To fix California, make its politicians afraid to lose

In November, as in every election year since 2010, a Democrat will win California’s gubernatorial race. As usual, it will not be a particularly close race. A Republican has not won more than 41% of the vote in that stretch. It wasn’t always like this. In the 1990s, gubernatorial races were fiercely contested between Republicans and Democrats. High-level state offices like the attorney general and the controller were often controlled by members of the governor’s opposition party. Even California’s biggest cities swapped Republican and Democratic leadership: Los Angeles was governed by a Republican from 1993 to 2001, and San Diego had a Republican mayor as recently as 2020 . This isn’t a eulogy for the California Republican Party, which is now essentially irrelevant. It’s a eulogy for competition. Incumbents without serious challengers are like a classroom full of unruly children, watched over by a hapless substitute teacher. Elections are how voters discipline government when it ceases to work in their interest. California needs that discipline more than most places: It has the nation’s largest homeless population, some of the most expensive housing, and one of the highest unemployment rates. But how can voters enforce this discipline when there’s just one party to choose from? Eventually, many of them just tune out. We’re not likely to get a competitive Republican Party in California in our lifetime — and given the trajectory of the national party, it’s doubtful we’d want that. But there are other ways to bring real competition back into the political system. What California needs are new parties that recruit and back candidates who want to take on the state’s biggest problems in ways the ruling Democrats haven’t. Imagine, say, a pro-housing party or a good-government party focused on ethics and accountability. These parties would contest local races and give voters a reason to show up — and a label to guide them once they do. They would hold members to a shared platform and vision for governance. Candidates could belong to one or several new parties while also remaining Democrats. A few changes to our ballots and to how we elect representatives would let this new class of parties take root. Homelessness, particularly unsheltered homelessness, may be the most visible symbol of the state’s misrule. California is one of the wealthiest places on Earth but has one of the largest concentrations of homeless people in the Western Hemisphere. More people sleep in tents, cars, or on the sidewalk in just the core counties of the Bay Area (about 18,000 between San Francisco , Alameda , and Santa Clara ) than in all of Florida (13,000). Homelessness ranks among California voters’ top concerns, in big cities and small ones. So why do local governments keep failing to fix it? In local politics, you don’t win by making more people happy; you win by making fewer people angry. The median California city council race in 2024 drew about 5,400 voters, according to my analysis of secretary of State data, and the median winner’s margin was fewer than 600 votes. Until recently, even the largest cities held these elections in off years, when turnout was dramatically unrepresentative of residents. The people who do show up skew white, affluent, and older . The shift to district elections under the California Voting Rights Act has made councils look more like their constituents, but it has also shrunk electorates and margins even further. For a part-time politician, the safest strategy isn’t to deliver results; it’s to avoid crossing the few hundred neighbors who could end your career. Los Angeles shows what this looks like in practice. In 2016, with high turnout for the presidential election, city voters approved by a 3 to 1 margin a new property tax to pay for 13,000 units of homeless housing . As of 2026, only 8,500 units have been built. Only about 18% of them were built in the five council districts where median household income tops $100,000 per year, while the district containing downtown L.A. got more units than those five combined. A 2021 L.A. Times editorial diagnosed the problem in one sentence: “The unwritten rule in L.A. is that each council district is a fiefdom in which its council member alone gets to decide whether a project gets built or blocked.” That’s the core of California’s local governance problem: too little competition and too few voters. Statewide, about 77% of incumbents who ran for reelection between 2007 and 2024 won, according to my analysis of election data. This is because most voters skip local races while turning out for president or governor — a phenomenon known as “roll off.” The answer to reducing roll off and increasing participation in local elections may be easy: more partisanship. Parties recruit candidates, so more races are contested, and they give voters a shortcut, a label that says what the candidate stands for. Both draw more people to the polls. A 2001 study found that removing party labels from local ballots reduced turnout and made voters lean more on incumbency as a cue for competency. A 2018 paper found that more competitive local races can raise turnout even higher than moving elections from off-cycle to on-cycle years. Heightening the role of partisanship in state and local elections does not mean waiting for a Republican resurrection. Two relatively simple changes can help the formation of new parties that would better reflect California’s ideological diversity. The first is fusion voting, which allows a candidate to run under the banner of multiple parties. Fusion voting was relatively common in the United States until party machines unhappy with the populist competition for party loyalty started banning the practice around the turn of the 20th century. Fusion voting remains in some form in New York, Connecticut, Oregon, and Vermont. California allows for fusion voting, though only at the presidential level — Donald Trump was the Republican and American Independent Party’s candidate in 2016. The second fix is to change how many people represent each council district. Right now, districts are mostly represented by only one councilmember (small cities still largely use at-large districts .) Changing the rules so that more than one councilmember could represent each district encourages the formation of local slates that, in turn, could grow into something resembling local political parties. This has begun to happen in Portland, Oregon, which switched from California’s single-member district model to a multimember system of proportional representation called “single transferable vote.” Taken together, these two relatively simple changes to our ballots could usher in a new era of local slates in municipal elections. These groups would not only provide necessary “ shortcuts ” to help guide voters but would eventually develop the infrastructure to transform into minor political parties — fundraising, recruiting candidates, and harboring expertise in house. This would begin a self-perpetuating cycle that could bring about multiparty governance in California. With more parties comes more competition and a greater incentive for elected officials to do more than just coast their way through their terms. Imagine a coalition of pro-housing and transit groups forming a “YIMBY Party” to run candidates for Bay Area city councils. If councils were expanded so that each district elected, say, three members instead of one, small parties like this would become essential partners in any governing majority. Instead of an amorphous Democratic Party in charge, councils would comprise ideologically cohesive, policy-focused blocs that would have to build coalitions with one another in order to pass anything. A shift of local politics away from individual members and toward parties would help voters better evaluate the performance of incumbents. The top-two primary system voters put into place in 2010 sometimes pits two Democrats, representing different wings of the party, against each other in a general election. But without a partisan cue to guide vote choice, voters often fall back on other candidate traits, such as gender or race, that say little about ideology or capacity to govern. There’s already an appetite for reform among California voters. In November, Los Angeles voters will decide whether to create an ethics commission and continue a series of reforms from 2024. In San Diego, residents will vote to extend term limits and ethics reforms. Nithya Raman, who’s challenging L.A. Mayor Karen Bass, has criticized the current charter reform package as a punt by an establishment that “will not reform itself” and is running on pushing the changes further. Paving the way for multimember districts and fusion ballots — via either the Legislature or the initiative process — could be reformers’ next goal for 2028. Democracy works only when an election is a referendum on the people in power and on their vision for governing. Right now, de facto single-party rule means that, save for a few exceptions, it is neither. Fixing that would go a long way toward fixing our state. Stan Oklobdzija is an assistant professor at UC Riverside’s School of Public Policy. His Substack about California politics and policy is “Everyone is Welcome.”

