As bad as the housing crisis is in San Diego, there are regular, jaw-dropping reminders from San Francisco and Silicon Valley that the problem is much worse there. One came in April, when a condemned, mildew-ridden home in Fremont with holes in the roof sold for $1.23 million. Another came last month, when the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development announced that families in San Francisco, San Mateo and Marin counties who made as much as $117,400 a year were eligible to live in low-income housing projects.
Now the newly elected mayor of San Francisco has supplied another reminder. In her inaugural speech Wednesday, London Breed, 43, noted that she had never been able to afford buying a house in her hometown — even though her last job, as a city-county supervisor, paid well over $100,000 a year.
That may change now that Breed makes about $336,000 a year as mayor. But housing remains a nightmare for hundreds of thousands of her constituents. A November article in the San Francisco Chronicle detailed how housing costs had so impoverished local teachers that even an 11 percent raise over three years was unlikely to stem the exodus of young teachers to less expensive communities. The same exit is likely for those in many other professions as well, barring dramatic changes.
“So many of my friends have left San Francisco. I don’t want to see this happen to the next generation,” Breed said Wednesday while promising to make addressing the housing crisis a top priority.
Californians should wish Breed good luck — and hope the state Legislature keeps trying to make adding housing stock easier. That’s because much of the rest of the Golden State is on track to be as squeezed as San Francisco is now.
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Keep the discussion civilized. Absolutely NO personal attacks or insults directed toward writers, nor others who make comments.
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