By Jeremy Lybarger
Imagining low-income housing in Telegraph Hill is like imagining a needle exchange in the heart of Pac Heights. The neighborhood famous for Coit Tower and wild parrots is often considered one of the city’s swankiest; no less an authority than Airbnb describes it as the “quintessential” San Francisco hood. With the median rent of a 1BR at $3,350, Telegraph Hill is also quintessentially unaffordable.
The city wants to change that. According to SF Business Times, the Port of San Francisco and Mayor’s Office of Housing hope to transform a 37,823-square-foot parking lot between Broadway, Front, and Vallejo Streets into low-income housing. The city is currently preparing requests for proposals, with the idea that 115 units will be earmarked for residents making no more than 65 percent of area median income. As the Business Times notes, that means one person could earn $44,150 per year and a couple could earn $50,500.
Neighborhood interest groups have essentially responded, “Hell no!” The Northeast Waterfront Advisory Group has countered with its own proposal: Units should be reserved for people making between 80 and 120 percent of area median income. For a single person that’s $81,550 per year; for a couple it’s $93,250.
“We don’t want a neighborhood that ends up with just the rich and poor,” Robert Harrer, president of the Barbary Coast Neighborhood Association, told the Business Times. “We want a neighborhood that’s for everyone.”
Harrer has a point. San Francisco’s middle class has been disappearing at an alarming rate over the past few years. A January 2014 Examiner article reported that middle class households comprised only 33 percent of the city’s population, while the gulf between rich and poor grew ever more cavernous. (And remember the shitstorm last year when Mayor Lee suggested to Time that the baseline salary for the city’s middle class be $80,000?)
In an email to The Bold Italic, Harrer elaborated that “data shows the greatest shortfall in meeting new housing needs is for moderate-income households,” adding that “the moderate-income housing we are seeking qualifies under the definition of affordable housing.” He also noted, “San Francisco is and should remain a city for everyone. We support affordable housing.”
San Francisco is now waging a battle on two fronts: One to help the poor and another to save the middle class. We’re looking at a win-lose situation at best. At least the parrots are happy.
[via SF Business Times; photo courtesy of Giuseppe Milo/Flickr]
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