Lurie trumpeted a major housing win. YIMBYs say it’s much ado about nothing

Mayor Daniel Lurie on Friday quote-tweeted an article announcing an obscure policy change that would supposedly spark housing construction. This “new policy,” he wrote in a celebratory post, would modify the requirement for developers to build second staircases in apartment buildings, allowing projects up to six stories to have just one. Housing advocates say additional staircases add unnecessary costs and limit the number of units developers can fit on cramped lots. There was one problem: The city has not actually issued any new rule. The Department of Building Inspection will present a draft of new guidelines to a panel of building industry professionals Wednesday. Those guidelines propose letting developers of four- to six-story apartment buildings request on a case-by-case basis to build with one interior staircase — as long as they add a second exit. A fire escape would suffice for four-story buildings, but for those of five and six stories, developers must build an exterior stairway that reaches the roof. YIMBYs say that’s thin gruel. The city’s building code wouldn’t change, which they argue is necessary for any reform to have a meaningful effect on development. DBI’s committee may take a nonbinding vote or make revisions to those recommendations — but the process for how inspectors sign off on projects does not change. Allowing single-stair buildings outright would require an ordinance passed by the Board of Supervisors. No such policy has been proposed. Housing advocates and building experts decried Friday’s announcement as hollow. “This is the case of doing nothing and trying to get a headline out of it,” architect Mark Hogan wrote on X . Corey Smith, executive director of Housing Action Coalition, tweeted in response that “any framing that this is single stair reform in SF is factually inaccurate.” Aside from the Chronicle article , which reported that the mayor and DBI “issued a set of new rules” last week, neither office released any official statement to accompany or address Lurie’s tweet. A spokesperson for the mayor said he stands by his announcement, which stated that San Francisco for years has made it easier to block housing than to build it. One of several fixes involves fixing the “broken permitting system.” Emilio Garcia-Ruiz, editor-in-chief of the Chronicle, said the paper stood by its reporting in response to The Standard’s questions about the story’s phrasing that day. A spokesperson for DBI said an information sheet containing the proposed changes was posted to the department’s website on Thursday, a day before the Chronicle’s story was published. The San Francisco Fire Department — which has been resistant to lowering safety standards — has privately pushed back against a single-stair ordinance, sources familiar with those discussions say. “We are encouraged by the inclusion of additional safety measures and believe this approach can benefit all parties while keeping public safety at the forefront,” said a Fire Department spokesperson. Single-stair reform has long been a holy-grail issue for YIMBYs seeking to spur housing development. In a 2024 essay , Hogan called for San Francisco to change its building code so that developers could fit more units onto small lots. Hogan argued that the United States is an outlier in its guidelines that all mid-rise apartment buildings should have two staircases, and many other countries allow buildings with only one. The logic for staircase reform is that modern sprinklers and fire-resistant construction methods have made it safe for residents to live in a building with one stairway. Carving out space for a second staircase and connecting corridor swallows up areas that could otherwise be used for housing. Other U.S. cities have come around. Seattle, New York City, and Culver City allow single-stair buildings up to six stories. Complicating the matter, Gov. Gavin Newsom last year signed AB 130, which freezes residential building codes until 2031, meaning cities cannot simply rewrite their rules to allow single-stair buildings. Culver City passed its reform a day before that law went into effect. Lurie’s announcement was not the first time single-staircase reform has been seriously considered. After Hogan published his essay, former Supervisor Aaron Peskin called on the city to figure out how it could build single-stair buildings that are safe for residents. That working group was never convened. “It went over like a lead balloon,” Peskin said. Assemblymember Alex Lee, who represents parts of San Jose and Milpitas, introduced a bill in February that would have codified single-staircase in the building code at the state level. Lee, who sponsored AB 2252 alongside Assemblymember Buffy Wicks and Sen. Scott Wiener, said he proposed the bill to pave the way for more mid-rise construction in urban areas. “Reforming the building code, while maintaining rigorous fire safety standards, is essential to unlocking previously undevelopable properties,” he said. Lee’s bill stalled in committee in April. Smith said he hopes city leaders continue pushing beyond last week’s announcement. “We want the city to pursue a single-stair case ordinance to get Family Zoning projects built,” the Housing Action Coalition chief said.

