2024 California General Election Endorsements for San Francisco

Since arriving in Sacramento, Assemblymember Matt Haney has immediately gotten to work to champion housing. In addition to strong votes, he carried an important bill, AB 1114, to close loopholes abused by San Francisco to delay housing. Haney has also worked on office-to-housing conversions and prioritized limiting the cost burdens for renters, bringing his perspective as one of the few renters and chairing the California Legislative Renters’ Caucus.

One might assume that the Supervisor representing wealthy neighborhoods like Pacific Heights and the Marina would be a NIMBY against housing. However, we are excited to endorse Supervisor Catherine Stefani who far exceeds expectations. While she may not be the loudest pro-housing voice, Supervisor Stefani stands for the rule of law and consistent standards applied to housing. Although the San Francisco Board of Supervisors is majority anti-housing, Catherine Stefani has bravely voted for housing projects and against baseless appeals. She voted in support of headline housing projects like 469 Stevenson Street (the Nordstrom parking lot project) and 1151 Washington Street.

We expect Catherine Stefani to continue her pro-housing goals in the Assembly, a body that is much more supportive of housing. She explicitly supports more housing in her Assembly District. She also writes unambiguously in our questionnaire “we need to prioritize building all types of housing in exclusionary communities.” Further, she writes “I am also committed to ensuring that cities and counties across the state do their fair share in terms of building housing, and if they don’t, hold them accountable through closing loopholes within the Housing Accountability Act. “

We encourage Supervisor Stefani to sponsor legislation in the Assembly that aligns with her good-governance ethos, such as strengthening the Housing Accountability Act where it may conflict with the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).

Scott Wiener continues to be an exemplary leader on housing. He has passed numerous bills in the recent session, including SB423, extending and expanding upon one of the most productive affordable housing bills of the past decade, SB35, as well as SB4 (YIGBY), which will allow for affordable housing on religious properties, opening up tens of thousands of acres for new housing. We are also now seeing the dividends of his early work to strengthen state law and put teeth into the RHNA process by strengthening the Housing Element process, meaning jurisdictions all over California have to build the housing they say they will or face consequences from the state.

Mayor Breed has been a strong champion for housing in her time as Mayor and looks to build upon that work with another term. She has led the City through a transformative period, ushering in the changes needed to implement our Housing Element despite a Board that is not always cooperative. She has supported state legislation that is key to making it easier to build homes in San Francisco such as SB423. These are just a few of the actions she has taken in her time to change how we build housing in San Francisco

SF YIMBY is endorsing Bilal Mahmood early in this race because we don’t have time to wait. We need housing champions at City Hall who have actual solutions to our housing shortage. The time for grandstanding is over, the time to build homes is now, and Bilal gets that.

As Supervisor, Myrna Melgar has helped usher in important legislation as the chair of the Land Use and Transportation Committee, working with Mayor Breed to implement parts of the Housing For All plan and pass important pieces of legislation such as our local constraints reduction package.

She has also championed the redevelopment of Stonestown, a key opportunity that will eventually bring 3,500 new homes to the Westside of San Francisco, which has traditionally not built as much housing as the eastern portion.

We look forward to continuing to work with her to pass important legislation that will bring more housing throughout San Francisco

EJ has a background in working extensively on these issues from his previous work experiences and knows what it takes to build more housing

As BART continues to recover from the pandemic, we look to the BART board for vision on transit AND support of more housing at BART stations throughout East Bay. While organizing with Latine Young Dems and CA Young Dems, Victor Flores has fought for the state housing laws that are turning the tide on our housing crisis, including SB 9, SB 423, and AB 2011.
In his words: "Building more houses and equitable urban planning isn't just good housing policy, it's great transit and environmental policy!"

SF YIMBY is proud to endorse Joe Sangirardi in his run for BART Board District 9. An unabashed YIMBY, we've been thrilled to see the energy he brought in his DCCC race and we're happy to support him out of the gate as he looks to bring that same attention to detail to BART. Transportation and housing go hand-in-hand and he'll be a strong new voice!