission Local, reported an audio series about long-term nursing care, and has been a producer for a live current affairs show on the public radio station KALW. She lives in the Castro.

Courtesy of Cintia Lopez

Cintia Lopez
Podcast producer/reporter

Lopez joins The Chronicle as producer and reporter for the “Fixing Our City” podcast.

She comes to The Chronicle from CapRadio in Sacramento, where she was a producer for their daily talk show, “Insight.” She has a background in newspaper and audio reporting from her previous jobs at WBUR in Boston and The Daily Democrat in Woodland, Calif.

“My first editor told me the best way to get to know a city you are reporting on is to get lost in it,” Lopez said. “I’m excited to do just that as I talk to people and get to know what they think of a city that is becoming my new home, while telling the stories that can help us create a better San Francisco.”

Lopez was raised mainly in the suburbs of Sacramento, where she attended community college before transferring to Sacramento State University and graduating with a degree in journalism.

Gary Baca
Podcast sound engineer

Audio engineer Gary BacaCourtesy of Gary Baca

With a background in independent films, DJing, radio and podcasts, Baca brings almost 10 years of multimedia experience to The Chronicle, including work on notable projects such as KQED’s “Rightnowish” as a producer. He has also worked at KPFA/KPFK in radio broadcasting.

“I want to bring light to the struggles people go through in an effort to create long-term solutions,” Baca said.

Born and raised in Richmond, Baca has spent the last decade living in Oakland.

Courtesy of Audrey Brown

Audrey Mei Yi Brown
Social media/engagement manager

Brown wants to use social media to create channels of thoughtful conversations to help reach residents beyond The Chronicle’s readership. Among other things, Brown will manage and moderate the @sfnext Twitter.

“I joined the SFNext team because I’m a San Franciscan who wants to play a role in healing my city,” Brown said. “I arrived in San Francisco when I was less than a year old, a Chinese American adoptee, and it will always be my first true home. Many of the city’s problems from my childhood persist today, and they’ve grown deep roots. I know it will take fresh thinking and dogged resolve for San Francisco to solve its problems, and I believe local journalists are uniquely positioned to surface solutions.”

Brown brings four years of environmental reporting experience, two years as a communications manager and a lifetime of living in and biking through the communities of San Francisco. She holds a master’s of science in journalism from Columbia University. Outside of work, you can likely find her biking through Golden Gate Park, rock climbing at Mission Cliffs or backpacking in the Sierra Nevada mountains.

About The San Francisco Chronicle
The San Francisco Chronicle (www.sfchronicle.com) is the largest newspaper in Northern California and the second largest on the West Coast. Acquired by the Hearst Corporation in 2000, The San Francisco Chronicle was founded in 1865 by Charles and Michael de Young and has been awarded six Pulitzer Prizes for journalistic excellence. Follow us on Twitter at @SFChronicle.

SFNext aims to involve city residents in finding solutions to some of San Francisco’s most pressing problems.

Send feedback, ideas and suggestions to sfnext@sfchronicle.com

Follow the discussion on Twitter: @SFNext

Listen to the “Fixing Our City” podcast: sfchronicle.com/fixing-our-city

Sign up for our newsletter: sfchronicle.com/newsletters/sf-next

See Morecollapse

The post Meet the workforce behind SFNext, a brand new San Francisco Chronicle initiative to assist the town remedy essential points appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

San Francisco loves an ambitious goal. In 2003, the city set the objective to produce zero waste by 2020. In 2014, it vowed to reach zero traffic-related fatalities by 2024. And in 2015, it pledged to get to zero HIV infections and preventable deaths by 2020.

None of those things happened.

Arbitrary time limits have been abandoned (zero waste), quietly erased from the website (vision zero) or extended (HIV infections and deaths).

And so it’s hard not to see the new plan Mayor London Breed announced this week to house every transgender person experiencing homelessness by 2027 with skepticism. She announced the plan after a dramatic week, where several queer community groups came out against her now reversed decision not to march in the Pride Parade.