Manny‘s meltdown may hand the Castro to SF’s loudest harm reduction warrior

Not long ago, District 8 supervisorial candidate Gary McCoy was San Francisco’s most visible advocate for progressive drug policies. “Hear me out, eliminate cartels altogether by decriminalizing drugs, and provide a safe supply,” McCoy said in a 2022 tweet, which he now says was misinterpreted. The post came at a time when the city’s drug policy debate mobilized legions of keyboard warriors to blows on Twitter, now X. Still, McCoy was unabashed in his defense of harm reduction, a philosophy associated with leniency toward drug use, and consistently took to the platform to defend his views. In his role as VP of policy and public affairs at HealthRight 360, the city’s largest drug rehab nonprofit, he vigorously defended the city’s first safe consumption site, which allowed people to use drugs under supervision, before it closed after 11 months. He even went on a one-man hunger strike on City Hall’s steps, calling on then-Mayor London Breed to enact a fentanyl emergency ordinance and support safe consumption sites . For McCoy, a recovering drug user who spent almost a decade homeless on the city’s streets, his stance in the drug policy debate appeared to be part of his identity. In 2022, he went so far as to purchase a vanity license plate for his Volkswagen Tiguan: “HRM RDX” — short for harm reduction. Come 2026, McCoy is the front-runner for the District 8 Board of Supervisors seat, after the implosion of rival candidate Manny Yekutiel following a second accusation of sexual assault. Since his controversial tweet, harm reduction has fallen out of political favor with City Hall. McCoy hardly ever posts on X. He no longer works at HealthRight 360. He has a new license plate. And in an interview with The Standard, he said he would not consider himself a “harm reductionist.” But he argues that he’s not playing a different tune; he’s just singing some of his repertoire a little louder. “I have supported both harm reduction and abstinence on a full continuum of care for a very long time,” McCoy said. He added that his most ardent arguments for harm reduction came as a representative of Healthright 360 and were not necessarily his personal views, which he described as broader. In defense of his 2022 tweet, McCoy said he intended to advocate for the expansion of medications such as methadone or Suboxone, drugs used by medical professionals to taper someone’s addiction down so a person is ready to pursue recovery. “My favorite uninformed Twitter people,” McCoy said when asked about his 2022 statement. “I’ve been seeing this tweet go around forever.” “I’m being called a drug dealer on Twitter,” McCoy added. “It’s the same five people who aren’t informed.” As for the license plate? McCoy leases his car, so he swapped the plate once he snagged his next Tiguan. “I get my cars traded just before two years,” he said. McCoy’s position on drug policy has come under the spotlight because it is one of the few areas in which he took a considerably different tack than Yekutiel or the moderate establishment led by Mayor Daniel Lurie. Though McCoy’s opponents frame his support for harm reduction as an indictment of his leadership, the philosophy he supported has long been credited with saving lives , not taking them. Even as the phrase “harm reduction” has become an albatross around the neck of local politicians, international experts continue to advocate for its policies as necessary to humanely treat addiction and save lives. The message he now delivers on the issue, however, is a far cry from the McCoy his critics paint. With Yekutiel out of the picture and McCoy’s win virtually guaranteed, those critics fear the streets will become a fentanyl-laden hellscape. They worry that his stance has merely shifted for political purposes. “He’s lying to you,” said Tom Wolf, a drug policy advocate and vocal critic of harm reduction. “Gary was part of the problem in SF. … Now he’s reinvented himself.” McCoy pushed back. “I don’t think my stance has shifted,” he said. Yekutiel and McCoy mirrored each other’s stances on many of the city’s top issues — from the YIMBY view in support of building more housing to making affordability their No. 1 issue — but they differ on drug policy. Yekutiel agreed with the city’s new position to limit the distribution of drug supplies. Many experts on drug policy say some of the harm-reduction efforts for which McCoy has advocated — such as the circulation of Narcan and the dispersal of clean needles — are responsible for saving thousands of lives. San Francisco has distributed hundreds of thousands of doses of Narcan, with thousands of overdose reversals reported each year. The Tenderloin Center, the safe consumption site McCoy advocated for, reversed 333 overdoses and referred 289 people to housing, among other services, during the 11 months it was open in 2022. Though critics say the facility attracted disorder and connected few people directly to drug treatment when considering its $22 million annual price tag. Laura Guzman, executive director of the National Harm Reduction Coalition , said McCoy is a needed voice as San Francisco increasingly criminalizes drug users — and one who views harm-reduction policies as a way of holistically approaching drug users to help them make their own choice to kick the habit. “That’s what we’re looking for; we’re looking for leaders that understand harm reduction isn’t just about supporting people with supplies, but to engage people with wellness, with housing, and to choose their journey to recovery and treatment,” Guzman said. “Gary has what it takes to support people on their journey.” From the streets to City Hall One thing McCoy says his critics get right: he is a former drug user with a criminal record. As recently as 2011, he was one of the people without homes San Franciscans crossed the street to avoid in the Castro, though he said he used drugs in restrooms, not on the street. His rap sheet includes grand larceny, felony theft, probation violations, driving on a suspended license, and drug charges. McCoy hides none of this, detailing his misdeeds in an interview with The Standard at the start of his campaign. And since being on the street, McCoy served his time, got sober, and rebuilt his life. He worked in City Hall as a legislative aide, eventually rising to senior congressional staffer for Rep. Nancy Pelosi, leading one of the nation’s most powerful Democrats to endorse his candidacy. One of McCoy’s most ardent defenders is gay activist Cleve Jones, founder of the AIDS Memorial Quilt and a mentee of the late supervisor and gay rights icon Harvey Milk. “I think Gary’s qualifications are pretty obvious. He’s been through a lot of shit, and he’s learned from it. He’s grounded in a political education that is unparalleled,” Jones said. “And hello! When you work for her,” he said, referring to Pelosi, “you learn a lot.” Now other local Democrats are following Pelosi’s lead. McCoy’s campaign announced a slew of new endorsements Monday: Sen. Adam Schiff, California Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, state Sen. Scott Wiener, six members of the Board of Supervisors, and labor legend Dolores Huerta. Even those who had previously endorsed Yekutiel shifted to McCoy, including former Supervisor Bevan Dufty, Castro Merchants President Nate Bourg, and community activist Race Bannon. But for McCoy’s critics, the shifting endorsements are a gut punch. “Manny screwed this up for everyone,” Wolf said. “Now they’re going to support a guy who wants to go back to what we were doing.” What McCoy believes If elected, McCoy may find himself at odds with Lurie, who has shifted how the city approaches the fentanyl crisis, limiting some outdoor and mobile syringe access programs to indoor settings . McCoy used to frequent one such program behind the Safeway at Market and Church streets. “I used to go to that program to access clean syringes when I was on the streets, and because it’s not indoors, it no longer exists,” McCoy said. McCoy is HIV-positive, and those clean-needle programs prevented other drug users from contracting HIV from him, he said — one of the primary reasons harm-reduction advocates argue for the distribution of clean drug supplies. Lurie has also stepped up arrests of drug users, a tactic McCoy opposes. “I’ve never had an issue with arresting drug dealers,” he said. “I also think that drug using, [if there is] no other crime, requires a public health intervention most times.” McCoy said he still thinks safe consumption sites, which he calls overdose prevention sites, could help save lives. But he also recognizes the political winds have shifted. “I think we’re unfortunately far off in the political world for that to happen at this point,” McCoy said, “but maybe someday.” Steven Bacio, a founder of the moderate Democrat-aligned political group GrowSF, said McCoy’s positions are “out of step with the district, and his approach is objectively dangerous.” Those on the less progressive side of the drug policy debate argue that forceful intervention is needed for people suffering from addiction. They point to a decline in overdoses and an improvement in street conditions over the past three years as evidence that the city’s policy shift is working, though experts caution that many factors explain the progress the city is seeing — and that San Francisco’s overdose decline mirrors a nationwide trend . McCoy’s behavioral health policy platform includes creating a home base for the city’s myriad street crisis teams to hand patients off in lieu of making an emergency room visit, expanding available treatment beds for psychiatric and medical needs, and strengthening accountability for the city’s treatment efforts, including publishing a monthly dashboard on site conditions, complaints, staffing levels, and outcomes. His signature proposal would see the city establish “behavioral health campuses” at hospitals, starting with Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital on Portrero Avenue, based on what he called a proven example from the MLK Behavioral Health Center in Los Angeles. Instead of whisking drug users to the hospital in their worst moments, then hoping they seek treatment once they’re back downtown, the behavioral health campus would offer mental health and substance use care, psychiatric urgent care, crisis stabilization, sobering and residential treatment, and even transitional housing right next to hospitals. The idea would ostensibly spread out some services, he says, away from their cluster in the Tenderloin and South of Market. The idea even has backing from one of the city’s leading abstinence treatment voices, Supervisor Matt Dorsey. Like McCoy, Dorsey is a recovering drug user who melds his lived experience with data to develop drug treatment policy proposals — and he’s a major backer of McCoy’s platform. “This is an astute policy platform that focuses San Francisco’s behavioral health strategy on the right priorities,” Dorsey said in September, when McCoy revealed his platform. “McCoy’s plan would deliver care where it’s best delivered, expand needed treatment options, and better set up patients for long-term success.” McCoy’s plan acknowledges “legitimate geographic equity concerns” from neighborhood residents where services have been oversaturated, Dorsey added. “That’s essential,” Dorsey said, “if we’re to earn the public support necessary for a behavioral health strategy that supports long-term recovery and helps save lives.”

Hilton attacks, Becerra can’t stop saying Trump: five takeaways from the governor’s debate

Republican Steve Hilton threw punch after punch at Xavier Becerra on Wednesday night, trying to cut into his Democratic rival’s commanding lead in the race for governor. In an hourlong debate televised nationally on CNN, Hilton blamed Becerra and Democrats for California’s problems on nearly every major issue, from homelessness to soaring gas prices and sky-high housing costs. The aggressive tack reflected how lopsided the race remains as ballots start arriving in voters’ mailboxes. Several recent polls show Becerra leading Hilton by roughly 25 percentage points. The latest Berkeley IGS/LA Times survey has Becerra at 58% among likely voters, compared with Hilton at 33%. But Hilton didn’t appear to land any blows hard enough to change the trajectory of the race, and Becerra repeatedly steered the debate back to President Donald Trump. Here are five takeaways. Becerra can’t say Trump enough Becerra, the former Health and Human Services secretary, mentioned Trump by name more than three dozen times. That was no accident. The Democrat has consistently tried to nationalize the race, casting Trump’s endorsement as a dealbreaker for Hilton in deep-blue California, where the president’s approval ratings are badly underwater ahead of the midterms. Becerra made the Trump connection on a host of policy issues, accusing Hilton of sharing the president’s views on tax cuts for the wealthy or his opposition to artificial-intelligence regulation. “If you listen closely, you can hear Donald Trump in that response by Steve Hilton: He’s not interested in regulating AI,” Becerra said. “You’re going to end up with Trump results if you follow Steve Hilton’s plans.” Hilton, a former Fox News host and adviser to former British Prime Minister David Cameron, vented his exasperation with the Trump-focused rebuttals. “All you ever say is, ‘Trump, Trump, Trump,’” Hilton said about halfway through the debate. “And that’s nothing but an insult to every Californian who is desperate for something to change in this state.” Hilton against the establishment Becerra hasn’t been California attorney general for more than five years, but Hilton treated him like a stand-in for the state’s Democratic Party establishment. The Republican warned voters not to “continue” with Becerra’s policies. Hilton compared Becerra to outgoing Gov. Gavin Newsom several times, criticizing Becerra for giving the governor an “A” grade on the issue of homelessness (a reference to a comment Becerra made in the primary). “Xavier Becerra, you’re the candidate who is supported by the machine in Sacramento — the unions, big business, all these people that, for 16 years, have given us the highest cost of living in the country,” Hilton said. Becerra, over and over, responded by invoking Trump: “You chased his endorsement.” Hilton flails on immigration The sharpest clash of the night came when Becerra slammed Hilton’s stance on immigration. Hilton, although he’s downplayed his support from Trump in the general election, was reluctant to say if he disagrees with Trump’s mass-deportation efforts. Becerra, who would be California’s first Latino governor in modern history, seized on the opening with his most aggressive attack line of the debate. “Here’s the problem I have with your policies: You seem to welcome immigrants who look like you, but deport immigrants who look like me,” he said, noting Hilton is an immigrant from the United Kingdom. Becerra added, “Steve thinks it’s perfect to let ICE mercenaries come on into California, and he welcomes it.” Hilton responded by invoking Becerra’s handling of a crisis involving migrant children at the Mexico border when he was Health and Human Services secretary (which Becerra has repeatedly called another Trump talking point). He also seemed to take personal offense to Becerra’s comment: “What a disgraceful remark that was. I don’t think people want to hear that kind of remark in a debate like this.” Hilton’s punches over Susan Rice Hilton’s biggest jab of the night alluded to reports that suggest Becerra’s administration officials questioned his leadership ability. Hilton referenced a report that Susan Rice, the former United Nations ambassador, referred to Becerra with insults . “Susan Rice… she described you as an ‘idiot,’” Hilton said. “She called you ‘bitch ass.’ Why did Susan Rice, a respected political leader, call you an ‘idiot’?” Becerra brushed off the comment, though he didn’t exactly dispute it: “To your point, since when do I have to respond to politicians? I’m looking for the vote of California voters, not some politician in Washington D.C.” Hilton says Becerra has been in ‘hiding’ The debate, moderated by CNN at the network’s studio in Los Angeles, is the only scheduled showdown between Becerra and Hilton. The Democrat hasn’t accepted Hilton’s challenge to appear in further debates — and Becerra has often avoided making other media appearances in recent months. “First of all, I just want to say thank you to CNN for bringing Xavier out of hiding,” Hilton quipped at the start of the broadcast. “He’s barely been seen in public since the primary four months ago.” But, if Becerra’s goal in laying low has been to avoid any moments that would harm his advantage in the polls, Wednesday’s debate likely gave his campaign little reason to sweat.

