Friends and neighbors,
Over 500,000 San Franciscans– or more than 60 percent of residents– are tenants. Nearly a third of tenants spend more than 30 percent of their income on rent, and that percentage is even higher in some of our District 5 neighborhoods. With the recent release of two City reports, we now have data that proves that helping tenants helps everyone in San Francisco.
First, some history: in 2018, I wrote and San Francisco voters passed Proposition F, which called for a free attorney for any San Franciscan facing eviction. Each year since I’ve been in office we have successfully advocated for funding the right to counsel program to make that promise a reality. My office also went one step further in 2020 – we wrote and voters passed a tax on $10+ million real estate sales to fund social housing and rent relief. In 2021, with Board of Supervisors’ support, we allocated $42m of those funds for the San Francisco Emergency Rental Assistance Program (ERAP) – creating the largest local rent relief program in US history.
A few years later, the numbers are in, and they are astonishing:
- The Tenant Right to Counsel has helped thousands of San Franciscans. In FY 2022-23 alone, the Tenant Right to Counsel program provided legal assistance to 1800 households facing eviction
- 63 percent of tenants who were fully represented by a Tenant Right to Counsel attorney were able to stay in their homes
- 92 percent of all tenants who received assistance from a Tenant Right to Counsel attorney avoided homelessness
- Since 2021, the Emergency Rental Assistance Program (ERAP) has provided $61.2 million worth of local rental assistance
- 10,110 households– over 20,000 people – were saved from eviction or crushing debt as a result of the City’s rental assistance Â
- Half of the people who received rental assistance were Black or Latinx, communities that have been deeply affected by displacement
- 87% of recipients were extremely low-income, making less than $30,000 a year
- 71% of funding for ERAP is from progressive taxes, including Proposition I (transfer tax on $10 million+ properties) and Proposition C (big corporation tax to fund homelessness solutions), showing that progressive taxes have helped fund assistance for those most in need in our City
Keeping people in their homes has been a priority for my office from the start, and we are proud that our City is leading the way to protect tenants, keep communities intact, and save our City the costs– both human and monetary– of our neighbors becoming homeless. Ensuring that these programs remain fully funded is a priority for my office this budget cycle– we can’t afford not to fund them.
You can read more about the Tenants Right to Counsel Program here, and about ERAP here.
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Dean Preston,
District 5 Supervisor
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