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PUBLIC PRESS ISSUE 18
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WINTER 2016
SPECIAL REPORT
THE COST OF LIVING HERE
With Mayor Far Ahead in Polls, Issues Got Left Behind Local press struggled to cover an election that seemed a foregone conclusion PAGE A3
Shoreline Building vs. Sea Rise: Not If, but When The Giants’ proposed $1.6 billion Mission Rock lies in possible future flood plain PAGE A3
Mission High Students, Teachers Defy Experts Author Kristina Rizga spent four years documenting one of San Francisco’s lowestperforming schools and challenged her own assumptions about what it takes for students to truly succeed PAGES A4–5
Mission 800 sq. ft. 2005: $2,000 2010: $3,000 2015: $3,950
CONSUMER PRICES OUTPACE EFFORTS TO AID CITY’S PINCHED MIDDLE CLASS
A Chinook helicopter from the California National Guard prepares for a water drop during the Rocky Fire near Clearlake, Calif. Photo by U.S. Army National Guard Sgt. Jason Beal
What's Left of California's Climate Change Policy? A Lot.
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he Legislature may have scuttled the centerpiece of Gov. Jerry Brown’s climate change plans, but it still approved ambitious new environmental policies that will affect the economy and lives of Californians. In coming years, the new legislation means California’s homes and buildings are expected to use dramatically less electricity and the power grid will increase its share of renewable energy. Brown also hopes to achieve much of what the Legislature rejected through executive orders and regulations. That will mean more electric cars on the road and increased use of biofuels as part of a far-reaching effort to slash greenhouse gas emissions. “This is a long trek forward to change the very basis of our industrial economy,” Brown said in September. “And I think we’re making tremendous progress.” In the legislative session that ended on Sept. 11, lawmakers halted a bill that would have mandated deep greenhouse gas emissions cuts by the year 2050. They also failed to extend the state’s carbon-limiting cap-and-trade program, which may otherwise expire in 2020.
Executive orders require emissions reductions of 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030 and 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. Most contentious of all was a bid to slash petroleum use in motor vehicles in half by 2030. That idea got dropped after the oil industry launched a vigorous advertising campaign in opposition, and some Democrats in the state Assembly shied away. Still, Brown and Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de León, D-Los Angeles, will bring almost unparalleled
accomplishments to a major international climatechange conference in Paris in December. Early in September, lawmakers passed and sent to the governor a landmark measure carried by de León, Senate Bill 350, to require electric power providers to get half of their electricity from renewable sources by 2030 (currently, they are required to get 33 percent by 2020). It is a target that is stricter than in all but a few states. The renewable energy goal means that electricity providers must invest in more wind farms and largescale solar plants as well as new transmission infrastructure. Currently, the three major utilities in the state — Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric — each gets more than 20 percent of its electricity from renewables. The state Public Utilities Commission has not yet studied how the 50 percent target might affect consumers’ electric rates. Terrie Prosper, a commission spokeswoman, said the marginal cost should be minimal “if new technologies like storage and electric vehicles can be effectively used to integrate renewable resources.” The renewable energy bill, which Brown signed on Oct. 7, also calls for new and existing buildings across the state to become, collectively, twice as energy efficient by 2030. This means that Californians can expect to get more information about their homes’ energy usage, a helpful tool for homebuyers, among others. It is also likely to be easier to find and use incentives like rebates to make homes more efficient. Energy-use standards for electronic appliances may also continue to tighten. “It is a very big goal,” said Dennis Murphy of the U.S. Green Building Council’s California branch, who noted that the state already was far more energy-efficient than most other states. Churches, schools and office buildings will be affected as well as homes, he said. The third leg of de León’s bill would have required the state to cut petroleum usage in motor vehicles in half by 2030. That portion got removed from the final
bill. But Brown said that the California Air Resources Board, which would have taken charge of the petroleum mandate had it passed, would work toward a lowerpetroleum future anyhow. “The only thing we don’t have is a formal statement in law of a 50 percent goal,” Brown said. “But the ARB is committed to that 50 percent goal, and I am committed to backing them up.” The air board is already planning for long-term greenhouse gas emissions cuts to comply with executive orders issued by Brown and his predecessor, Arnold Schwarzenegger. The executive orders require emissions reductions of 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030 and 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. These cuts will have impacts for many sectors, prompting industrial plants and even perhaps farms to cut their greenhouse gas output. A bill would have codified those goals into law, which would preserve the goal in the statute no matter who succeeds Brown as governor. “It’s not really set in stone. It’s an executive order,” said Ethan Elkind, a climate expert affiliated with the law schools of the University of California in both Berkeley and Los Angeles. He added that some groups may not follow those orders the way they would legislation. But assuming the air board crafts policies to comply with the executive orders, that should effectively mean a close to 50 percent cut in petroleum use, said Simon Mui of the Natural Resources Defense Council — on the order, in other words, of what de León and Brown originally outlined. Indeed, despite Brown’s fury at the oil companies, the air board may not be able to enact petroleum cuts directly, in the absence of legislative action. The Air Resources Board “has pretty broad authority over air emissions, but I don’t think that translates into a direct ability to reduce petroleum,” said Brian Cragg, an attorney with the San Francisco firm Goodin, MacBride, Squeri & Day. “They would have to try to find some tie to air emissions … that would result in a
State and regional efforts to protect environment might exacerbate urban displacement PAGE A6
Traffic-Calming Test Promises Safer Streets Transportation measure funds signals that slow down drivers near school PAGE A6
California’s Costly Drought Conundrum
Rising local housing costs throw many into poverty
Despite some setbacks, state still barrels ahead with goals to reduce emissions By Kate Galbraith // CALmatters
Mapping Gentrification Across the Bay Area
reduction.” Air board spokesman Dave Clegern said in an e-mail that the agency does not comment on legislation. However, “broadly we would note that Senate Bill 350 did not expand ARB’s authority, nor was it a directive to create new regulations,” he said. The major programs needed to meet the decarbonizing goals announced this year by the governor are already in place, Clegern said. The air board has crafted policies that include reducing the carbon content of fuels, regulating the emissions from cars and trucks, and rewarding automakers that sell electric vehicles to Californians. The board also runs the cap-and-trade program, which limits carbon across nearly the entire California economy. The air board operates some of its key programs under a landmark piece of legislation passed in 2006, which sought to slash California’s greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 — a goal that state officials expect to meet in time. But the air board, which is overseen by a panel of gubernatorial appointees, is also likely to face increased scrutiny from both businesses and lawmakers as it embarks on more ambitious policies whose costs have yet to be determined, including those that affect petroleum. New legislation provides that the Senate and the Assembly will now each appoint one member of the agency. “There’s going to be a lot more attention paid to what strategies that we have available, including, like, litigation, to be able to address [regulatory] decisions, if we don’t think they’re fair and balanced,” said Rob Lapsley, president of the California Business Roundtable. Lawmakers, some of whom toyed with the idea of curbing the air board’s power during the recent session, will also take a more active role in overseeing the agency, Lapsley said.
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n the drive to build a robust technologydriven local economy, San Francisco has attracted droves of high-income earners, giving it a larger share of wealthy residents than any other U.S. city. That is making living here increasingly unaffordable for everyone else. Studies suggest that more than 10 percent of residents who would be middle class anywhere else should be considered poor here. Housing accounts for about half the growth in what consumers across the Bay Area spent over the last 15 years, and there is ample evidence showing that the housing crunch is most acute within city limits. San Francisco leaders are tackling the affordability crisis, but existing and emerging policies just prune the edges of the problem. The city has made costly investments, including Healthy San Francisco, perhaps the nation’s most comprehensive municipal health-care safety net. It also plans to offer low- and moderate-income residents subsidies beyond the Affordable Care Act. San Franciscans enjoy cheaper transportation overall, since car ownership is option-
al. But a $2.25 one-way Muni fare is no bargain for low-income residents if slow service limits job and shopping opportunities. The city and state offer help to reduce the price of Internet service (including a plan for free citywide Wi-Fi); low-cost child care; and nutrition assistance on top of food stamps. But many policies, including cost-of-living adjustments for wages, welfare guarantees and low-cost housing, are based on national or regionwide inflation statistics that do not reflect the city’s economic reality. San Franciscans not sheltered by rent control, subsidized housing or other protections are at risk of losing their homes. To increase the housing supply, in October the city announced a plan to house 500 schoolteachers by 2020. The mayor’s ambitious $310 million bond issue that voters passed this fall promises to build 775 units. Yet the need is often pegged in tens of thousands of affordable apartments, so these modest efforts are unlikely to affect housing prices anytime soon.
At markets blocks apart, different price points for similar food.