San Francisco doesn’t need this many golf courses

Stand on the first tee at Lincoln Park Golf Course, in the northwesternmost corner of San Francisco, and witness the view: Down the fairway, the Legion of Honor beckons; through the cypress trees to the right, the Golden Gate Bridge rises above the fog. It is something to behold. What you won’t see are many golfers. Over the course of an hour on a recent Monday afternoon, all of three players teed off. In that same span, maybe a dozen duffers strolled across the links beyond. It was just another quiet afternoon at Lincoln Park. And just another example of the often overlooked yet surprisingly broad footprint of golf in San Francisco. Lincoln Park is one of six public courses owned by the Recreation and Parks Department and one of 10 courses inside the city limits. In a densely populated, housing-starved, forward-thinking city of this size, it’s remarkable just how much physical space is dedicated to golf. Of the 3,400 acres of recreation and open space owned and managed by the Recreation and Parks Department within SF, fully 10% of it is taken up by golf. Including private courses, golf occupies more than 1,000 acres. That’s more than 3% of the city’s surface area, about the same as Golden Gate Park or the Presidio. But unlike those two parks, which draw millions of visitors every year, San Francisco’s golf courses are sparsely used, all things considered. At Lincoln Park, an average of 90 people tee off every day. Across town at Gleneagles, a nine-hole course adjacent to McLaren Park, fewer than 50 tee off a day, half as many as 20 years ago. Overall, the five municipal courses inside the city limits routinely operate at less than 50% capacity, with 10% fewer rounds played than two decades ago. That is a lot of prime San Francisco real estate waiting around expectantly, like Shel Silverstein’s Giving Tree , for just a few dozen players a day. And unlike municipal golf courses in most cities, San Francisco’s operate at a deficit. In fiscal 2026-27, the city is expected to spend $4.9 million more than it earns tending to its golf courses — a massive subsidy for a sport with increasingly fewer players, who skew older, wealthier, male, and white. Which raises the question: In San Francisco, the second-most densely populated city in the nation, where there is too little housing and a voracious appetite for public space, is so much golf the best use of so much land? Nothing but sand Why are there so many golf courses in San Francisco? The answer starts in the early 20th century, when just 500,000 people lived here, 95% of them white. In those years, the western side of San Francisco was justly called the Outside Lands: Sand dunes were common; houses were not. Why not build a golf course or two out there? And so they did. Lincoln Park, built atop an old cemetery, opened in 1912. Harding Park, on the eastern shore of Lake Merced, debuted in 1925. In 1932, the city opened Sharp Park course, 10 miles south in Pacifica (the only city-owned course outside city limits). Fleming and Gleneagles, both nine-hole courses, opened during golf’s early 1960s boom years (Arnold Palmer, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus). It is impossible to imagine the city devoting so much public space to just one sport today. Some of these courses are historic and revered by golfers worldwide. The Presidio Golf Course was a perk prized by U.S. Army officers for a century before it went public in 1995. Harding, the city’s grand dame, hosted the PGA Championship in 2020. The exclusive San Francisco Golf Club — so exclusive it doesn’t have a website — is ranked as one of the best courses in the country. The Olympic Club, a private club with three courses tucked on $750 million of real estate against the Pacific Ocean, has hosted the U.S. Open five times, most recently in 2012. But some courses are arguably not used to the full potential of the land they’re on. Lincoln Park may enjoy one of the nation’s most beautiful settings but is generally considered a poor playing course with shabby facilities, earning just 3 out of 5 stars on GolfPass. Gleneagles fares little better, with 3.5 stars ; “the course has seen better times” is a typical comment. What the city should do with so many golf courses has been a recurring topic for Rec and Parks leadership. In 2008, the department commissioned an independent study of the city’s courses. That report aimed to answer two questions: Is there sufficient demand for municipal golf to justify the city subsidizing the courses? And would conversion to other recreation needs be appropriate? The report acknowledged a high demand for golf in the San Francisco region but concluded that the municipal courses were poorly managed and significantly underperforming. In particular, the report flagged that the courses ran at an annual deficit of $1.5 million; at the time, that was considered a significant shortfall. Leon Younger, president of Pros Consulting and the lead author of the 2008 report, explains why that deficit was a concern. “Most public courses are between 90% and 100% self-supporting. Many make a profit,” he said, noting that municipal leaders typically “want golf to be a profit center for the city.” Not so in San Francisco: Upon learning that in 2026-27, the city’s golf deficit will reach $4.9 million, he was shocked. “Oh, my God. Jesus, that’s a lot,” he said. “That’s just a lot for a public golf course. Something else is going on there.” Part of what’s going on might be how the courses are managed. For all except Gleneagles, contracted operators handle the golf business: tee times, equipment rentals, lessons, food and beverage, and so on. The city gets a cut of the fees, but Rec and Parks pays for all ground maintenance, including mowing, irrigation, and improvements. That arrangement ends up with the city holding the wrong end of the stick, for years on end. Another issue is how many people play on the courses. In 2023-24 (the most recent year of data provided by the city), roughly 199,000 rounds of golf were played on the five municipal courses inside city limits — 10% fewer than in 2005-06. Another way to measure this is capacity: Most of San Francisco’s municipal courses operate below 50% capacity; the industry standard is 70%, according to consultant Younger. This dropoff is despite the fact that the number of people playing on golf courses in the U.S. has stayed steady since 2003, according to the National Golf Foundation . (After a big fall-off in the 2010s, golf has boomed nationwide since the pandemic. But not in SF.) Some courses are used more than others. After an extensive remodel in 2024, Golden Gate Park Course, a nine-hole par 3, hosts about the same number of players as it did in 2005-06. According to Rec and Parks data, Harding Park operates at capacity on weekends, while Lincoln Park operates above 70% on weekends. That’s higher than the numbers from that 2008 report. But here’s the thing: Even at peak capacity, an 18-hole golf course can accommodate a maximum of about 300 players a day . Considering that the currency is hundreds of pristine acres in our oceanfront city, that is an astonishing price paid to golfers. So put golf aside and consider these as public spaces. Are they being used efficiently? Some 25 million people visit Golden Gate Park every year. At 1,017 acres, that’s roughly 25,000 visitors per acre per year. The five municipal golf courses inside city limits, on the other hand, cover about 345 total acres, with about 200,000 rounds played in a year. That’s not even 600 visitors per acre per year — 40 times less usage than Golden Gate Park. But perhaps it’s unfair to compare the grandeur of Golden Gate Park — the crown jewel of the city’s parks — to golf. Rather, let’s consider Sunset Dunes, which, as foes of Sunset Dunes insist, is just an asphalt remnant of a once-busy highway. With 1.7 million visitors in its first year, that 50-acre stretch is enjoyed by 34,000 people per acre — nearly 60 times as much use as the city’s golf courses. Particularly for a shabby slab of pavement, that is a remarkably efficient and effective use of public space. 150 acres of potential Which raises the question: If San Francisco can turn a sand-blown highway into one of its most pleasing and well-used spaces, how might some — but by no means all! — golf courses be repurposed to better serve the city and its residents? The most obvious answer would be housing. Gleneagles borders McLaren Park, San Francisco’s second-largest and perhaps most neglected park. Looking south from the Philosopher’s Way trailhead parking lot (a favorite perch for dog walkers and dope smokers and hook-uppers), one can conjure a new neighborhood with thousands of affordable apartments, ample recreational space, and breathtaking bay views. Such a bold step would suit the moment. The Sunnydale housing complex, which abuts the golf course, is already being redeveloped as part of the citywide HOPE SF rebuild. The pace of the HOPE SF effort has been sluggish, dragging out over decades. Tapping the Gleneagles acreage could bring new energy and ideas to the effort. But even short of housing, these underused spaces could be remade for the benefit of thousands, rather than dozens. San Francisco has executed some elegant reimaginings of public space in recent years. India Basin Park transformed 10 acres of fenced-off industrial waterfront into a lovely space with trails and public piers. The Port of San Francisco turned a derelict shipbuilding site into Crane Cove Park, a bayside beach teeming with paddleboarders and picnickers. Francisco Park, Tunnel Tops, the JFK Promenade, Crissy Field … the list of amazing makeovers in this city goes on and on. Nearby, golf course reinventions have succeeded recently. In 2018, Monterey County’s 185-acre Rancho Cañada Golf Club was folded into the Palo Corona Regional Park, with mountain bike trails and dog parks for the community. That same year, in Marin County, the 157-acre San Geronimo golf course was acquired by the Trust for Public Land and converted into the San Geronimo Commons as a county park. Marin golfers weren’t happy; they narrowly lost a ballot measure to preserve the golf course. The former course superintendent bemoaned a desiccated landscape rife with gophers, the enemy of all groundskeepers , the course fading away like a “sick and dying child.” He was wrong. Today, the former course is frequented by hundreds of hikers and dogs and dog walkers, part of a continuum of open spaces in the Marin hills. But San Francisco is a city, not West Marin. So the best analogy might be converting tennis courts to pickleball courts. Pickleball is America’s fastest growing sport , with an equal number of players as tennis. Like many cities, San Francisco has repurposed underused tennis courts for pickleball, repainted others for dual use, and opened several new courts dedicated to pickleball. What would the pickleball-ification of San Francisco golf courses look like? It could involve everything from community gardens to hiking trails to restored wetlands to, yes, pickleball. Think of how many pickleball courts could be installed across just one golf course! So what is the city’s view on this? Sarah Madland, the new GM of the Recreation and Parks Department, declined repeated requests for comment. A Rec and Parks spokesperson said the department is reviewing “how we use our resources across the department and where our dollars can have the greatest benefit for San Franciscans. Golf is part of that. We want to understand what’s working, where there are opportunities to improve operations and financial performance, and how the system fits within the broader recreational needs we serve.” That review is expected to wrap up over the next “several months.” The spokesperson noted that the department raised green fees in 2025 and keeps fees low to keep golf affordable. The courses support youth programs like First Tee , she added, as well as public high school teams and other community functions. Which is all to the good. None of that has to go away. Nobody, not even me, is suggesting that the city should lose all of its golf courses. But do we still need so many? In 2008, the consulting report made several recommendations. Lincoln Park, it suggested, should be converted to other public uses, at least in part. At other courses, management contracts should be redrawn to expect more of managers and ensure that the city breaks even or profits. The city took little action on those recommendations at the time. Nearly 20 years later, those suggestions seem both too modest and too radical at once. Too modest because the numbers have been going in the wrong direction for 20 years. It’s unlikely that the current management contracts, with their low green fees and unaligned incentives, will somehow produce enough revenue for the city to make up its subsidy to golf enthusiasts. Too radical because, honestly, would San Francisco actually poke the golden bear of golf? Despite their declining numbers, local golfers are a well-organized and well-connected lot . Proposing to convert even one golf course would trigger a multiyear battle, with lawsuits and headlines galore. Whatever the ongoing Rec and Parks review may conclude, the easiest path for department leaders to take, alas, would leave the golf courses to the golfers and focus the department’s energies on marquee projects that would generate fanfare with less pushback. But the harder path, oh boy, would that be a rousing challenge to the status quo. It must be possible to raise the question whether, in the year 2026, golf should still dominate this city as it does. It should be possible to reconsider why the city dedicates so much public space to one sport that is played by relatively few people. And it is surely possible for a city as great as San Francisco to reimagine what better purposes just some of that public space should be used for. And maybe then, that magnificent view from Lincoln Park will be witnessed by more than a mere 90 people a day.

