Advocate Margot Kushel said during an interview that aired on Wednesday that San Francisco has become “ground zero” for the affordable housing crisis, citing it as major contributing factor to the city’s chronic homelessness problem.
“San Francisco really is in some ways ground zero for [the] affordable housing crisis in this country,” Kushel, director of the Center for Vulnerable Population at the University of San Francisco, told Hill.TV’s Krystal Ball.
Kushel said even though the city has created an effective model to deal with homelessness, it’s been difficult to scale due to the high cost of housing.
“Many people who are homeless merely because the cost of housing is too high — they don’t actually [have] permanent supportive housing, what they need is affordable housing,” she said.
The advocate nevertheless remains hopeful that the city will be able to better address its housing and homelessness crisis, pointing to recent legislation.
“We did have a major local proposition in San Francisco that passed with 61 percent of the vote, although it’s now being challenged in court,” Kushel said, referring to a controversial tax aimed at raising funds to combat homelessness by taxing big business.
Proposition C passed last year with nearly 60 percent of the popular vote. However, the measure remains tied up in court and has yet to go into effect.
The measure would increase corporate taxes for companies based in San Fransisco with revenue above $50 million, and put that money towards addressing the city’s homeless population through programs like new beds and better access to mental health services.
The measure was a divisive issue among politicians and business leaders alike.
While Billionaire Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff championed the proposition, others criticized it, saying it would give some tech companies an unfair advantage.
“Companies like Square and Stripe would be taxed at a significantly larger total contribution than much larger companies like Salesforce,” Twitter and Square CEO Jack Dorsey said in a series of tweets last year.
The city’s Democratic mayor, London Breed, meanwhile, expressed fears that the measure could cost jobs.
San Francisco has long struggled with its homelessness population.
The 13th largest city in the nation, San Francisco has the seventh-largest homeless population.
—Tess Bonn
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