San Francisco Public Press (https://www.sfpublicpress.org/author/madison-alvarado/page/2/)
Madison Alvarado is a reporter based in San Francisco who is interested in California's housing crisis, environmental justice and structural inequities. In addition to her reporting on public housing and rent relief at the Public Press, she has covered issues related to the coronavirus pandemic, housing and city government for San Francisco news site Mission Local.
Proposition D, dubbed Affordable Housing Now by its creators, is one of two competing proposed amendments to San Francisco’s city charter that would streamline the production of affordable housing projects.
More than one month after statewide eviction protections expired on June 30, less than 4% of rent relief funds requested by San Francisco households remain unprocessed, with 55% of funds paid out.
Although a statewide eviction moratorium for tenants with pending rent relief applications expired Thursday, some tenants in San Francisco and Los Angeles saw a glimmer of hope as previously voided local protections kicked back in.
Cities and advocates hope the enactment of new protections will help to fill the gap for struggling tenants facing eviction for rent due after June 30.
Roughly two years, multiple eviction moratoriums and over $3.6 billion in rent-relief payments after tenant advocates began worrying COVID-19 hardships would push thousands of renters out of their homes in San Francisco and elsewhere, California policy interventions aimed at preventing evictions are poised to end.
Barring an eleventh-hour postponement by lawmakers (not out of the question, given three previous last-minute extensions), California’s eviction protections expire June 30. Among those vulnerable to being forced from their homes are more than 135,000 tenants whose applications for rent relief have been denied, and thousands more whose applications may be denied in the future or not processed by the time protections are lifted.
Just one day before statewide rent relief protections were set to expire, Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis signed into law a proposal to extend pandemic-related eviction protections through June 30 for tenants who applied for help paying the debts accumulated up to today. Kounalakis became the first woman in Californian history to sign a bill into law after the state Senate passed the bill this morning. She is filling in for Gov. Gavin Newsom while he is on vacation.
A bill introduced Thursday in the California Assembly would extend eviction protections by three months for tenants who have applied for emergency rent relief related to the coronavirus pandemic. The catch: To qualify, tenants who haven’t yet asked for help would need to submit applications by the end of March, giving them less than a week to get their requests in the queue.
San Francisco could lose out on hundreds of millions of dollars for affordable housing rental aid and construction with the expected collapse of the Build Back Better social spending and infrastructure bill.
The programs included in the legislation would have allowed San Francisco to offer more subsidies to low-income tenants, repair poor living conditions in public housing and encourage the construction of more affordable housing.
How did the Plaza East public housing development, built just two decades ago, fall into disrepair in such a short time? Nobody involved in the project has been able to explain how things got so bad at Plaza East, but there’s plenty of blame to go around.
Six months after San Francisco agreed to lend the developer of a run-down Western Addition public housing complex $2.7 million for emergency repairs, the work is behind schedule and many residents at Plaza East Apartments say their units remain damaged by mold, leaks and pest infestations — even after repairs were done.