SF nonprofit paid out $5.6M without checking whether anyone did the work

An audit released Wednesday by the city controller found a pattern of financial mismanagement involving a Japantown nonprofit, including payouts of $5.6 million in stipends over five years without documentation verifying that recipients had performed the work. City auditors determined that the Japanese Community Youth Council’s work training program was structured in a “vague and fragmented” manner, leading to a “lack of city oversight, mismanagement, and accountability.” While the nonprofit’s grant increased from $1.95 million in 2019 to $13.3 million in 2023, participation in its programming remained low. Mayor London Breed promised it would serve 3,000 young people per year, but auditors found it fell far short of that. The program — part of Breed’s 2018 Opportunities for All initiative — was funded by the city’s Department of Children, Youth, and Their Families and managed by the Human Rights Commission. The Human Rights Commission, which Mayor Daniel Lurie last year merged into the Agency for Human Rights, has faced major scandals, including corruption charges in March against its former executive director, Sheryl Davis . The audit says the Japanese Community Youth Council hired Davis’ sister as its program manager, at Davis’ request. It does not name Davis’ sister. According to the report, the nonprofit refused to hand over the contract for Davis’ sister, saying it was outside the scope of the audit. That left auditors unable to determine her role at the nonprofit or details about her work. “The audit found a disjointed structure to execute the agreement and the entities involved … were confused about their respective roles and responsibilities,” the audit states. “This lack of clarity contributed to JCYC’s deficient fiscal controls and practices surrounding budget, invoicing, payroll, and record retention in addition to inadequate city oversight, mismanagement of the agreement, and weak accountability in both the fiscal and programmatic sides of the OFA program.” Among the audit’s findings: The Human Rights Commission directed that Japanese Community Youth Council program participants be paid stipends rather than wages. “This created changes in how participants were classified, eligibility was determined, and evidence of work performed. In total, JCYC paid $5.6 million in stipend payments to OFA participants without verifying they were eligible to work, without ensuring they had performed the work or completed assignments, and without documenting how the amount paid to each was determined,” the audit states. The Japanese Community Youth Council “could not demonstrate that 14 of 20 program operating expenses we reviewed were appropriate and compliant due to difficulty in providing records or inaccurate, insufficient, or inconsistent records.” The Human Rights Commission and Japanese Community Youth Council “generally lacked documentation and records for program and payroll decisions and directions given during the five-year period of the grant agreement reviewed, fiscal years 2019-20 through 2023-24.” The Human Rights Commission did “not responsibly manage the program,” and “key documents and records” were not accessible to the city. A spokesperson for the Agency for Human Rights said the department agrees with the audit’s findings and has made changes in response to 27 recommendations from the controller’s office. “The young people who participate in this paid internship initiative deserve nothing but the very best in terms of program management, service delivery, and professional practice. The Human Rights Commission is committed to ensuring this happens going forward,” Devi Zinzuvadia said in a statement. Jon Osaki, executive director of the Japanese Community Youth Council, said in a statement, “The audit report identifies several opportunities to strengthen JCYC’s financial management, internal controls, and documentation. While most improvements are already underway, others will continue to be implemented through the organization’s commitment to continuous improvement.” In a follow-up email, Osaki said that his organization processed payments in accordance with the city's instructions. He added that the Japanese Community Youth Council only learned that they had hired Davis’ sister after Davis resigned from the Human Rights Commission. The Department of Children, Youth, and Their Families did not respond to a request for comment. The findings come nearly two years after a City Hall scandal erupted when The Standard discovered that Davis was sharing a home with a nonprofit executive with whom she had signed contracts. The revelations cast a shadow on Breed, who was close to Davis and had charged her with overseeing a signature program called the Dream Keeper Initiative, which directed tens of millions of dollars toward the Black community. In March, District Attorney Brooke Jenkins charged Davis with 19 criminal counts, including felony misappropriation of public funds and felony perjury. Jenkins also charged James Spingola, the former executive director of Collective Impact and the man to whom Davis had directed contracts.

