Action Steps Toward Mutual/Cooperative Housing in SF

Action Steps
Local Steps Towards Mutual/Cooperative Housing in S.F.

Create A Local Mc.Kinney Act
Under the federal Mc.Kinney Act, federal surplus property was supposed to be leased to non-profit developers providing housing to homeless people for $1.00 a year. This law was widely ignored. However, a local Mc.Kinney Act could set-aside surplus city owned property and establish a process for re-zoning, when necessary. A portion of this land should be set-aside for mutual housing.

Create a Mutual Housing Superfund
For an excellent model of Mutual Housing efforts-San Franciscans need look no farther than across the Bay Bridge-to Oakland California. In August 2000, the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation held the Western Regional Summit on Housing and Wealth Accumulation to address the national housing crisis.

Showcased at the conference was a new program to bring Community Land Trusts to West Oakland. With a $500,00 contribution from the Fannie Mae Foundation to the Community Bank of the Bay, the Northern California Land Trust will be able to access a line of credit. These funds will be used to preserve affordable housing in a neighborhood threatened by gentrification.

San Francisco could indeed adapt this model to preserve and expand housing opportunities on this side of the bay as well. A fund for mutual housing could begin with substantial seed money and matched with donations from private sources, foundation and other revenues. San Francisco must establish firm goals of assisting the stabilization of many more thousands of units of affordable housing than is currently in the pipeline.

Saving Endangered Federally-Subsidized Housing Through Cooperatives.
Currently their are 9,000 project based Section 8 homes in danger of extinction. In the past, private landlords received construction or acquisition subsidies in return for accepting low-income families through the project based Section 8 program.
New federal legislation has allowed landlords to opt-out of their obligations to accept low-income, subsidized tenants, if they repaid their loans in full. In addition many Section 8 contracts are expiring; and many landlords are exiting the program citing inadequate federal subsidy.

Community and tenant groups, along with the Redevelopment Agency are working to transfer some of the properties into non-profit hands. This is to be applauded, but current funding levels will only save about 1,700 households. Where there is tenant support for such an option, cooperative, mutual and land-trust options must be pursued. Project based Section 8 programs are a major source of housing for low-income families and senior citizens.

In 1998, a group of tenants living at North Beach Public Housing designed a plan for cooperative ownership and management of their development. NBPH tenants had been organized to safeguard against displacement due to planned demolition and redevelopment of their homes. The plan included substantial programs for resident self-sufficiency. However, the San Francisco Housing Authority refused to implement the resident\'s plan; loosing an opportunity to further innovative housing models.

Reform the Mayors\' First Time Home Buyer program to favor tenants attempting to cooperatively buy out buy out homes they currently live in.

Under the current rules, outside prospective home-buyers could end up evicting current tenants. Full funding and technical support provided to low-income applicants especially those in danger of homelessness if displaced.

Expand the City\'s Master-Leasing program to include Cooperatives
Currently, San Francisco master-leases Single Room Occupancy (SRO) hotels as a method of stabilizing the buildings. The program has been successful in that it is designed to prevent \"musical room\" evictions which are designed by landlords to prevent tenants from being protected by the Rent Ordinance.

In Chicago, the master lease program has been used in an innovative way. The contract with the property owner includes an option to buy on the part of the city a non-profit housing provider. (In San Francisco, the city does reserve the right of first refusal in case the building is sold.) During the time of the lease, the capacity to cooperatively manage and run their own buildings is developed.

We propose that a similar pilot program be developed in San Francisco, in order to determine the viability of future projects such as this. We also recommend that the city expand the program to include non-SRO buildings in order to expand the availability of housing to families; currently excluded from the master-leased properties.