The 5-Decade Audit: A Police Tragi-Comic Access to crime statistics is limited because the police estimate that records would take half a century to release PAGE A6
Climate Change Legislation Limited, but Still Powerful Despite failed effort to regulate fuel use, new California laws will cut greenhouse gas emissions and boost efficient power for homes and businesses PAGE A8
STORIES BEGIN ON PAGE B1
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PARENT TRAP: CHILD-CARE COSTS SOAR, OUTSTRIPPING SUBSIDIES Outdated poverty measure means some no longer qualify PAGE B2
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CITY SEEKS SOLUTIONS FOR HELPING RESIDENTS LOWER THEIR BILLS San Francisco offers many programs; activists call for more PAGE B3 TWO CENTRAL CITY GROCERIES CONTRAST BASIC AND UPSCALE FOOD Mid-Market stores are worlds apart, a sign of rapid change PAGE B4
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AFFORDABLE TRANSIT’S HIDDEN COST: SLOW SERVICE HITS LOW-INCOME RIDERS Riding the bus is cheaper than driving, but only if Muni arrives on time PAGE B7 DIGITAL DIVIDE LEAVES 100,000 S.F. RESIDENTS WITHOUT HOME INTERNET One proposal to bridge the digital divide: offer free citywide Wi-Fi PAGE B7 GRAPHIC: HOUSING PRICES SHOW NATIONAL STATISTICS ARE NOT USEFUL HERE In four years, costs for Bay Area residences dwarfed other expenses PAGE B8 PROSPECTS FOR REGIONAL MINIMUM WAGE GROW WITH RECENT INCREASES Prominent local labor union has successfully organized city by city PAGE B8
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EVEN IN FOODIE PARADISE, MANY FAMILIES STRUGGLE TO PUT DINNER ON TABLE Shops catering to sophisticated palates mask food insecurity PAGE B5
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S.F. EXPANDS HEALTH INSURANCE AID TO CLOSE AFFORDABILITY GAP Covers families not poor enough for free clinic-based care PAGE B2
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FROM THE EDITORS
PU B LI C PR E S S I NVE S T I GAT I O N S W I N R E G I O NAL H O N ORS
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wo San Francisco Public Press investigations received 2015 Excellence in Journalism Awards this fall from the Society of Professional Journalists’ Northern California chapter. “Creative Solutions to San Francisco’s Housing Crisis,” the Public Press’ summer 2014 cover story exploring nine answers to the city’s housing woes, received the explanatory journalism award in the print/text small division. Judges praised the investigation’s “exceptional effort” in researching potential solutions, noting that the Public Press’ participatory summit in June of that year, “Hack the Housing Crisis,” inspired many of the report’s ideas. The Winter 2015 cover story, “Choice is Resegregating Public Schools,” received the investigative journalism award in the print/text small division. The data-driven inquiry into the increase in racial segregation in San Francisco public schools sparked broad media and civic discussion. We are heartened by the recognition, and in light of the community response to these reports, we are planning follow-up projects in 2016 on educational equity and the Bay Area’s ongoing challenge of developing affordable housing.
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Nine Sobering Facts About California’s Groundwater Problem
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Winter 2016 • Issue 18 (Vol. 6, No. 3) Published Dec. 3, 2015
The state can’t afford to keep pumping its reserves, and it can’t afford to stop
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Californians drained about 125 million acre-feet of groundwater (about 41 trillion gallons) from the Central Valley between 1920 and 2013, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. That is the equivalent of draining about a third of Lake Erie or, put another way, enough fresh water to provide every person on Earth with a 30-year supply of drinking water. Unfortunately, this reliance on groundwater seems to be worsening. The rate of aquifer depletion during the past decade is more than double the historic average.
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California is sinking at a record pace — one farmer in the Central Valley reported his land sank more than 18 inches last year. As the below-ground aquifers are drained, the land sinks to partially fill the space left by the removed water. Scientists call this subsidence. Most people call it scary. It first was documented in California in the 1930s. It primarily affects farmland, since farmers use about 80 percent of the state’s water, although cities such as San Jose and San Luis Obispo have experienced costly subsidence, too. Back in the 1960s, Central Valley farmland was sinking at a record pace. By the late 1970s, some areas had sunk about 30 feet. It cost the state more than $1 billion to fix just some of the damage, which included sinking bridges, cracking canals and buckling highways, according to one estimate. The sinking took off again in 2008, and farmland now is dropping at a record pace. At least one agricultural area in the Central Valley is on pace to sink 30 feet — the equivalent of a threestory building — by 2030.
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ith an alarmingly dry winter and reservoirs’ water levels dropping fast, groundwater increasingly is keeping the state hydrated. It now accounts for about 60 percent of California’s water supply. But unlike with its rivers, lakes and reservoirs, the state does not consider groundwater part of the public good. It does not regulate groundwater as it does surface water. Landowners may pump as much water as they want.
Lila LaHood
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It will take at least 50 years for the Central Valley’s aquifers to naturally refill, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. But only if everyone stops pumping groundwater immediately. That’s because the aquifers naturally refill at a rate of about 2 million acre-feet a year (650 billion gallons) as rain and snowmelt from the mountains seep underground, according to Claudia Faunt, a government hydrologist. But she stressed that this was only an estimate. Since California doesn’t consider groundwater a public good, no government agency is closely monitoring it, including exactly how many years it will take to replace all that drained water, she said. Even so, no one believes it’s economically prudent or humanely advisable to immediately stop pumping groundwater so the aquifers can refill. That is because researchers studying the drought at the University of California, Davis, determined this year’s water shortage, which equates to 2.5 million acre-feet, will cost the state $2.7 billion. If California farmers, who produce almost half of all the fruits, nuts and vegetables grown in the United States, stopped pumping groundwater, it almost certainly would send food prices soaring. And what happens when food prices go up? People around the world starve.
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Osborn • Andrew Page • Andrew Parker • Marc Parsons • Winston Parsons • Christopher Peak • Michael Poplardo • Megan Prelinger • Nanci Quinn • Jill Redhage • Shannon Rice • Allyson and Edward Ritger • Catherine Robbins • Jon Rochmis • Manuel Rodriguez • Richard Rothman • Tabitha Russell • Stephen Santamaria • Caroline Sayre • Mavis Scanlon-Marble • Peter Scheer • Sandra Rozmarin and Joseph Schlesinger • Diana Jean Schemo • Elena Schmid • Bill Schwalb • Mauri Schwartz • Susan Shepard • Henrike Siemen • Leef Smith • Bill Snyder • Hitesh Soneji • Nancy Spangler • Mike Sullivan • Peter Sussman • Lynda Swanson • Paul Switzer • Diane Tate • Maria Thompson • Irina Torelli • Anne Renee and Paul Tranchida • Jennifer Vahdati • Mary Washburn • Jerad Weiner • Jonathan Wieder • Jay Wilson • Josh Wilson • Joseph Wirt • Mina Yaroslavsky • Yao Yue • Jonathan Zuk
FOLLOW THE LEADER ACROSS 1 Knocks the socks off 5 Derriere 9 Area between hills 13 Persian Gulf land 14 Wind instrument 15 More sensible 16 Lima locale 17 “You betcha!” 18 John Cusack or Bradley Cooper 19 Large tuxedoed bird 22 Chow down 23 Jacques’ water 24 Fish also called the chinook 30 Alternatives to PCs 34 “Take ___ breath” 35 “I can’t believe ___ the whole thing!” 36 Org. for shooters 37 Deschanel of “Almost Famous” 38 Neither’s mate 39 Rifle with tiny shot 41 Massachusetts Cape 42 “Will Be,” in a Doris Day song 43 Fixed a squeak 44 It’s for the birds 46 Poppy-seeded restaurant offering, perhaps 48 Gaming console that recently added Netflix service 50 It may be picked 51 President’s “theme song” or a hint to 19, 24, 46-Across 59 Risque 60 Monty Hall offering 61 Winged peace symbol 62 “Fear of Fifty” writer Jong 63 Party pooper 64 Just ___ bit 65 Do the dishes 66 X-rated 67 Prison area DOWN 1 Clean with a rag, e.g. 2 City near Provo, Utah 3 LP flaw 4 Windshield-cleaning tool 5 Camry creator 6 Ride-Share company 7 “General Hospital,” e.g. 8 Sardonic laugh
Crossword by Andrea Carla Michaels and Robert Wemischner
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California has permanently lost about 18 million acre-feet (6 trillion gallons) of water during the past century, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Aquifers partially collapsed as they were drained and forever reduced the state’s capacity to store water underground. So even if the state’s aquifers are miraculously refilled, it will be with 6 trillion fewer gallons, enough to give every human who has ever lived a 55-gallon drumful of water.
Solution on page B3 9 Carpet cleaner 10 Not pro 11 Trotsky or Spinks 12 Mess up 15 It’s a long story 20 Like Satchmo’s voice 21 “Real Housewives of Atlanta” Leakes 24 “On the Waterfront” director Elia 25 “What Have ___ to Deserve This?” (Pet Shop Boys tune) 26 Former Dodge models 27 Tax form part 28 New Zealand natives 29 Other women, in Oaxaca 31 Part of WASP 32 Hardhearted
33 Financial inst. involved in a 1980s-’90s crisis 39 Type of acid 40 Time for cake and candles 42 “Saturday Night Live” piece 45 Jerk rapidly 47 Zing 49 Gold medal-winning figure skater Kulik 51 ___-kiri 52 Boxer Muhammad and Laila 53 Some roulette bets 54 Ripped 55 Art forgery, maybe 56 Des Moines is its capital 57 “... happily ___ after” 58 Stable diet? 59 Darn, as socks
5 Joseph Poland of the U.S. Geological Survey used a utility pole to show where a farmer would have stood in 1925 and 1955. Poland posed in 1977 after land in the San Joaquin Valley had sunk nearly 30 feet.