Lurie rejects core reforms of homelessness oversight audit

Mayor Daniel Lurie rejected several key recommendations from a highly critical San Francisco civil grand jury report on the city’s oversight of homelessness services, including proposals to publicly track deaths and overdoses by individual housing sites and subject nonprofit contracts to greater scrutiny. The June report found serious gaps in how the city oversees the nearly $500 million it spends annually on nonprofit homelessness contracts. The grand jury found that, despite collecting reports on hundreds of deaths, overdoses, and other serious incidents, city leaders have failed to systematically analyze related internal data to identify troubled housing sites or service providers. The investigation also questioned whether the 3-year-old Homelessness Oversight Commission is doing right by its name, finding that it had largely stopped reviewing contract renewals and extensions and had not fully used its authority to hold the Homelessness and Supportive Housing Department and its outside contractors accountable. The grand jury recommended that the oversight commission request audits of permanent supportive housing sites following spikes in overdoses and deaths at the facilities. Lurie wasn’t on board with that. In a detailed response to the grand jury released Monday, the mayor’s office acknowledged that the oversight commission has the authority to conduct performance audits of the city’s homelessness department, as well as systemic factors behind overdoses and deaths. However, the mayor’s office said the commission has limited analytical capacity and staffing. And Lurie hasn’t indicated a desire to change that. His office added that the homelessness department “is already partnering with departments to strategically address issues of overdoses in [permanent supportive housing].” The grand jury also recommended that the homelessness department regularly bring contracts to the Homelessness Oversight Commission for review and approval — an idea also rejected by Lurie. His office declared that contract renewals and extensions are administrative matters handled by the homelessness department’s director and aren’t under the purview of the oversight commission, based on the San Francisco’s city charter . “Returning all renewals and extensions to the consent calendar would add administrative burden without a corresponding increase in oversight value,” the mayor’s office wrote. Why the mayor responded Lurie’s responses Monday offer a view into whether the oversight commission — formed after voters approved Proposition C in November 2022 — has proven effective. His office had 60 days to respond to the grand jury. In a letter Monday , Lurie and Mike Levine, the homelessness department’s executive director, thanked the Civil Grand Jury for its work. “We commend the Jury’s desire to strengthen transparency and data-driven oversight across the City’s homelessness response system,” the letter said. “Further, we thank the Jury for raising the importance of client safety in HSH-funded programs and for the time its members devoted to examining how data can improve services and outcomes.” Every year, the San Francisco Superior Court staffs the jury with 19 members selected from a pool of applicants to serve a one-year term. They choose a few issues to investigate and issue reports by the end of June every year. While the mayor’s office disagreed fully or partially with all but one of the grand jury’s findings, it did indicate it will implement a few of the report’s recommendations. That includes evaluating nonprofit operators of housing sites using resident safety outcomes and developing automated alerts for when housing sites deserve greater scrutiny. Should internal data be made public? A quarter of all overdose deaths in San Francisco occur at permanent supportive housing sites, according to 2024 data cited in the grand jury report. When a death, overdose or other serious incident occurs at a housing site, nonprofit operators are required to submit a critical incident report to the homelessness department within 24 hours. Hundreds of those reports are filed to the city over the course of a year, and the grand jury found that city leaders aren’t using data from them to identify housing sites with troubling safety trends, such as a spike in overdoses or deaths. The finding isn’t new: The controller’s office flagged that issue in a report two years ago. On that point, Lurie agrees. The mayor’s office acknowledged that the city’s homelessness department could be using data from critical incident reports from nonprofit service providers to “more systematically identify safety trends.” One of the grand jury’s key recommendations calls for data from critical incident reports to be aggregated and anonymized into quarterly reports to the Homelessness Oversight Commission. The grand jury also recommended publishing the data on a public dashboard. Lurie rejected both recommendations. “The City will not implement this recommendation,” his office wrote in its response. “HSH already reports relevant public-safety data monthly for neighborhoods with high concentrations of HSH-funded sites and shares CIR information with the Department of Public Health and other operational partners as needed to support oversight and safety planning.” Lurie’s office added that some data could be made available to those who file public records requests. The grand jury report emphasized that outcomes for unhoused people at permanent supportive housing sites must be among the main benchmarks city leaders use when reviewing the work of contracted service providers — typically nonprofit organizations — running those sites. The report also noted that the 2024 statistic — that 26% of overdose deaths took place at permanent supportive housing sites — was an increase from prior years .