It’s not easy to tackle intractable, systemic problems on a tight deadline. But Breed’s timing further begged the question: Can we really end homelessness in the transgender community in five short years? Or was her promise empty politicking in the wake of a queer backlash?

All signs pointed to politicking. And on Twitter, her plan was attacked accordingly. But the more I dug into it, the more legitimate I found the proposal to be. Part of that is because the plan came from the community it’s designed to serve; it was presented by the city’s Trans Advisory Committee. The proposal includes a long-term rental assistance program, and $6.5 million spread over two years for behavioral health, nonprofit support and to acquire a building to house LGBTQ youth.

Trans people in San Francisco are 18 times more likely to experience homelessness than the general population, according to Our Trans Home SF, but they’re underserved; many organizations are not well-versed in pronouns, gender-affirming care, name changes, or in managing trauma. As a result, many homeless trans people don’t engage with traditional services, falling through the cracks in an already difficult-to-navigate system. Breed’s proposed funding could allow small nonprofit organizations that hire from the community to increase their staffing and training to help clients navigate the city’s complicated housing process.

Joaquin Remora is the director of Our Trans Home SF, the city’s first housing program for trans and gender nonconforming people. In March, he helped open the city’s first navigation center specifically to serve trans and gender nonconforming people. Breed’s proposal would provide residents of both with additional rental subsidies to help them move into permanent housing, where they pay only a portion of their income toward rent.

“The goal of navigation centers and transitional housing programs is to prepare someone, so that by the time they go out and live on their own, they’re going to succeed,” Remora said. But finding homes for people ready to leave these temporary facilities has been tricky. The 150 subsidized housing proposed in the budget would be a big help.

Nonetheless, the framing of Breed’s plan — to “solve” homelessness in the trans community — irked some people. Concerns that it won’t hold up legally appear to be unfounded; trans people experience homelessness at a higher rate, justifying these efforts. But if homelessness in one group is solvable, isn’t it for everyone? And why do they get priority over homeless moms or seniors?

Shahada Hull, who is not transgender, but is homeless and trying to find housing, told me she’s concerned that the city is prioritizing one population for housing over another. “It’s not fair, because we’re all standing in line,” she said, noting that it seems, “like the city’s just focusing on just them.”

Remora said he encounters this perspective a fair amount in his work and always reminds people of the intersectionality of identities. “Trans people can be moms and elders,” he noted, adding that there have always been resources available for other populations. This is the first time, however, that a significant investment is being made to meet the needs of trans people.

The city estimates that at any given time, there are approximately 400 trans and gender nonconforming residents experiencing homelessness — few enough that the problem may be possible to tackle.

For this plan to work, it’s going to have to evolve and expand based on need — and become sustainable past the city’s 2027 goal. That means securing long-term funding to house people in perpetuity. But something as easily overlooked as paying staff well also has to be part of the solution. Many of the city’s social service organizations hire people with similar lived experiences of those they’ll be working with. But caring for one’s personal trauma, while helping a client work through theirs, can be an exhaustive task.

“Making jobs sustainable is the No. 1 most-important thing,” Remora said, referencing the city’s high turnover rate of case workers. He’s seen how staff who are well-compensated and trained have stronger, longer-lasting relationships with clients — which builds trust between providers and those in need, helping people to access the services they need to move indoors.

If approved by the Board of Supervisors, Breed’s budget proposal will provide a much-needed influx of funds to support the trans community. And while ending trans homelessness may seem ambitious, particularly in the wake of San Francisco’s struggles to hit other goals, many cities across the country have had success in eliminating homelessness among certain populations. New Orleans, Houston and Philadelphia, for example, all claim to have ended homelessness among their veteran populations by expanding services, providing rental assistance and responding quickly if someone loses their home.