California now is pumping water that is 20,000 years old. Groundwater levels have been at historic lows in most of the state since 2008, according to the California Department of Water Resources. People are drilling so deep to find water — sometimes thousands of feet — that the water
H.D. McGlashan measures streamflow in the Merced River in Yosemite National Park, circa 1920. Velocity and water-depth measurements along a stream cross section are used to calculate the volume of water passing a certain location in cubic feet per second. U.S. Geological Survey photos
being pumped to the surface seeped underground when California was home to mastodons, an ancient creature that resembled modern elephants.
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Every time California drains its aquifers during a drought, it makes the next drought worse. The late Joseph Poland, a legendary hydrologist with the U.S. Geological Survey who helped develop many of today’s scientific theories of groundwater It will take at least 50 years for and subsidence, that durthe Central Valley’s aquifers discovered ing the California to naturally refill, but only if drought of 1976–77, levels everyone stops pumping groundwater dropped 10 to 20 times faster than groundwater immediately. during a drought a decade earlier. It was not because farmers were pumping more water. A great swath of the Central It was because there was less Valley is desert. Some of the water underground. The aquifers bright-green farmland in the were smaller. They had partially San Joaquin Valley gets only about collapsed during that previous 5 inches of rain a year — that’s just drought. (See No. 4 above.) With an inch more than Riyadh, Saudi less water underground, the same Arabia. Before irrigation, much amount of pumping resulted in the of the Central Valley was parched water tables falling much, much ground, cactuses and slow-growing faster. This happened again during shrubs. Now it’s increasingly the 1987–92 drought, and it is hapcovered in nut trees like pistachios pening now. (See No. 5 above.) and almonds, or thirsty grapevines, which are water-intensive crops and incapable of being fallowed The electricity needed to pump during drought years. Overall, the groundwater now is about Central Valley does not get much 5 percent of the state’s total rain. So as these water-intensive energy use. That is an increase of crops have been planted during 40 percent over normal years — or the past decade, demands on water enough electricity to power every have surpassed the capacity of the home in San Francisco for three massive irrigation canals built years, according to a Reveal analymore than 50 years ago. The result? sis. In Saudi Arabia, an economist See No. 1 and No. 2 above. calculated that the country used about 10 California does not require percent of its electricity pump groundwater. farmers to report how much to Now Saudi Arabia is nearly out of water. It groundwater they pump. became the first wellpublicized example of No one knows how much a country depleting its aquifers groundwater California has to near exhaustion. Its 30 milleft. No one even knows how lion people are drinking mostly much the state currently is pumpdesalinated seawater, which is ing from the ground. Researchers too expensive to use for irrigaat UC Davis estimate that close to tion. At one point in the mid-1990s 60 percent of the state’s water supSaudi Arabia was pumping so much ply comes from groundwater, while groundwater that it transformed its hydrologists at the U.S. Geological deserts into farmland and became Survey say 65 percent, and a NASA the world’s sixth-largest exporter of researcher told The New York wheat. But because its aquifers are Times that it is 75 percent. How depleted, the Saudi government anis it possible that no one knows? nounced that 2016 will be the last California does not require farmers year the country produces wheat. It to report how much groundwater is importing most of its crops from they pump. Many other states do. overseas — from places such as California’s Sustainable GroundArizona and California, which now water Management Act, which have water problems of their own. went into effect last year, will not require farmers to report their Reveal is a project of the Center groundwater use until around 2022 for Investigative Reporting, which or later. And even then, the new seeks to engage and empower law requires water officials to keep the public through investigative farmers’ groundwater use secret, journalism and ground-breaking shielding gluttonous users from storytelling to spark action, improve public scrutiny. lives and protect our democracy.
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Media Struggled to Highlight Issues in Unbalanced 2015 Mayoral Race
A Map of Gentrification in the Bay Area
It was an election everyone said Mayor Lee would win. For journalists, this made it hard to hold City Hall accountable.
Report finds state and regional policies that address climate change might also exacerbate urban displacement By Dan Brekke // KQED
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here are the Bay Area’s gentrification hot spots? In which neighborhoods are low-income residents most at risk of being pushed out due to rising real estate prices? Which areas have become exclusive enclaves unattainable to most of us? University of California, Berkeley, researchers assembled data on more than 2,000 census tracts in the region — including everything from property prices and rents to density of low-income households to migration patterns — to try to create a new portrait of gentrification and displacement dynamics. The result, released in August under the auspices of the Urban Displacement Project at the University of California, Berkeley, is an interactive map — available
“There is simply no way for the Bay Area to build its way out of the displacement problem.” with lots of supplementary data and case studies at the project’s website, urbandisplacement.org. The team, led by Karen Chapple, a professor of city and regional planning, and Miriam Zuk, a postdoctoral researcher at the Center for Community Innovation, was not focusing specifically on displacement and gentrification. Instead, they were trying to answer questions about the impact of policies meant to help attain state and regional goals for responding to climate change — measures like encouraging infill development to help reduce sprawl and vehicle miles traveled. The takeaway is that those policies might spur gentrification and displacement — if they are not managed carefully. Chapple and Zuk said the biggest surprises from the research included:
• Fifty-three percent of all low-income households in the region live in neighborhoods at risk of, or
already experiencing, displacement.
• “The crisis is not half over” — meaning that ris-
ing rents and home prices, along with an influx of more affluent people, increase the pressure on lowincome people to move to the region’s outer suburbs. • Displacement is occurring beyond neighborhoods that are clearly gentrifying — something the researchers call “an ongoing story of exclusion” that is being experienced even in more affluent areas where property prices are rising. • Between 2000 and 2013, the region lost 50 percent of the units defined as affordable for lowincome households; at the same time, the number of low-income households regionwide increased by 10 percent. • One of their main conclusions is that there is simply no way for the Bay Area to build its way out of the displacement problem. Instead, an approach that focuses both on increasing the supply of affordable homes and adopting or strengthening policies to protect the existing supply of affordable housing will be needed to slow displacement. The project’s report also found that one of the key indicators for gentrification in a neighborhood is a spike in development of market-rate housing. That has become a key issue in San Francisco’s Mission District, which was one of nine neighborhoods the project focused on in a series of case studies that accompany the displacement map. We asked Chapple and Zuk about their thoughts on a proposed moratorium on market-rate housing in the Mission: Could it be effective in halting the march of gentrification in the district? Their answer: It might be useful as a tactic in winning some sort of agreement among community groups, the city and developers to add more affordable housing to the mix proposed for the area. KQED public radio serves the people of Northern California, broadcasting from Sacramento to Monterey, and publishing multimedia and interactive coverage online at kqed.org.
Traffic Tamed in Mission Visual cues tell drivers to slow down percent. Both before and after the measures were implemented, the city set up study of traffic data around tube counters across the road and sent Marshall Elementary declared staffers to count pedestrians. San Francisco’s first “home zone,” The last five-year collision report, established there in 2014 to calm measured from 2004 to 2009, indicates traffic, a resounding success. that 35 vehicle collisions occurred in the “This home zone project is a fantastic treated area. Thirty of those resulted in example of what can be achieved when an injury, three involved a pedestrian, streets are designed to be family-friendand three involved a bicyclist. ly. Not only was the most dangerous “Home zones” originated in the Nethdriving behavior addressed — speed — erlands and have been implemented in but walking, wheelchair rolling and bicythe United Kingdom, as well as in New cling to school skyrocketed,” said Nicole York City, as areas in which infrastrucFerrara, executive director of Walk San ture is designed to encourage pedestrian Francisco, in a statement issued by the use and safety, Jose said. San Francisco Municipal Transportation “You have visual cues that make you Agency. slow down while you’re driving, which The raised crosswalks, of which eight is really valuable when you’re driving were installed, force drivers to slow near Marshall Elementary or near an down when they mount and then cross area where there’s a lot of families and an intersection. Sidewalk bulbouts residents,” Jose said. shorten the distance pedestrians need to But the measures in this area go beyond the visual, physically forcing drivers to slow down. Using $300,000 of funding from Proposition K of 2003, the city installed three speed bumps, painted “edgelines” — which are painted on the street to narrow travel lanes to encourage drivers to reduce speeds — reduced lanes on 15th Street, added raised crosswalks and constructA newly installed raised crosswalk on Adair Street is a ed three bulbouts. visual and physical reminder for drivers to slow down. The city is also at San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency photo work in the highcollision corridor that is South Van Ness Avenue. It has already travel to cross a street — three of them installed painted safety zones and limit were installed at Capp and 15th streets. lines, upgraded crosswalks between “Two things that made this a good 17th and 22nd streets, and installed place to pilot S.F.’s first home zone was pedestrian countdown signals at 21st documented speeding and documented and 22nd streets. In 2016, the agency cut-through traffic that we were seeing,” will add countdown signals along South said Ben Jose, a San Francisco MuniciVan Ness Avenue between 15th and 20th pal Transportation Agency spokesman, streets. referring to drivers who cut through For neighbors who notice dangerous residential neighborhoods to avoid main behaviors on their street and would like thoroughfares. to see similar measures implemented The transportation agency established in their neighborhoods, Jose suggested the zone partly as the result of frequent applying for calming measures. Though complaints about speeding cars and data this year’s round is closed, information that indicated a high rate of collisions. about the application process can be The zone, from 14th to 16th streets along found online: https://www.sfmta.com/serSouth Van Ness Avenue and Mission vices/streets-sidewalks. An application Street, includes portions of Capp, Minna, requires signatures from 20 neighbors. Natoma and Adair streets. Since the traffic-calming measures Founded in 2008 as a project of the were implemented, the transportation University of California, Berkeley’s agency has found that average speeds Journalism School, newly independent have dropped to less than 20 mph Mission Local aspires to be a model of lothroughout the area, people report feelcal, self-sustaining, fiercely independent ing safer and pedestrian traffic is up 20 neighborhood news.