SF tried to ban its way to lower rents. Then the AI boom hit

To combat rising rents, San Francisco banned landlords from using software that tells them what to charge. Two years later, the city has yet to bring a single enforcement action under the law — even as rents soar to record heights . The city attorney’s office and the San Francisco Anti-Displacement Coalition told The Standard they haven’t filed any civil action against a landlord for potential violations. In July, a San Francisco tenant sued Greystar Management Services in federal court, alleging the company violated the statute — the first known legal test of the ordinance, brought by a renter rather than the city itself. Meanwhile, the rents the law was meant to curb have only gotten worse. The San Francisco law, believed to be the first of its kind, was designed to target “revenue management” tools like those sold by Realpage and Yardi that used nonpublic competitor data to recommend rental rates. It followed a 2022 ProPublica investigation that put the issue on the national radar and fueled calls for reform. City leaders and tenants’ rights advocates worried that the software was exacerbating the housing crisis and inflating rent prices. Under the law, violators could face civil penalties of up to $1,000 each per offense. At that time, early signs that artificial intelligence was on track to transform San Francisco were just starting to emerge. AI workers were toiling away in Hayes Valley hacker houses, Anthropic and OpenAI began leasing huge chunks of office space, and Waymo robotaxis were becoming a fixture on city streets . Now that impact is reshaping the rental market. The city controller’s office declared in a report this month that San Francisco is “entering an accelerating period of economic growth, primarily driven by the AI investment boom.” San Francisco office leases are picking up, and asking rents for apartments rose 14% from March to July, according to ApartmentList. That raises the stakes for people who lose their housing or are trying to enter the rental market for the first time. The law was authored in 2024 by Aaron Peskin, who at the time was president of the Board of Supervisors and running for mayor. He said it would “allow the market to work and bring down rents in San Francisco.” Peskin now says that even without a single civil action filed, the ordinance was effective — at least upon its initial adoption — in naming and shaming a practice that was hurting tenants. “I think at the time it helped stabilize rents for sure,” he said. “But obviously that was before a trillion dollars of AI capital was invested and rained down on poor San Francisco again.” Other cities and states followed San Francisco’s lead and adopted restrictions on rent-fixing software. The Department of Justice sued Realpage, the dominant maker of such technology, alleging that it helped landlords coordinate pricing and monopolize the market for rent-pricing technology, driving up rents in the process. A settlement agreement reached late last year placed limits on how the company can collect and use nonpublic data. Still, the current spike in rental prices is much more likely the product of a demand shock than collusion, according to Hemant Bhargava, a professor at the UC Davis Graduate School of Management. High-paying AI jobs are pulling workers into a market that was already tight, the result of years of underbuilding and restrictive zoning. Bhargava said the mismatch shows the importance of slower-moving supply-side fixes and how far San Francisco has fallen behind on them. “The demand can change very rapidly, but the supply cannot,” he said. The city’s history of rental-market volatility, which in recent years has largely tracked booms and busts in tech, can also be compounded by ownership concentration, he said. Landlords who own hundreds of units can afford to hold some vacant while keeping rents high. “Banning algorithms or AI software on pricing is really barking up the wrong tree,” Bhargava said, “and that’s why it hasn’t fixed the problem.” When the law was passed in 2024, Peskin’s office estimated that as much as 70% of San Francisco’s rental housing stock was controlled by companies using such software. Realpage, however, said at the time that its software served 10% of rental units in San Francisco and that the ordinance would “do nothing to make housing more affordable.” The company echoed that sentiment this week. “Blaming algorithmic pricing tools for high rents is both fundamentally incorrect and a distraction from the real opportunity to address housing affordability,” Patrick Mendoza, a spokesperson for Realpage, said in a statement. “In areas like San Francisco that have passed bans on software but have failed to build more housing, rents have continued to climb.” Supervisor Connie Chan, who co-authored the legislation and later broadened it, argued that additional AI regulations are needed to protect tenants and consumers. She highlighted her support for another bill moving through the state Legislature that would prohibit retailers from setting prices for goods based on data collected about individual shoppers. Chan said she isn’t convinced that all landlords in San Francisco have stopped using rent-setting algorithms and encouraged renters to contact the city attorney or tenants’ rights groups if they feel they were affected. Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated that no landlord had been sued under San Francisco’s rent-setting algorithm ban. One lawsuit has been filed in federal court.

Housing advocates sue SF, saying it illegally carved SoMa out of state density law

A coalition of YIMBY groups has filed a lawsuit against the city of San Francisco to overturn a local ordinance that exempts SoMa and other eastern neighborhoods from a state transit density law. The law, SB 79, authored by state Sen. Scott Wiener, took effect in July. It allows taller, denser housing near public transit stops, creating the dense, walkable, transit-rich neighborhoods of urbanist fantasy. But in May, Mayor Daniel Lurie signed a bill that would exempt parts of SoMa, the Bayview, and the Bayshore from SB 79. The rationale was two-fold. First, the mayor’s Family Zoning Plan already allows for taller buildings across the city. Second, SB 79 gives local governments the option to create and adopt “alternative plans,” provided they deliver the same net housing capacity as the state law would if adopted unaltered. But YIMBY Law and other groups are claiming that the ordinance actually subverts the state by repackaging housing capacity from the Family Zoning Plan and the state density bonus law as new capacity created by SB 79. “It’s effectively triple-dipping,” said Ryan Patterson, an attorney for YIMBY Law, which filed the suit Thursday in San Francisco Superior Court. The state Department of Housing and Community Development gave SF’s alternative plan conditional approval . (The lawsuit also names HCD as a defendant.) “San Francisco can’t have it both ways,” said Sonja Trauss, executive director of YIMBY Law. “This is a naked attempt to prevent new housing from getting built in San Francisco at a time where one-bedroom apartments are renting for $4,000. It’s illegal, and this type of obstructionism is what keeps San Francisco’s housing costs so astonishingly high.” Alex Barrett-Shorter, a spokesperson for the city attorney, said the office will review the complaint and respond in court. She declined to comment further. The lawsuit comes as the city faces an explosion in rental prices and a lack of housing choices for newcomers. The average rent for a one-bedroom apartment is $4,300, according to Zillow, a figure experts have blamed in part on an influx of highly paid workers in the artificial intelligence sector. This is the second time YIMBY Law has sued the city this year. It filed a complaint in February claiming that the Family Zoning Plan is insufficient to meet the state’s housing production mandate for San Francisco. California has tasked San Francisco with planning for 82,000 new housing units by 2031. The Board of Supervisors approved Lurie’s Family Zoning Plan in December. It required rezoning for 36,000 units over the next six years. San Francisco has also faced legal threats from those on the opposite side of the housing debate. The NIMBY groups Neighborhoods United SF and Small Business Forward sued in January, claiming the Family Zoning Plan violates the California Environmental Quality Act. Neither the mayor’s office nor Supervisor Matt Dorsey, who represents SoMa, responded to requests for comment.

