In August, when Democrats came out reinvigorated at their national convention in Chicago, they delivered a one-two housing punch from the top.
First, former president Barack Obama made a call to “build more units and clear away some of the outdated laws and regulations” that block construction. Then Vice President Kamala Harris, accepting the party nomination for president, promised to “end America’s housing shortage.”
The week before, the Harris campaign released a housing policy memo that pledged to “build on the Biden-Harris Administration’s efforts to cut red tape and enable more home building to bring down housing costs.”
All this talk about not just building more, but also streamlining regulation, was familiar to folks back in Harris’ home base. Local YIMBYs – “yes in my backyard” advocates of more urban density – took note.
“I think it’s fair to call [this] YIMBY policy,” says Jane Natoli, organizing director for YIMBY Action.
The message could have been lifted from years of stump speeches of YIMBY-friendly San Francisco politicians like Mayor London Breed, Gov. Gavin Newsom, or Sen. Scott Wiener. As frequently happens, something that starts in San Francisco has reverberated well beyond the city limits.
Could it reverberate back? San Francisco continues to wrestle with its own housing shortage, a key element in the too-close-to-call mayoral race. Harris’ current proposal is a far cry from detailed policy. But in broad strokes it could help address an ever-more intractable problem: How to pay for all the affordable housing SF, not to mention other California cities, are required to build in coming years.
Under pressure from state regulators, SF alone must make way for 46,000 affordable units this decade, at a price tag of $50 billion or higher. Local and state public funds cannot cover that cost, and SF’s traditional way to produce affordable units – reserve a slice of new market-rate buildings, or charge those developers fees – won’t be enough unless development takes off in unheard-of volumes.
Only the feds have deep enough pockets to finance that kind of construction directly, which makes Harris’ rhetoric intriguing.
“The federal government has had a massive impact on housing historically, from building highways that opened up land for suburban development, to very large tax credits,” says San Francisco chief economist Ted Egan. “Federal money was responsible for most of the [country’s] public housing.”
If the feds start investing again, it could be a game changer.
Harris fund, Trump fear
“Democrats have perhaps been promoting this [YIMBYism] because Democratic cities are facing this more and are more expensive,” says Urban Institute researcher Yonah Freemark. But housing shortages and cost are increasingly a nationwide concern.
In a January analysis, Harvard University researchers noted that the U.S. may need as many as 7.3 million new homes to meet demand, adding that development must prioritize “units affordable to the most economically vulnerable households.” The real estate site Zillow highlights not just major coastal cities coming up short but also places like Kansas City, Nashville, Virginia Beach, and Salt Lake City.
In its August memo, the Harris campaign said it would pursue tax breaks for affordable housing developers, streamlined permitting and review of projects, and an emphasis on “transit-oriented and conversion development” – textbook SF YIMBY language.
The memo also floated a $40 billion “Innovation Fund” to finance affordable housing projects in major cities, double what the Biden administration previously proposed for its second term.
The Republican Party is not really interested in policy anymore.
san francisco state university political science professor jason mcdaniel
The Republican nominee, former president Donald Trump, has never shied from stoking suburban fear about low-income homes. More housing has never seemed to be on his radar, although in a July interview with Bloomberg he made a scrambled reference to less red tape: “Your permits, your permitting process. Your zoning, if — and I went through years of zoning. Zoning is like, it’s a killer. But we’ll be doing that, and we’ll be bringing the price of housing down.”
His campaign platform also references “cut[ting] unnecessary regulations that raise housing costs.”
San Francisco State University political science professor Jason McDaniel says it’s no surprise GOP housing strategy isn’t more specific: “The Republican Party is not really interested in policy anymore,” with Trumpish politics emphasizing provocation over policy.
Jay Donde, president of SF’s conservative Briones Society, disagrees, noting that the California Assembly Republican Caucus’ housing platform calls for the state to “build our way out of the [housing] problem.”
Some activists who fight development and density have called for federal intervention to build more affordable housing. In an interview with The Frisc this spring, Lafayette mayor Susan Candell, an architect of a twice-failed California initiative to return all planning control to cities, said the feds should offer tools such as “special loans” for affordable developers. That seems to align with part of Harris’ platform. Candell did not respond to requests for comment on Harris’ proposals.
Another development skeptic says federal intervention should sideline market-rate developers, but he doesn’t see that with the Harris plan. John Avalos, executive director of SF’s Council of Community Housing Organizations, writes via email, “So long as market forces are leading in the policy arena, housing that is affordable to people who are housing insecure and face constant displacement pressures even in boom times, i.e. place-based essential workers, will be elusive.”
When asked about the proposed public funding in Harris’ proposal, Avalos says, “What happens when the $40 billion dries up?”
SF breeds YIMBYs
For decades the federal government was the primary source of subsidized housing. But starting in the 1970s, the feds relegated most housing duties to cities.
In San Francisco, an often-toxic brew of local policies — racist red-lining in white neighborhoods, “urban renewal” in poor and minority communities, and a density limit enacted broadly in the 1980s — meant only a few neighborhoods, like South of Market and Dogpatch, have built their share of new housing. The city has also been saddled with the country’s longest bureaucratic approval process.
The YIMBY movement gained steam in the 2010s and presented more development and density as a win for everyday San Franciscans, including renters who were squeezed by a lack of housing supply. (The city’s first YIMBY group was the Bay Area Renters’ Federation, or BARF.)
Critics have called YIMBYs shills for profit-seeking developers, “market fundamentalists,” and “dismissive” of poor and working communities of color. Despite this, YIMBY-favored candidates have carried key races in recent years, and their message is moving into national party politics.
“Democrats understand housing costs could hurt them politically, so the party is seeing this [YIMBYism] as something that needs to take place at the state and national level,” says SF State’s McDaniel, who is a self-proclaimed YIMBY.
California YIMBY spokesperson Matthew Lewis emphasizes that the federal government has little direct control over development. Tax breaks and funding can spur construction, but cities still control zoning and permitting.
Rather, Lewis says the biggest takeaway is that Harris’ YIMBY talk sets the tone for “soft power” plays to influence local politics from above: “[Presidential administrations] can pressure jurisdictions to fix their zoning, and Kamala is onto them,” he says.
Despite bipartisan House support, the Biden White House has an affordable housing pitch stuck in the Senate right now. To enact aggressive housing reform, a Harris White House would almost certainly need Democrats to win both houses of Congress. Projections show the GOP likely to retake the Senate next week.
The most immediate outcome of a YIMBY White House would likely be a rhetorical advantage: If the president herself is a San Francisco YIMBY, development opponents risk being framed as outsiders in the party, or even plain old-fashioned by comparison.