By Laura Wenus // Mission Local
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urbandisplacement.org
IN 2014, I ATTENDED THE INVESTIGATIVE REPORTERS AND EDITORS CONFERENCE AND LISTENED TO BEN POSTON OF THE LA TIMES GIVE A PANEL TALK ABOUT COMPSTAT.
HERE'S THE STORY ABOUT HOW I CAN'T TELL YOU THE STORY I WANT TO TELL YOU.
BEN POSTON
WRITTEN & DRAWN BY NEIL BALLARD COMPSTAT IS SHORT FOR 'COMPUTER STATISTICS.' IT'S A CRIME TRACKING SYSTEM USED BY MANY MAJOR POLICE DEPARMENTS, INCLUDING THE LAPD AND SFPD. IN SAN FRANCISCO, IT WORKS LIKE THIS:
ARRESTING OFFICER
COMMANDING OFFICER
RECORDS BUREAU OFFICER
AN OFFICER WRITES A REPORT AFTER RESPONDING TO AN INCIDENT, WITH A DESCRIPTION OF THE CRIME AND A BRIEF SUMMARY OF WHAT HAPPENED.
THAT REPORT IS SCANNED IN TO THE RECORDS BUREAU.
LET'S SAY A 'SIMPLE ASSUALT' REPORT CONTAINS A SUMMARY THAT DESCRIBES THE SUSPECT USING AN BOTTLE OR POOL CUE AS A WEAPON. ACCORDING TO THE PENAL CODE, THAT'S AN AGGRAVATED ASSAULT, WHICH IS A MORE SERIOUS CRIME.
THE LOCATIONS AND TYPES OF INCIDENTS ARE THEN USED TO GUIDE POLICING DECISIONS. IT'S AN EFFICIENT, DATA-DRIVEN APPROACH, BUT ONLY IF THERE IS ACCURATE DATA. AS IN ANY DATA SYSTEM, HUMAN ERROR MUST BE ACCOUNTED FOR, BUT WHAT ABOUT DELIBERATE MISINFORMATION? WHAT IF A DISTRICT CAPTAIN IS PRESSURED BY HIS/HER SUPERIORS TO KEEP PUBLIC NUMBERS DOWN FOR SERIOUS CRIMES?
LOS ANGELES IS NOT THE ONLY MUNICIPALITY WITH REPORTED COMPSTAT PROBLEMS, SO I FIGURED I'D AUDIT THE SFPD'S DATA. I GAVE POSTON A CALL.
UHH.. OFFICIAL
ACTUAL
BEN POSTON WAS PART OF AN LA TIMES INVESTIGATION THAT FOUND THE LAPD HAD DONE EXACTLY THAT ('LAPD MISCLASSIFIED NEARLY 1,200 VIOLENT CRIMES AS MINOR OFFENSES' LA TIMES, 8/9/14). HAD THE CRIMES BEEN CORRECTLY CLASSIFIED, THE VIOLENT CRIME TALLY THAT YEAR WOULD HAVE BEEN 7% HIGHER.
HE ADVISED ME TO REQUEST THREE MONTHS OF REPORTS RATHER THAN A YEAR'S WORTH, SO AS NOT TO SPOOK THE SFPD. I REQUESTED THE REPORTS UNDER SAN FRANCISCO'S SUNSHINE ORDINANCE.
AFTER MONTHS OF BACK AND FORTH EMAILS WITH PUBLIC INFORMATION OFFICER GRACE GATPANDAN, WHO WAS ALWAYS VERY RESPONSIVE AND COURTEOUS, I FINALLY GOT THE FIRST BATCH OF REPORTS.
GATPANDAN TOLD ME THAT THE REPORTS HAD TO BE PROCESSED, SENT TO INVESTIGATIONS, THEN SCANNED BEFORE THEY COULD BE SENT TO ME. MY REQUEST ENCOMPASSED 50,000+ REPORTS, AND THEY COULD BE SENT TO ME AT AN AVERAGE RATE OF TWENTY REPORTS PER WEEK. I HAD BEEN COMMUNICATING WITH OFFICER GATPANDAN SINCE JANUARY OF 2015. IN AUGUST, I ATTENDED A ROUNDTABLE INTERVIEW BETWEEN CHIEF GREG SUHR AND REPORTERS AND PUBLISHERS FROM SF NEIGHBORHOOD NEWSPAPERS. NATURALLY, I ASKED ABOUT MY RECORDS REQUEST. SUHR'S ANSWER WAS A SURPRISE.
I'M HAPPY TO WORK WITH YOU LATER IF YOU JUST WANT TO AUDIT REPORTS OF ALL ADULTS OR SOMETHING
CHIEF SUHR
HOLD ON, 50,000 REPORTS AT 20 PER WEEK WILL TAKE-
GATPANDAN CONFIRMED THIS TIMELINE. GIVEN THAT THE POPULATION OF SAN FRANCISCO IS QUITE SMALL RELATIVE TO OTHER MAJOR U.S. CITIES, IT DIDN'T MAKE SENSE THAT THIS STORY COULD BE DONE IN LOS ANGELES BUT NOT HERE.
HOWEVER, IT TURNED IF THERE'S A WAY TO STREAMLINE IT OUT NOT TO BE SO AND IF THERE'S SOMETHING IN EASY. IN FACT, I TRIED PARTICULAR THAT YOU WANT, THAT TWICE MORE TO WE CAN TRY TO MAYBE JUST GIVE CONTACT MEDIA TO YOU, IT WOULD BE A LOT EASIER RELATIONS TO OBTAIN THE REPORTS LIKE THE CHIEF SAID, AND I GOT THE SAME RESPONSE EACH TIME: REPORTS NEED TO BE PRINTED, SCANNED, SENT TO STATIONS/INVESTIGATIVE UNITS, REDACTED AND RE-SCANNED. IF ONLY THESE PUBLIC RECORDS COULD BE RECORDED IN A PUBLIC INFORMATION MANNER THAT FACILITATES EFFICIENT DISCLOSURE! OFFICER CARLOS MANFREDI
A version of this comic previously appeared in the Ingleside-Excelsior Light. Via San Francisco Neighborhood Newspaper Association
By Sara Bloomberg // Public Press
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ayor Ed Lee won re-election this November without breaking a sweat. Five protest challengers stirred the race up but none had the political experience or financial backing to win. With limited time and resources, San Francisco reporters said they chose to focus on other races and ballot measures whose outcomes were less certain, such as Proposition I (the housing moratorium) or District 3 supervisor — a choice that left some reporters conflicted about journalism’s watchdog mandate in a largely unwatched election. “It's not good for democracy or our ability to cover it,” said Marisa Lagos, a political reporter for KQED. “As a political reporter you have to be realistic. You don’t want to not mention people who don’t have a chance and you have to balance that with the fact that they’re not going to win.” Tim Redmond, formerly of the San Francisco Bay Guardian and now publisher of 48 Hills Online, told the Public Press that he decided to devote his resources toward other issues. “It matters terribly who the mayor is. This is a bad situation we’re in,” Redmond said. It is good that there were protest challengers, “but as a realist, I think there are other issues that will have a greater impact” on the city, such as the District 3 supervisor’s race. In an Oct. 15 editorial, Jon Steinberg, editor-in-chief of San Francisco Magazine, decried the lack of a “real” mayor’s race. “Like Lee or not, an actual race would have been good for the city,” Steinberg wrote. “The mayor would have been forced to map out his plan for the next four years. He would have had to answer for the steady creep in evictions; for the scourge of homelessness; and, most of all, for the ongoing divide between the arriviste tech class and the fleeing middle class. Somebody might have even brought up the truly sketchy math underlying his promise to build 10,000 affordable units by 2020. Instead, he’s just coasting toward November.” This year’s mayoral race is starkly different from the last. In 2011, Lee won 60 percent of the vote after beating back 15 opponents, including a credible challenge from his left flank in the form of Supervisor John Avalos. This created a robust environment for political discourse in the media and around town. There were at least six mayoral debates that year. In 2015, there was only one. Clara Jeffery, editor-in-chief of Mother Jones magazine, sparked a conversation on Twitter about the lack of a competitive mayor’s race with this post on Oct. 26: “It is beyond appalling that a weak mayor of a city rife with problems and major driver of world economy is running essentially unopposed,” Jeffery wrote. Some San Franciscans speculated that local angel investor Ron Conway played an outsize role in discouraging would-be challengers. A week before the election, Pando.com published an email from Conway
to all of his “San Francisco-based SV Angel Portfolio CEOs” in which he asked them to share his personal list of election endorsements with their teams, including Lee as his choice for mayor. “The media this election is not focusing on the reason Ed Lee is running unchallenged; it is because of Ron Conway and his cohorts spending half a million dollars against David Campos” during last year’s assembly race, Redmond said, “and the climate of fear he’s imposed on local politicians.” In the absence of tough competitors, Lee did not seem eager to defend his record in the press. He snubbed the San Francisco Examiner this year by refusing to meet with its editorial board, according to an Examiner editorial on Oct. 15; the newspaper made no endorsement for mayor. The San Francisco Chronicle did endorse Lee, however, with this mild caveat: “MidMarket may be the best argument to both re-elect Mayor Ed Lee and demand more from the city’s cautious, conciliatory leader.” The Chronicle ran one story about Lee’s challengers — “5 challengers to S.F. mayor push grassroots democracy” — but did not name a single one of them in a follow-up piece about Lee’s first term: “5 years of Ed Lee: How has the city changed under the mayor?” In a pre-election interview, Lee asked a New York Times reporter: “Why isn’t there some big hitters who have experience in public office coming out and wanting to be the mayor of such a great city?” He answered his own rhetorical question by citing an overall rise in economic prosperity and a fall in the unemployment rate. Mark Leno, the former city supervisor and current state senator who demurred from running this year, disputed Lee’s rosy economic assessment of San Francisco, saying most of the new jobs have been taken by outsiders who have displaced city residents. The five protest challengers did garner some mainstream media attention; Stuart Schuffman, aka Broke-Ass Stuart, was featured in a video from AJ+, a digital service of Al Jazeera America. “For AJ+ the role of media covering political challengers who aren’t likely to win is to show what a protest campaign looks like,” Brooke Minters, a senior producer, told the Public Press by email. Beyond protest candidates, whose responsibility is it to hold the mayor accountable in a no-contest race? San Francisco journalists say a true reckoning should have emerged from the political class. But that may have to wait until the next mayoral race in 2019. Steinberg, of San Francisco Magazine, said Lee is “lucky that he doesn’t have to suffer the indignities of being questioned and challenged by a worthy opponent.” “He’s lucky,” he added, “but San Francisco most definitely is not.”