Lurie wanted San Francisco to bounce back. Now he’s got an affordability crisis

For years, the overwhelming perception of San Francisco was that of a crime-ridden liberal hellhole from which residents were desperate to escape. Now it feels like the hottest city in the country. The reversal comes as AI money pours in, with companies filling long-empty downtown offices , and their high-income workers driving a red-hot housing and rental market . Mayor Daniel Lurie, who rose to power in 2024 on a campaign promise to focus on public safety, has prioritized reselling San Francisco as a city on the rise — one Instagram reel at a time . It’s a remarkable turnaround for a city that spent years trying to convince residents, employers, and investors that its best days weren’t behind it. Now, as that recovery takes hold, it is reshaping Lurie’s governing agenda. The boom that is reversing the doom-loop trend has also revived San Francisco’s oldest challenge: affordability. Lurie, who spent his first 18 months in office cleaning up San Francisco’s streets , is discovering that he has a more pernicious problem to solve. “I am the first one to say we are not where we want to be,” the mayor said this week in an interview with The Standard at his City Hall office about his proposals to mitigate the high cost of living. “We have to make this city more affordable, so that families can stay here and thrive here.” That San Francisco is expensive is not breaking news. But if living costs were pricey before, there’s no adequate adjective to describe current conditions. The typical home value was about $1.4 million in June , according to Zillow, which city economists reference for their data analyses, a 9.5% increase from the year before. The median monthly rent has surged 19% over the last year to $3,558 , according to Apartment List’s July report. Those numbers illustrate the paradox facing City Hall. The economic recovery that has made San Francisco one of the country’s most attractive real estate markets is also making it harder for many people to afford living here. “It has been the fastest increase that I’ve ever seen in one single season,” Compass agent Ruth Krishnan said. Before you ask: “Yes, AI is definitely part of what is increasing the price, and it’s probably going to increase it more,” she said. “Now these companies are going to go public, and there is going to be even more money.” Ted Egan, San Francisco’s chief economist, said the eye-popping prices come after a “major adjustment” during COVID, when tens of thousands fled the city, according to state population estimates , chilling the housing market. During that time, San Francisco went from being extremely expensive compared with most cities to just expensive, Egan said. Rents that were once three times the national average are now a little more than double. Even so, “our rents are growing much faster than in other places, and AI is the big reason for that,” said Egan, who himself made the choice to relocate out of San Francisco to a smaller city outside the Bay Area. But the consequences extend well beyond the housing market. Rising prices are forcing City Hall to confront a broader question: Who can still afford to live in San Francisco if the recovery continues at this pace? San Francisco prices long ago pushed out a good chunk of the working-class population. But the appealing new image means that even some high-earning workers can’t afford to stay — fueling the fear that the city is becoming a haven solely for millionaire AI and tech workers. “This is not an issue that is unique to lower-income workers versus middle-class versus even tech workers,” said Supervisor Bilal Mahmood, who recently clashed with the mayor over grocery affordability legislation . “Every single person I represent in District 5 has said it is too expensive to live here.” Lurie told The Standard it shouldn’t be — and can’t remain that way if the recovery is to last. “I want families working in every industry to be able to stay and afford to live here,” he said, adding that San Francisco’s economic recovery is dependent on a diverse workforce outside the tech sector. Lurie is acutely aware that San Francisco has ridden a series of tech booms and busts over the past three decades. While AI is fueling the latest resurgence, the city can’t afford to become overly dependent on a single industry again, he said: “It cannot be one industry, and that’s why we’re talking to business leaders of all backgrounds, saying, ‘We want you here.’” Part of that strategy is recruiting universities to the city, including Vanderbilt , which Lurie hopes will create a more stable mix of jobs and activity beyond the AI sector. He said the city is talking to universities focused not just on technology but on arts, culture, and manufacturing. “We have focused on how we attract universities. Not one, but multiple universities downtown. How do we get more professors and teachers, and how do we have more life in our downtown core?” Diversifying the workforce, however, will require far more housing. Lurie pointed to his signature Family Zoning Plan , which he said will pave the way for tens of thousands more housing units over the next five years. He is also working with Supervisor Myrna Melgar to shore up funds for affordable housing through the city’s Housing Trust Fund . “We need to build more housing. For decades, we in this very progressive city have said no to new neighbors,” Lurie said. But affordability is about more than housing, he pointed out. He has also zeroed in on two of the biggest recurring expenses for families: childcare and transportation. He noted that San Francisco is “the first city in the country to provide access to free early childhood care ” for certain families with children up to age 5. “I’ve had many parents say, ‘You’re saving me $36,000 a year per child,’” Lurie said, emphasizing that San Francisco is the first city to offer such a robust program. ( Take that, Mamdani .) “If they have two, that’s $72,000. It’s made a big difference for some families.” Lurie has also worked to qualify a local parcel tax for the November ballot that is expected to generate around $150 million annually for Muni, plus another $10 million to strengthen transit services. “I want people to be able to get around our city so they don’t have to use rideshare, they don’t have to buy a car, they don’t have to have car insurance, they don’t have to pay for monthly parking.” Cyrus Hall, a transportation advocate, said Lurie’s support is a major boost. “The fact that he is popular and the fact that he is willing to spend political capital on this is great,” Hall said. A thriving transportation system is critical for working-class families who can’t afford car expenses and rely on an affordable public transit system to get around town, Hall said. But Lurie admits that some of his efforts will take time — long after he leaves office — before families feel the broader financial impact. “The unfortunate part is it’s not going to be solved overnight,” Lurie said. “When you have 30-plus years of not building enough housing, it’s going to take us years and years to get there, if not longer.” Critics say that’s exactly the problem. Whether the Family Zoning Plan will make a meaningful difference is debatable. San Francisco faces a state mandate to plan for more than 80,000 new homes by 2031 . The city completed 2,832 units in 2025, with roughly half designated as 100% affordable, according to the Department of Building Inspection. So far this year, 413 units have been completed, 276 of them affordable. “The problem with affordability in San Francisco is we are always working on the thing that we should have been working on 10 years ago,” said Mahmood, who is a renter. “The city is doing the bare minimum to comply with state laws, rather than thinking about how to fundamentally solve the problem.” Laura Foote, executive director of YIMBY Action, said San Francisco is “at best treading water” on solving the housing crisis. She argues that the city should pursue more aggressive short-term measures while waiting for new housing to be built. More immediate action to lower costs, Foote said, could include declaring a housing emergency to streamline production, waiving all impact fees, or proposing “ single-stair reform ,” which would allow certain apartment buildings to have one exit stairway instead of the required two. “I’m not saying they are doing nothing,” Foote said. “But there are bolder actions they are not taking that would have an impact today.” Advocates worry that without immediate action, San Franciscans across the socioeconomic spectrum will continue to leave. They range from hospital workers and police officers who were born in the city to young parents who hoped to raise first-generation San Franciscans but are giving up on that dream because it feels unattainable. Kim Tavaglione, executive director of the San Francisco Labor Council, warned of a future in which restaurant, hotel, and construction workers can’t live in the city they serve, and first responders are forced to turn down jobs because commuting to a San Francisco hospital isn’t possible. “There is nowhere for them to go,” said Tavaglione. She worries that Lurie, an heir to the Levi Strauss family fortune, is relying on “ corporations and the billionaires, the millionaires ,” to rebuild San Francisco, “but without a plan on where people are going to live.” “Working people are the only ones who keep neighborhoods vibrant,” she said. “So losing working people will destroy neighborhoods.” Whether San Francisco’s comeback becomes a broad-based recovery — or a boom that benefits primarily those who can already afford it — may be the question that defines Lurie’s mayoralty.

The Board of Supervisors enacts legislation and amends municipal codes. It approves budgets, oversees city departments, and confirms mayoral appointments. It holds the authority to reject appointments and propose city policies.

Board of Supervisors

Connie Chan

Stephen Sherrill

Danny Sauter

Alan Wong

Bilal Mahmood

Matt Dorsey

Myrna Melgar

Rafael Mandelman

Jackie Fielder

Shamann Walton

Chyanne Chen

Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing provides permanent solutions to homelessness through permanent supportive housing, rapid rehousing, and problem-solving. It operates shelters offering temporary stays and manages street teams delivering healthcare and resources directly to people on the streets. The department also maintains a service guide to connect individuals with housing and other essential resources.

Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing

Shireen McSpadden

Department of Public Health protects and promotes the health of all San Franciscans. It provides vaccinations, disease prevention, and infection control services, and conducts medicolegal investigations for certain deaths. The department also manages public health clinics and hospitals, ensuring community health and safety.

Department of Public Health

Daniel Tsai

The Homelessness Oversight Commission monitors and evaluates homelessness initiatives in San Francisco. It ensures accountability in the use of funds and assesses program effectiveness. The commission makes strategic decisions to address homelessness and advises on policy improvements.

Homelessness Oversight Commission

Homelessness Oversight Commission Commissioner 1

Homelessness Oversight Commission Commissioner 2

Homelessness Oversight Commission Commissioner 3

Homelessness Oversight Commission Commissioner 4

Homelessness Oversight Commission Commissioner 5

Homelessness Oversight Commission Commissioner 6

Homelessness Oversight Commission Commissioner 7

The Local Homeless Coordinating Board advises on strategies to prevent and eradicate homelessness in San Francisco. It oversees the integration of health, housing, employment, and social services within a "Housing First" model. The Board coordinates citywide homeless policy, McKinney funding, and Continuum of Care implementation.

Local Homeless Coordinating Board

The Mayor oversees the executive functions of San Francisco, implementing policies and managing city departments. Directs budget planning, prioritizes public safety, economic recovery, and homelessness initiatives. Exercises authority in appointing officials and shaping legislative agendas.

Mayor

Daniel Lurie

The Our City, Our Home Oversight Committee advises on the allocation and management of funds to address homelessness in San Francisco. It evaluates spending, program implementation, and service outcomes in areas like housing and mental health. The committee provides budget recommendations to the Mayor and Board of Supervisors.

Our City, Our Home Oversight Committee

Programs and services addressing homelessness and housing insecurity