There are countless examples of San Francisco politicians receiving accolades for grand plans that then quietly fizzle out. The timing of Breed’s announcement and her recent conflict with the queer community certainly made this latest effort seem like political grandstanding. But digging deeper, it’s clear there was thoughtful attention paid to tackling a deeply complicated social crisis. With a commitment to permanent investment, we may just be able to end trans homelessness by 2027.

Nuala Bishari is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist and editorial writer. Email: nuala.bishari@sfchronicle.com

The post Can London Breed clear up San Francisco’s transgender homeless drawback? appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

Many prospective home buyers prioritize purchasing old houses over newer models. People love the attractive vintage look that is mostly associated with great taste and quality. While old houses are a good choice, you should be conscious of the different plumbing problems quite common in such houses.

Check out our list of the common plumbing issues you will likely encounter in your old house. Find out essential tips on ways to solve them.

1. Outdated Fixtures and Connections

There’s nothing that lasts forever. If you think of it- older homes usually have fixtures, supply line connections, and fixtures that are bound to fail eventually. As time passes, there’s a lot of wear and tear resulting in broken knobs, restricted water flow, and leakages that give you the worst experience when using the water at home. Eventually, these minor issues translate into costly problems. It’s our nature to assume what we consider to be minor problems and only act when more significant damage happens. However, you do not want to come home one day only to find your home flooded with gushing water from a failed water line valve.

How to Solve the Problem with Outdated Fixtures and Connections

They say prevention will take you a long way. Preventive maintenance helps prevent the wear and tear that would otherwise result in expensive repairs tomorrow. It’s essential to have your local professional plumber inspect your property’s plumbing every year when you cannot do your plumbing inspection by yourself. Expert cheap plumbers have the necessary tools to detect potential problems you may miss.

2. Outdated piping

The plumbing system has different products made from other materials. That means that each of the products has a specified lifespan. Knowing the lifespan of your product is vital as you’ll see whether you should upgrade. Metals like brass, galvanized steel, and cast iron may be between 80 and 100 years old. PVC piping’s lifespan is anywhere between 24 and 45 years, while copper has a lifespan of anywhere between 70 and 80 years.

How to Solve the Problem of Outdated Piping

Doing pipe repairs and replacements is not an easy task that you can do by yourself. That’s why you want to contact a professional plumber. Considering the expenses, you are sure to incur with DIY errors, expert advice is a life-saver, not to mention a time-saver.

3. Pipe Bellies

The pipes that plumbers installed underneath your home were either buried by the contracted plumbing company or covered in a concrete slab. However, the lines are affected when gradual ground movements and shifting happen over time. Shifting downwards causes a “belly” or negative slope. The result of the slope is a restricted water flow and accumulated pools of water, sediment, or water. When you leave the situation to sit for a long time, the bellies will cause leaks or stoppages.

How to Solve the Problem with Pipe Bellies

Based on your situation, trenchless pipe bursting repair is the best solution for pipe bellies. Therefore, you should contact a plumber near you. The plumber conducts an assessment with the help of a snake camera to determine the extent of the damage.

4. Root Intrusion/Faulty Sewer Lines

Sewer lines are not always in a position where you can see them. That makes it hard for homeowners to think about their condition. However, sewer lines can face risks like root intrusion. The moisture coming from the sewer lines is a natural fertilizer for the trees and shrubs which grow into the sewer lines. The sewer line damage causes clogs and leaks, costing you your comfort, health, and money.

How to Fix the Problem of Root Intrusion

The best solution for root intrusion problems is a drain relining procedure or complete trenchless sewer line replacement. Depending on the extent of damage, a trenchless repair could take a day or more- usually, it takes a day with an expert. The method is cost-effective, and you don’t have to disrupt your schedule during the repair.

5. Bad repairs

Many homeowners take care of their plumbing repairs themselves, whether they do it themselves or hire a handyperson. These issues may be highly frustrating, from the seemingly little, like unsecured lines or backward sink traps, to significant and costly mistakes, including hazardous heating systems or poorly sloped showers.