In the weeks before his easy re-election on Nov. 3, Mayor Ed Lee’s schedule was packed with public events, but many of them had nothing to do with politics. Lee and Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff (left) made a cameo appearance at a charity book drive hosted by Superintendent Richard Carranza (center) at Presidio Middle School in late August. Photos by Stella Sadikin // Public Press
Protesting the idea that Lee should consider the race a “cakewalk,” three of his five challengers — Francisco Herrera, Stuart Schuffman and Amy Farah Weiss, front — resorted to freshbaked performance art outside City Hall.
Note: Sara Bloomberg has freelanced as a reporter and photojournalist for numerous outlets, including KQED and 48 Hills Online.
When Sea Level Rises, How Long Can Mission Rock Survive? Voters approved Giants’ $1.6 billion waterfront development, but environmental questions linger By Kevin Stark // Public Press
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ission Rock is a now lonely parking lot adjacent to San Francisco Bay, a tempting canvas for development in a city desperately in need of homes. But it is also a risky place to build because of a slow-moving but massive problem few politicians and business leaders are currently talking about: sea level rise. The expansive slab of landfill is one of the lowest-lying areas of Mission Bay, the 303-acre neighborhood that has been under construction for more than a decade in an area that experts say could be occasionally or permanently submerged as bay waters rise by many feet before the end of the 21st century. The project’s sponsor, the San Francisco Giants, won permission from the voters on Nov. 3 to move forward with a development plan, estimated to cost $1.6 billion, to build between 1,000 and 1,950 residential units, a new location for Anchor Brewing Co. and 8 acres of open space. It was the size of the buildings the Giants needed approval for. The plan is to blow past the otherwise maximum zoned height of 40 feet, soaring instead to 240. The developers say this helps the city by increasing housing density. But neither the language of Proposition D itself, nor the fusillade of campaign literature dropped on doorsteps around the city in support of the measure, talked about protection from rising sea levels. Most of the debate centered around housing, bay views and transportation. But water levels will certainly be an issue in a brand-new neighborhood that would require the city to install new plumbing, electricity and other infrastructure. The Giants said they had engineering and financial solutions to
Mission Rock, now a parking lot for sports fans, would become a dense residential and commercial neighborhood. Portions lie in a zone that could be threatened with flooding by the year 2100. Image courtesy of the San Francisco Giants address future flooding risk. The plan is to raise the grade of the land by several feet to postpone flooding due to sea level rise by several decades. Another part of the so-called adaptive management strategy would be to raise money through yearly neighborhood taxes to pay for costly protective fixes in the future. Would elevating the buildings be enough? In September 2014, city officials received a draft report they commissioned from outside environmental consultants that said the neighborhood would need to be protected from sea level rise either by a massive sea wall or re-engineered buildings. One suggestion was to
turn Third Street into a levee to protect most of Mission Bay. In this scenario the portion of the neighborhood between Third Street and the water, including Mission Rock, would utilize a series of floodable streets or canals to minimize water damage to structures. This is the second time in as many years that a proposition went to the ballot to approve a highdensity megadevelopment at the water’s edge. In 2014, San Francisco voters overwhelmingly approved a similar measure for a mixed-use development for the derelict industrial zone at Pier 70. Proposition F increased the height limit from 40
to 90 feet. Around the bay, developers are planning or currently building at least 27 major commercial and residential complexes on land that might be threatened by sea level rise by the end of this century. That land — roughly the area below 8 feet in elevation, which represents the high end of current predictions for permanent rise plus extreme storm surge, is estimated to be worth at least $21 billion. Cities around the Bay Area, including San Francisco, continue to issue dozens of permits for plans like these, even when they address future flood risks vaguely — if they
do at all. Experts in environmental planning say more regional coordination and legal changes would allow local governments to modify or even prevent new development that might necessitate expensive future solutions, such as creating even more extensive seawalls than are currently needed to protect existing bayside neighborhoods. A 2012 study of the effects of climate change on the West Coast, published by the National Research Council, found that average high tides will most likely be 3 feet higher permanently. While this amount of sea rise would put nearly all of the current shoreline at Mission Rock underwater, most computer models also have a statistically less probable but still possible upper range. Under several predictions, seas would rise about 4.6 feet by 2100. With 3.4 feet of additional surge in a “100-year storm,” the total rise would total 8 feet on a really bad day. It is hard to plan for sea level rise because the uncertainty in future global fossil fuel emissions makes global warming impossible to forecast perfectly. Climate researchers predict that sea level rise will only accelerate by the end of this century as ocean waters expand and glaciers melt. According to records from the San Francisco Planning Department, in the last five years the city has approved more that 50 projects that are below the 8-foot elevation zone, with estimated development costs of nearly $5 billion. Under the direction of Mayor Ed Lee, a new committee is coordinating a “high-level assessment” of risks and vulnerabilities, and could recommend stricter rules for future private development. City officials have said that any new regulation
should be written with a nuanced view of risk, determining more than simply whether a new building would flood, but also by the extent of the potential damage. In response to criticism in a report from a civil grand jury impaneled to review sea level rise policies, Lee has said it “may be unwise — and expensive — to require immediate measures to adapt to wide-ranging, highly uncertain sea-level rise projections further out in time.” But so far, sea level rise seems to register next to no mention in the public agenda or on the ballot itself as voters consider big changes to the waterfront. In the debate over Mission Rock, more immediate concerns carried the day, including how to alleviate the housing shortage. With some political arm-twisting, Supervisor Jane Kim was able to secure 40 percent of the new housing as “permanently affordable” — homes with rents set artificially lower than what the market will bear. After boosting that portion from an earlier pledge of 33 percent affordable, the baseball team won the support of all 11 members of the Board of Supervisors. Larry Baer, president of the Giants, told the San Francisco Chronicle that the team was responsive to the needs of the community. “We think we have a proposal that really speaks to the issues of the city today, in real time.” More online: For interactive maps, a review of the science and the story of how Bay Area planners and developers are grappling with a changing coastline, see the summer 2015 cover story, “Sea Level Rise Threatens Waterfront Development.” sfpublicpress.org/searise
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Mission High School has nearly 1,000 students from diverse backgrounds, including immigrants from more than 40 countries. Latino, African-American and Asian-American students constitute the majority of the school’s population. Some 75 percent are poor and 38 percent are English learners. Photo by Mark Murrmann // Mother Jones
San Francisco’s Mission High Defies Experts Four years of studying an urban school challenges assumptions about what it takes for students to succeed The following preface from “Mission High: One School, How the Experts Tried to Fail It, and the Students and Teachers Who Made It Triumph” is excerpted with permission. It was originally published by Nation Books/ Perseus Books Group in 2015. By Kristina Rizga
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hat motivates students to learn, work hard and persevere through life’s toughest challenges? Why is it so difficult for the world’s wealthiest and most powerful country to build good schools in every neighborhood? This book started with a reporting assignment, when Mother Jones magazine sent me to answer these questions in a series of stories about public schools. The assignment was supposed to last for eight months, but as I immersed myself in the private lives of students and teachers, the surprising realities I discovered compelled me to stay at the school for four years. The more time I spent in classrooms, the more I began to realize that most remedies that politicians and education reform experts were promoting as solutions for fixing schools were wrong. Like many Americans, I believe that democracy and the economy can’t function without decent public schools that are free and accessible to everyone. It is also clear that our educational system is not working for too many children, particularly African-American and Latino students. While there is no achievement gap between white and black infants, studies show growing disparities beginning at age 4 in a variety of educational outcomes that over time morph into gaps in grades, graduation rates and college enrollment numbers. Until The principal of Mission High School, Eric Guthertz. Photo by Winni Wintermeyer the United States can find a way to teach all students effectively, our country will continue to waste one of its greatest assets in the global economy: the huge reservoir of diverse and creative human talent. Why does million students and 3 million teachers in America’s can’t my hometown of San Francisco, one of the most America, a country that strives to be a moral leader in public schools, but we rarely hear from them, the very affluent and progressive cities in the world, build excelthe world, have such stubborn racial and income gaps people we are actually trying to “fix.” lent public schools for everyone?” in education? And what can be done to fix this? I wondered at the time why I hadn’t read many acBauerlein, who had covered education as a reporter I have been obsessed with these questions as a counts of how these national issues were playing out in the past, suggested that I find a school that was journalist for over a decade, and when I started a job on the ground. It turns out that there’s a reason: It’s struggling, convince the staff to let me spend a year as an education reporter easier for a journalist to embed with the Army than to with them and find out. for Mother Jones, I brought go behind the scenes at a public school. Schools are a There are too many politiWhile Mission High was labeled a cians, powerful bureauthem up in my first meethome to minors, after all, and the degree of protection ing with my editor, Monika is greater than in most other public institutions. It took crats, management and ‘low-performing’ school in 2010, business experts, econoBauerlein. We were sitmonths to find a school that would let me be a fly on the ting in her office in San wall. Finally, the principal of Mission High School in 84 percent of the graduating class mists and philanthropists Francisco, talking about San Francisco, Eric Guthertz, opened his doors to me making decisions about the was accepted to college. schools, educational reform in late 2009. Even then, it took months more for some best solutions for schools, and a new, personally painteachers — wary of media distortion and stereotyping we agreed. What do stuful reality in my life. Most of students of color — to warm to me. Eventually, after dents and teachers think of my middle-class friends, whose kids were about to building trust among teachers and students, I gained about the policies these experts are implementing, such enter elementary school, were leaving San Francisco’s full access to Mission High. One of the oldest and most as increased use of standardized testing, making it public schools for the suburbs. Those who stayed sent diverse public schools in the country, Mission is an ideeasier to fire ineffective teachers or opening more chartheir kids to private schools. “Why do our public schools al microcosm for exploring the key challenges of public ter schools? How do these policies compare with what have such a bad reputation?” I asked Bauerlein. “Why schools across the nation. The school has 950 students actually works in the classroom? There are close to 50
