Starting in the 1990s, the city of San Francisco, California and the surrounding San Francisco Bay Area have faced a serious housing shortage. As of October 2015, San Francisco has had the highest rents of any major US city. The nearby city of San Jose, California had the fourth highest rents, and adjacent Oakland, California had the sixth highest. San Francisco mayor Ed Lee has called the shortage a "housing crisis", and news reports have said that addressing the shortage is the mayor's "top priority".
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Causes
Since the 1960s, San Francisco and the surrounding Bay Area have enacted strict zoning regulations. Among other restrictions, San Francisco does not allow buildings over 40 feet tall in most of the city, and has passed laws making it easier for neighbors to block developments. Partly as a result of these codes, from 2007 to 2014, the Bay Area issued building permits for only half the number of needed houses, based on the area's population growth. At the same time, there has been rapid economic growth of the high tech industry in San Francisco and nearby Silicon Valley. The resulting high demand for housing, combined with the lack of supply, have caused large increases in rents and very high housing prices.
Effects
The city of San Francisco has strict rent control laws. However, a California state law called the Ellis Act allows landlords to evict rent-controlled tenants by "going out of business", and fully exiting the rental market. In recent years, hundreds of tenants have been evicted through the Ellis Act process.
The high rents have made San Francisco and surrounding cities unaffordable for many residents, particularly workers in their 20s. Even workers with full-time jobs have been forced to live in their cars, due to the shortage of housing.
Responses
Housing has become a key political issue in Bay Area elections. In November 2015, San Francisco voters rejected two ballot propositions aimed at addressing the crisis. The first, Proposition F, would have enacted a number of restrictions on Airbnb rentals within the city. The second, Proposition I or the "Mission Moratorium", would have blocked all housing development in San Francisco's Mission District for 18 months, except for developments in which every apartment was subsidized at a below-market rate.
To address evictions, San Francisco City Supervisor David Campos (D9) passed two new city ordinances, each requiring landlords to pay tens of thousands of dollars to each tenant evicted under the Ellis Act. The first ordinance was struck down as unconstitutional under the Fifth Amendment, while the second was rejected as contrary to California state law.
Mayor Ed Lee has responded to the shortage by calling for the construction of 30,000 new housing units by 2020, and proposing a $310 million city bond to fund below-market-rate housing units. The goal of 30,000 new units was approved by San Francisco voters in 2014's Proposition K, and the affordable housing bond was passed in 2015 as Proposition A.
City Supervisor Scott Wiener (D8) has criticized the advocates of anti-development laws, writing an article titled "Yes, Supply & Demand Apply to Housing, Even in San Francisco" in response to Proposition I. Wiener called for greatly increasing the supply of all housing, including both subsidized housing and housing at market rate.