How to Fix the Bad Repairs Problems

While some of these fixes are humorous, others are potentially dangerous and should be corrected immediately by a skilled plumber.

When moving into an older property, you should have a professional plumber evaluate your lines, drains, and fittings. Minor fixes today will save you cash by avoiding future emergencies.

“Proud thinker. TV fanatic. communicator. Evil student. Food Junkie. Passionate coffee geek. Award-winning alcohol advocate.”

The post Prime 5 Plumbing Issues in Outdated Homes and Methods to Resolve Them appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

Forty-three years after a Long Island girl was killed while visiting her long lost sister in San Francisco, cops say they’ve finally arrested the man who strangled the teen and left her body in a park.

Mark Stanley Personette, 76, of Conifer, Colo., was arrested Thursday and charged with homicide in the death of 15-year-old Marissa Rolf Harvey, whose body was found in Sutro Heights Park on March 28, 1978. Authorities are now eyeing him as a suspect in other unsolved homicides.

This image provided by the San Francisco Police Department shows the Jefferson County, Colo., Sheriff’s Department booking photo of Mark Stanley Personette. On Thursday, Dec. 16, 2021, Personette was arrested in Colorado on suspicion of killing a teenage girl in San Francisco more than four decades earlier and detectives who cracked the case say he may be a suspect in other unsolved homicides. (AP)

The investigation had remained dormant for decades until October 2020, when the San Francisco Police Department’s cold-case unit reexamined the killing. The department said it had relied on “advanced investigative methods,” without going into detail.

San Francisco law enforcement shared few details about Personette, who lived 1,200 miles from The City by the Bay. Online records show he’s also charged with being a fugitive from justice.

“For more than four decades, Marissa Harvey’s family members have been relentless advocates to bring her killer to justice,” said San Francisco Police Chief Bill Scott, “We hope this development in the case begins to bring a measure of healing and closure they’ ve been too long denied.”

The victim’s mother, Marguerite Schultz, 86, declined to comment on the breakthrough. She said detectives told her to stay silent about the case because the investigation is still active.

Mark Stanley Personette, 76, of Conifer, Colorado, was arrested Thursday and charged with homicide in the death of 15-year-old Marissa Rolf Harvey (pictured), whose body was found in Sutro Heights park on March 28, 1978.

Months before her death on the West Coast trip, Marissa and her family learned that the adopted girl had a biological sister in California.

breaking news

As it happens

Get updates on the coronavirus pandemic and other news as it happens with our free breaking news email alerts.

According to reports, Marissa begged her parents in Port Washington, LI to go. They finally relented in March to let the girl fly alone to San Francisco during her Easter break for a weekend visit.

Among the items on Marissa’s to-do list was horseback riding at the Golden Gate Park Stables, where her sister’s friend dropped her off, unaware that the stables were closed.

When Marissa failed to return, her sister reported her missing. A day later, just before sunset, a man saw a pair of small feet sticking out of a park bush.

This Nov. 5, 1979, image provided by the San Francisco Police Department shows the Hopewell Township, NJ, Police Department booking photos of Mark Stanley Personette. On Thursday, Dec. 16, 2021, Personette was arrested in Colorado on suspicion of killing a teenage girl in San Francisco more than four decades earlier and detectives who cracked the case say he may be a suspect in other unsolved homicides. (AP)

Authorities determined Marissa had been sexually assaulted and strangled.

Investigators quickly hit a dead end — until recently. The police chief thanked forensic scientists and “other unsung heroes” for helping crack the case.

Cops shared information about Personette with other departments to determine if he’s linked to other cold-case assaults and murders.

Police released several booking photos of Personette taken over decades, showing that he had been arrested multiple times, including in New Jersey.

The post 43 years later, San Francisco police remedy cold-case homicide of Lengthy Island teen slain throughout California go to – New York Day by day Information appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.