holding passports from more than 40 countries. Latino, African-American and Asian-American students constitute the majority of the school’s population. Some 75 percent are poor, and 38 percent are English learners. The surprises began right away. When I first started reporting on education in 2006, I used to think that, though imperfect, standardized test scores — the Big Tests students take once a year — are the most reliable markers we have to see how students and schools are doing. Test scores are the main set of data used by education experts, state officials and many parents in our country. When I first entered Mission High, it was listed among the lowest-performing percent of schools in the country. In 2010, President Barack Obama authorized a major intervention program in schools like these, ordering radical restructuring. Options included replacing the principal and either revamping the curriculum or replacing half the staff, closing the school or turning it into a charter. San Francisco’s oldest comprehensive public high school, founded in 1890, would have to show dramatic growth in scores in the coming years or face dramatic interventions, including possible closure. Yet while Mission High was labeled a “low-performing” school in 2010, 84 percent of the graduating class was accepted to college. In a student survey, 89 percent said that they liked Mission and would recommend it to others, a higher percentage of positive responses than the district average. By 2013, the graduation rate for African-American students was 20 percent higher at Mission, and college enrollment for black students was 14 percent higher than the district average. Grades, graduation rates and attendance rates for all students went up. Suspensions went down by 86 percent from 2008 to 2014. “How can my school be flunking when I’m succeeding?” Maria, one of six students whose journeys I followed deeply in this book, asked me when we first met in 2009. As I spent time at Mission, I came to realize that in every school there are many reliable markers that can give us a more accurate picture of how students and schools are doing. At Mission, teachers have their own system of accountability, which attaches most of the weight to other measures beyond test scores, such as grades and attendance data disaggregated by race, ethnicity, income and special needs; student feedback about teachers; observations of many classes in a row to understand the intentions and sequencing of lessons; observations of the degree of work production in the classroom and student engagement with that work; detailed review of student work produced in the class; and extensive interviews with students and teachers. Though difficult to implement, these criteria are far more informative than standard measures used by education analysts and experts, such as yearly test scores and occasional observation by administrators. After two years at Mission, I was forced to let go of
skills and overcome personal difficulties. With every piece of work, Darrell could hear his own thoughts more and take pride in his own voice. Over time, he became addicted to that feeling. It is this sense of pride in his own intellect, more than anything else, that contributed to his resilience throughout high school, he explained, helping him overcome daily obstacles and selfdoubt in social settings where other young adults had much more self-confidence and deeper social support systems. That kind of personalized, rigorous teaching is rare in many schools with low and high standardized test scores. In too many schools, students are still primarily rewarded for showing up, listening to lectures without interrupting, filling out worksheets, passing tests, participating in some discussions and writing occasional papers. “My middle school teachers seemed to just go through the standards and then test you,” Jesmyn, another student I profile, recalled. “They don’t seem that enthusiastic about what they are teaching.” National teacher surveys show that educators struggle to teach students with varying levels of skills and motivation. In a 2008 national survey commissioned by the Fordham Institute, more than 8 in 10 teachers said “differentiated instruction” — educational jargon for personalized teaching — was “very difficult” or “somewhat difficult” to implement. Many policymakers and parents say they want personalized, student-centered education, but all of the major incentives and penalties are attached to standardized outcomes. This is because our country, as this book explains, has been on a century-long road toward increased standardization in education. The most effective teaching, the kind that values high intellectual and emotional engagement of every student, is not the fastest way to get to the highest standardized test scores. Hands-on projects, in-depth discussions, frequent written assignments, multiple drafts and individual feedback take more time. The “bonus” skills that these activities teach — communicating complex ideas, debating, learning from one’s mistakes, self-discipline, curiosity, resilience, integrity — aren’t measured by standardized test scores and in many classrooms are often overlooked. The best way to get to higher test scores is for classroom activities to mimic the language, procedures and requirements of the test. It’s no surprise then that a 2013 Gallup Poll, which surveyed Many policymakers and parents say over 600,000 U.S. students, found that student engagement drops they want personalized, student- precipitously between grades 5 centered education, but all of the and 12. The latest research by psymajor incentives and penalties chologists, economists and are attached to standardized neuroscientists tells us that these “bonus” skills are hugely imporoutcomes. tant. Many students I profiled talked about the importance of a broad range of intellectual, social and emotional skills. In the hundreds of hours I spent in Mission High prints from other places doesn’t work. The classrooms, I observed how many of these recommendations of experts in academia or skills are taught. I found that while such other schools are too general and don’t take complex skills resist easy quantification by into account the most important variable: standardized test scores, they have been the unique ecosystem of each school and effectively detected and measured by asthe individual needs of its diverse student sessments designed by skilled teachers for body. Schools always need to seek out new decades. A comprehensive, critical review of ideas and learn from the wisdom of others, the latest research on learning by the Unibut much more important, each teacher versity of Chicago Consortium on School and school needs to channel all outside Research in 2012 came to similar conclurecommendations through a daily process sions. The report, “Teaching Adolescents to of individual and collective research and Become Learners,” found that grades given action: detecting student engagement in the out by teachers, unlike test scores, measure classroom, checking for understanding and many more of these cognitive, social and growth, collecting and analyzing student emotional skills. work, and making constant changes in lesMission High School, like many other son plans and school policies. public schools across the country, has This book is about this other, messier, resisted pressure to teach to the test and is mostly qualitative and largely invisible going in the opposite direction of our counside of the story about public schools in our try’s standardized approach to education. national debate. After four years at MisThis book is an intimate portrait of how sion, I have come to believe that educasuch an alternative, progressive approach tional reforms won’t succeed unless there is works at one school, and how its successes greater inclusion of the voices of students — and many continued struggles — can and teachers and the use of more complex, be detected using more nuanced evidence, school-based markers that can give us a including the judgment of skilled teachmuch deeper insight into what quality eduers. Many of our country’s most powerful cation means and how sustainable change individuals, like Education Secretary Arne can happen in all struggling schools. Duncan and education reform experts, such Take the story of Darrell, a student I as Bill Gates and Eli and Edyth Broad, profile in this book. A reflective, brilliant have big plans for the future of American young man, Darrell struggled in middle public schools. school. His father was the single provider These ideas include new standardized for his large family of 13 of his own and adonline tests and increased use of these opted kids. Darrell had a reading disability tests to measure student and teacher progthat wasn’t detected until he started high ress, more charter schools and increased school in 2008. Before attending Mission High, his academic confidence was low and governance by management and business he didn’t think of himself as a good writer. experts rather than educators. This book But by his junior year at Mission High, he is an attempt to elevate the largely inviswas thriving: taking advanced-placement ible voices of students and teachers in the calculus, writing 10-page research papers larger conversation about education in in history and ethnic studies and celebratAmerica today and to allow their wisdom ing several college acceptance letters. and expertise to expand our imaginations When I asked Darrell to reflect on what about possible solutions and to stretch our contributed to his success at the end of his definitions of quality education. senior year in 2012, he talked about his teachers and mentors. The best teachers at Mission worked hard to create intellectuKristina Rizga has been writing about ally engaging classrooms for every student, schools and youth issues for