There’s an old Borscht Belt joke my family loves: What did the waiter say to the table of old ladies?
“Is anything OK?”
Living in San Francisco these days, it feels like we’re trapped in the joke, except it’s not funny: Homelessness. Housing crisis. Streets strewn with filth and feces. Evictions. Traffic. Obscene income disparities. Is anything OK here?
San Franciscans can be unbearably smug about the restaurants and hills and views and, of course, the fog, which vents on Twitter. But as we head to the polls to elect our new mayor, amid calls for change, shake-ups, and mess cleaning, it’s fair to ask now — not to sweep problems under the rug or be Pollyannas, but to provide a little breathing space. We all know things need to change. At the same time, what is San Francisco doing right?
Civic spaces
Yes, our streets and sidewalks are a mess. Yet we have consistently funded our parks, recreation facilities, and libraries, crucial places that make the city accessible to folks of all incomes and for families. Citizens consistently support bond measures to pay for improvements because trails, playgrounds, sports fields, pools, and libraries pay us back multiples over time. We’ve even doubled down on shared spaces, closing neighborhood corridors with the Sunday Streets program, converting parking spots into parklets — ”an experiment that became codified as official policy in record time,” SPUR editorial director Allison Arieff tells The Frisc — and also supporting farmers markets.
The debate over our sidewalks will rage into the next mayor’s administration and beyond. But nonprofit Lava Mae has brought both action and dignity to the homelessness situation. The group’s mobile showers and toilets, built from old buses, pull up in designated areas and give folks a chance to wash. San Francisco once had a plan to expand shelter beds and services, but it fell by the wayside. Until city services reach a broader group of people, Lava Mae, founded by Western Addition resident Doniece Sandoval, is filling a critical gap. “It’s a shame that we have to have it, but she is providing such a dignified and thoughtful service,” says SPUR’s Arieff.
We’re also willing to share open spaces with animals that haven’t always been welcome. So far, the burgeoning coyote population has created a fascinating situation. “The urban matrix isn’t a barrier for these animals,” Presidio Trust ecologist Jonathan Young told The Frisc last year.
Arts institutions and funding
Proposition S in 2016 raised the hotel tax to pay for more arts funding. Earmarking too many public funds is not good public policy, as the Chronicle noted in its editorial recommending a no vote. To the aggravation of budgetarians, we citizens voted with our hearts, sensing that the arts, like parks and streets, also are a vital shared resource.
Plenty of institutions deserve praise for pushing art beyond museum walls and expensive orchestra seats. Ruth Asawa San Francisco School of the Arts principal Barnaby Payne gives props to SFMOMA for its education commitment. “It’s outstanding,” says Payne, from the free entry for students and teachers to customized school programming.
Deborah Cullinan, CEO of the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, says another proposition is in the works to cement more arts funding through the hotel tax and support “cultural equity, cultural districts, and arts and culture organizations that fuel our city’s imagination.” We’re reserving judgment until we see details, but let’s celebrate that at least there’s a hunger here to make arts not just viable, but vibrant.
Low eviction rate
Say what? Despite the horror stories — and yes, 101-year-old individuals should not be booted from their homes — San Francisco has an extremely low eviction rate. According to the Eviction Lab, nationwide eviction rates have ranged between 6 and 8 percent since 2000. In the same period, California’s eviction rate has gone from 2.6 to less than 1 percent (0.95). San Francisco has mainly remained under 1 percent, bottoming out at half a percent in 2016.
Tenants advocates say the numbers are underreported. Fair enough. Let’s say actual rates are higher than the local rent board reports each year. SF is still under the state and national averages. Does that mean everything is cool? No. While not as rampant as you think, there are abuses. That’s why we support Prop F, which will give everyone facing eviction in the city the right to legal counsel. (Here is The Frisc’s guide to our local ballot measures.)
Like the propositions’ detractors, we worry that people who can afford their own legal help, or who don’t deserve help — abusive, destructive, or deadbeat neighbors that everyone has experienced — will game the system. But we think the benefits outweigh the risks. The city already spends about $4 million a year to help those facing eviction. With Prop F, those costs could double. Seems worth it to erect higher guardrails against landlords like this.
Small business support
The city is arguably the birthplace of the small-grocer renaissance, when the Mogannam brothers took over the Bi-Rite on 18th Street from their dad and uncle and turned it into a foodie Mecca. (It’s midblock, but it’s a corner store; welcome to San Francisco.) Even if the term “foodie” makes you gag a little these days, the trickle-down effect — forcing local grocers to compete on quality, freshness, and variety — makes customers’ lives better.
Of course, local retail isn’t impervious to the tidal wave of online shopping. Vacancy rates in 2017 jumped nearly 50 percent, up to 3.4 percent, according to the SF Center for Economic Development. Commercial landlords in outlying neighborhoods have notoriously kept storefronts vacant too, which has raised the ire of local supervisors. An effort to hold landlords accountable is a sign that San Franciscans want vibrant commercial strips. We want local merchants. Small business is good.
Political participation
Whatever you might think of this mayoral election, there’s no lack of will or participation from candidates, with the top of the ballot on down offering something for everyone. We shouldn’t take that for granted, according to San Francisco State University associate professor of political science Jason McDaniel. “San Francisco does a great job of producing strong, highly-qualified candidates for local elected office,” he says. “Politics in San Francisco may be contentious, but the people are well represented by the high level of competition between two well-organized, diverse, multiracial political coalitions.”
As often noted, our new mayor will almost certainly be an openly gay man, an African-American woman, or a Korean-American woman. From the outside, that seems like something to celebrate. Even better, from within San Francisco, the identity politics sometimes feels like an afterthought, because the focus has been on substantial issues and political strategies. But not always.
As The Frisc noted here, the ouster of London Breed from her temporary mayor’s chair, while done under the guise of typical City Hall political maneuvering, was tinged with creepy racial implications that only got worse when one of her opponents, Sup. Hillary Ronen, gave a pandering, meandering “I’m not a racist!” speech in the board’s chamber that night.
Whoops, this post was meant to be a complaint-free zone. Back to the larger point: The city’s diversity, combined with sharp-elbowed differences along the political spectrum, is to the city’s advantage. We don’t have a typical two-party system, and that’s not necessarily bad. This election cycle has brought feelings and political forces to the fore that have scrambled some of the gears inside the city’s Democratic machine. Let’s hope it stays that way, even if sometimes the civic process drags on because of too much deference to civic input.
Happy Election Day, everyone. We’ll be watching the returns and keeping you posted.