a decade, most he said. They gave students “the freedom recently as an education reporter for Mother to think” and “taught you how to analyze Jones. She is also a cofounder and redifferent texts and express your ideas effecporter at the Baltic Center for Investigative Reporting and has served on the editorial tively.” Because Darrell’s teachers saw him board of The Nation since 2007. Her writas an individual with his own unique ideas, ing has been published in The Nation, The passions and strengths, they knew how to American Prospect and Global Post. She use the content to tap his intrinsic motivalives with her husband in San Francisco. tion, pushing him to work hard, learn new another major assumption about education: that emphasis on individual students’ test scores is the best way to monitor and promote individual learning. I have come to believe that this faulty logic harms learning. Some of the most important things that matter in a quality education — critical thinking, intrinsic motivation, resilience, self-management, resourcefulness and relationship skills — exist in the realms that can’t be easily evaluated by statistical measures and computer algorithms, but they can be detected by teachers using human judgment. America’s business-inspired obsession with prioritizing “metrics” in a complex world that deals with the development of individual minds has become the primary cause of mediocrity in American schools. The focus on quantitative, standardized outcomes promotes standardized teaching: prepackaged delivery of content and instruction “in the middle,” making it difficult to serve the individual needs of students with different levels of skills and motivation. This realization also helped me get closer to understanding some of the root causes of the achievement gap and potentially how to fix it. The highly successful and experienced teachers at Mission High reduced or closed the achievement gaps through personalized instruction, teaching each student individually. They raised the bar above everyone’s needs and then provided necessary supports for all students to reach that bar. The best teachers knew the individual strengths, interests and challenges of all their students, and refined their craft and approaches based on a variety of qualitative and quantitative markers. People in the education field often refer to this kind of teaching as “student-centered,” but at Mission they just call it good teaching, as opposed to simply delivering standardized content and then sorting students into different groups of perceived ability. After three years at the school, I had to let go of yet another deep-seated notion. I used to think that successful education reform occurs when struggling schools adopt research-based practices from academic reports, case studies from other countries or practices of high-scoring schools with similar demographics. As I observed the implementation of new teaching approaches in the math department for three years, I saw firsthand how copying and pasting blue-
Teachers at Mission High School have reduced or closed achievement gaps through personalized instruction instead of focusing primarily on preparing students to pass standardized tests. Above: Steven Hankle directed the school’s choir in 2011. Below: Mission High School, next to Dolores Park, is San Francisco’s oldest comprehensive public school, founded in 1890. Photos by Mark Murrmann // Mother Jones
B8 | SFPUBLICPRESS.ORG | COST OF LIVING | SAN FRANCISCO PUBLIC PRESS, WINTER 2016
SAN FRANCISCO PUBLIC PRESS, WINTER 2016 | COST OF LIVING | SFPUBLICPRESS.ORG | B1
You’re Not Crazy: Data Show Housing Saps Our Checkbooks As economy rebounded, Bay Area rental costs outpaced national average By Amanda Hickman and Michael Stoll Graphics by Tom Guffey and Eric Lawson Illustrations by Anna Vignet // Public Press
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t is viscerally obvious to Bay Area residents — or anyone trying to hold on to a Bay Area residence — that the price of housing is out of control. Displaying government price data in new ways can begin to show how severe the problem has become. There is no perfect set of numbers to show how housing costs have bloated, causing many to cut back on other expenses, dip into savings or ship out of the region. But the Bureau of Labor Statistics keeps records of prices for scores of categories of goods and services that can be compared over time, and across regions. In the Bay Area, spending on housing has grown at twice the national rate. Medical care has grown almost as fast, but does not
represent nearly as much of a typical household budget. Overall, the consumer price index rose by 5.2 percent nationwide, but 10.8 percent in the Bay Area, from August 2011 to August 2015, the most recent data available at press time. This graph makes several other comparisons. The horizontal axis shows the relative weight of eight major categories of expenditures, adding up to 100 percent. The vertical axis shows the change in prices. Taken together, the weight (or what the statisticians call “importance”) and change over time show which categories of goods and services are taking the biggest economic bite out of the region’s average household. Though this graph tracks changes from 2011 to 2015, for simplicity the weighting of goods and services by importance was set by price surveys in 2011.
Housing How consumer prices changed from 2011 to 2015
There are two big limitations of the data. First, because spending behavior and income sources are unique to each individual, there is no such thing as an “average” consumer — even though myriad economic policies, including cost-of-living adjustments, are set using variations of the consumer price index (see story, page B1). Second, numerous real estate databases and municipal surveys show that housing prices in San Francisco have risen faster than anywhere in the Bay Area, with the possible exception of San Jose. But the government aggregates price data across the nine counties of the Bay Area plus Santa Cruz, making it difficult to tease out exactly how bad San Franciscans have it, and how much a truly local version of the consumer price index would have to be raised to make it more accurately reflect the city’s recent crisis in housing affordability.
Medical Care
Food and Beverages
18% SF
12% 11%
13% 9% US
Other 9% 7%
Prospects for a Regional Minimum Wage How a local union’s wins in San Francisco, Oakland and Emeryville could spread Hana Baba in conversation with Jack Detsch // “Crosscurrents” from KALW News
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hile Oakland is certainly not the only city raising its minimum wage, it sees itself as a leader in the fight. “Oakland is very proud to be part of what is a national movement to raise the minimum wage,” Mayor Libby Schaff said, “to recognize that workers deserve to earn enough money to actually live where they work.” Other Bay Area cities are getting on board. Last summer, Emeryville’s City Council voted unanimously to raise theirs, following San Francisco’s in 2014. Right now, change is happening city by city, but is there a chance the minimum wage could increase on a regional level in the Bay Area? KALW’s Jack Detsch has been speaking with boosters and opponents of that idea. Hana Baba: In the past year we have seen a handful of Bay Area cities raise the minimum wage. Where is this campaign going from here?
Bay Area into an effort they’re calling Raise the Bay. That would replicate the Oakland model to other Bay Area cities. But doing this on a regional level has proven challenging. If you look at what Berkeley’s Mayor Tom Bates tried to do last year, he tried to get a coalition of East Bay governments together to raise the minimum wage to about $12.82 an hour by 2017. That didn’t really get off the ground, and you can kind of see why, because even in a region like the East Bay there’s a tremendous amount of economic diversity between your Berkeleys and your Oaklands and your Fremonts and your Albanys. So we can definitely see a city-by-city approach from here on out. Particularly with how confident advocates of the minimum wage are going to the ballot. That could happen particularly in retail centers with large concentrations of minimum-wage workers. So you’re looking at Hayward, Newark, potentially Corte Madera. But there are other places where political willpower emerges totally on its own. We saw that Emeryville, and now we’re seeing it in
El Cerrito, where you have local Democratic clubs that are putting pressure on the city government to act on the minimum wage. That’s the city and regional — what about the state level, what’s happening? There’s a bit more action over there. On the state level, the minimum wage is going to increase to $10 an hour here in 2016 anyway, but legislators want to speed up that timeline. Particularly Mark Leno, the Democrat from San Francisco, whose bill, currently stalled in the state Senate, would increase the minimum wage to $13 an hour by 2017, and would also tack subsequent increases in the minimum wage directly to inflation. That’s going to head to the Assembly sometime soon. Could that then put added pressure on small businesses like those in Oakland’s Chinatown district? How can we expect them to respond? That’s a really interesting question and
we don’t know quite yet, because we only have anecdotal evidence. We’re going to be playing a bit of a waiting game to find out how businesses are doing. It’s been eght months since Oakland passed a minimumwage increase. A citywide study done after six months revealed that 70 percent of businesses reported a higher payroll after the hike, but only 6 percent actually laid off workers. What are the opponents saying? I talked with Michael Saltsman. He’s research director for the Employment Policies Institute. They oppose the Oakland minimum-wage increase. And after surveying business owners in the wake of the hike, he is particularly worried about how customers might react, saying: “I think the regional minimum-wage solution that some have proposed, it does not do away with the potential of consequences from a higher minimum wage because there’s a whole other issue that business owners have to deal with, in terms of whether their custom-
Jack Detsch: What’s happening in the Bay Area is really part of a national push. The Service Employees International Union — the chief organizer of the San Francisco and Oakland campaigns — has spent about $50 million on this nationally. That’s more than they spent on President Obama’s 2008 campaign entirely. So what are they hoping to accomplish? SEIU’s calling this the “fight for 15” and pushing fast-food restaurants to pay 15 bucks an hour. That’s gonna end up being the going rate for the minimum wage in San Francisco and Seattle by 2018, and L.A. will get there by 2020. The minimum wage is likely going to be something we will hear about in the presidential campaign next year. Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton has already endorsed a $15-an-hour minimum wage. And Alysabeth Alexander, the vice president of Local SEIU 1021, told me that labor organizers feel they’ve already won the argument, and with the wind at their backs, they feel like they’re going to press forward now. “This is a growing trend — that we’ve won the argument on minimum wage, and that we’re also looking at a city-by-city model,” she said. “People are talking about there being a statewide minimum-wage measure on the ballot next year.”
And it would be surprising given how popular the idea seems to be. The minimum-wage measure passed with 82 percent of the vote in Oakland. The Emeryville City Council passed it unanimously and San Francisco did it with an easy majority. How did this become such a shoo-in? Things weren’t quite that simple in San Francisco to begin with. Mayor Ed Lee and the Chamber of Commerce really had to kind of compromise with SEIU-backed groups to figure out the approach for the minimum wage, and that was sort of the ballot measure that passed in November 2014. In Oakland, we saw again some complaints from restaurant owners who threatened to move or expand outside of the city, and although they have yet to do that, that’s still going to be a looming threat to look at in the future. So keep in mind the Bay Area is pretty different from other regions when we’re talking about the minimum wage, because service-industry lobbies aren’t as powerful out here. And the big companies in the Bay Area — Apple, Facebook, Twitter, Google — they don’t really oppose a higher minimum wage since they mostly employ people who don’t make the minimum wage. They employ skilled workers who makes six, even seven figures. The city of Oakland’s Deborah Barnes spoke with us about the enforcement component. But do we have a sense of what that would look like on a regional level? It seems like it’s going to happen on the fly from here on out. Labor organizers are really focused on the political angle — focused on raising minimum wage. And they’re pushing cities, after they do that, to step up. So for cities that don’t have the resources of a San Francisco, that could mean having more of a community-based approach. Getting neighborhood organizations and nonprofits to pair with civic enforcement measures to really solve the problem.
It really doesn’t sound like they’re 100 percent clear about the next steps. Not exactly, no. SEIU and labor organizers are really putting their money in the
ers are willing to pay the higher price. That adds an additional risk.” Now, whether businesses would actually go through with threats to move or expand outside of the Bay Area, that’s another story, and we’re not sure whether that will happen or not.
Supporters of Oakland’s increased minimum wage rally at City Hall. Photo by Celeste Isidro // KALW
“Crosscurrents” — context, culture and connection from around the Bay Area — is the daily news program from KALW Public Radio.
2015
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics
2014
3% *
2013
3%
2012
6%
2011
6%
* Totals do not equal 100 percent due to rounding
2010
7%
Medical: 5.1% *
2009
14%
2008
14%
Apparel
Food and Beverages: 7.1%
Education and Communication: 2.1% Other: 1.6% Recreation: 1.1% Apparel : -0.3% 2007
46%
Education and Communication
Housing: 22.5%
Transportation: 4.2%
2006
Portion of typical Bay Area household income
6%
NATIONAL (US) AVERAGE
2%
Average prices for all goods and services rose 43 percent for the month of August from 2000 to 2015, across the nine Bay Area counties (plus Santa Cruz). Housing accounted for more than half the increase. To show the relative importance of prices in each spending area, this graph weights each roughly in proportion to what the typical household spent in each category according to a recent survey. Apparel was the only category for which prices hardly changed over 15 years.
2005
BAY AREA AVERAGE
1%
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Total cost for all items rose by 43%. Here is how each category contributed to the increase.
Bay Area consumer prices since 2000
2004
1%
2.5%
affordable options. And some reforms already set in motion could help n 1999, during the last tech startup boom, about rein in the rising overall cost of living. On top of the one-third of San Francisco households were putting city’s extensive free health care clinic network for the more than half their pay toward rent or a mortgage. poor, two programs launching in 2016 aim to augment That was already well above the longtime expectamedical coverage for residents who earn too much to tion of federal policymakers that Americans spend less qualify for Medi-Cal, the state’s health plan for lowthan 30 percent of their gross income on housing. income residents, but cannot afford medical insurance, But as high as the cost of housing was back then, it despite an array of free services offered by the city. was nothing compared with now. Other important local policies providing price controls By June of this year, the number of city residents and subsidies include rent control for residents of older spending more than half their gross income on rent or buildings, child care credits for low-income families and mortgage payments climbed to 47 percent, compared grants to help small grocers provide fresh food in lowwith 22 percent nationwide, according to a report in income neighborhoods that lack supermarkets. August from the real estate data But these measures haven’t firm Zillow. tamed the crisis in affordability It is an indication of just how that is increasingly weighing on rapidly the cost of living here city residents. Overall, renters, has gone from expensive to parents of young children and painful for low- and moderateseniors on fixed incomes are exincome residents who used to periencing the highest economic think they would never have to pressures as housing escalates choose between leaving the city out of proportion to other costs, and cutting back. Few would and far beyond the reach of make that assumption today. people earning average incomes. Mayor Ed Lee has prided The problems are most pervasive himself on a pro-growth agenda among black and Latino San that has helped rocket San Franciscans, whose incomes are Francisco’s housing market — typically lower than those of the lever of the city’s economy — white and Asian-American city into an unprecedented ascent. residents. Now the city is scrambling to A Haight Street find says it all. Decision-makers who have Photo by Camille Campbell // Public Press catch up with the unintended spent years trying to find solubut predictable consequences of tions to the city’s affordability the high-tech business growth phase. Even though two conundrum are themselves having trouble keeping up previous booms created similar affordability crises, city with the cost of living in San Francisco. leaders never wrote a blueprint to deal with the collat“People are paying ridiculous amounts to live here,” eral damage of this one. said London Breed, the president of the Board of Su“San Francisco wanted the tech sector to come and pervisors. Breed said that if she lost the flat she shares revitalize the economy,” said Katy Tang, supervisor for with a roommate, she could not afford to live in District District 4 in the city’s southwest corner, who was ap5, which she has represented since 2013. Her city salary pointed by the mayor in 2013 and won two subsequent is almost $115,000 a year. elections. But now, she said, residents in her district are Breed has watched friends get squeezed out of San being forced out of their homes. “No one anticipated how Francisco when they had to move or no longer qualified much of a boom it would for city assistance. “Sadly, be for our city.” it’s been consistent for “People are paying ridiculous many, many years,” she And people keep arriving in San Francisco to “But now it’s reached amounts to live here … now it’s said. fill both the many new a level that I don’t know jobs that tech companies reached a level that I don’t know how to describe.” are creating and the Boom and bust cycles how to describe.” lower-paying jobs arising have washed over San in spin-off service secFrancisco since the gold tors. London Breed, San Francisco Board of rush. This is different. InThe economic upheaval creasing housing costs are Supervisors president motivated the city to so out of whack with the embark on a set of costly general rate of inflation initiatives and sparked several propositions on the that anyone who is not protected by rent control, or who ballot in November. The most expensive, a bond issue loses it through eviction, faces the prospect of sliding for affordable housing, passed with 73 percent of the down the socioeconomic ladder. vote. It will pump $310 million into low-cost residential Part of the problem is that the measurements that development. Another measure, which voters rejected, policymakers use to assess who needs help do not accuwould have temporarily blocked new building in the rately represent the sharp rise in housing costs. These Mission District to provide the city more time to create include the federal government’s one-size-fits-all cost-ofBy Angela Woodall // Public Press
2003
2.2% 2.1%
Transportation
Rental, health, child-care initiatives offer little help in relentless real-estate boom
2002
Recreation
HIGH HOUSING PRICES UNDERCUT AID PROGRAMS
2001
5%
THE COST OF LIVING HERE
2000
8%
SPECIAL REPORT
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics * No updated data for medical care in 2014 and 2015 because of inconsistent industry reporting. Graphic by Tom Guffey and Michael Stoll // Public Press
living measure known as the consumer price index. The index is referenced dozens of times in local laws setting everything from pension contributions to housing subsidies. But the index — which rose just 2.6 percent in the 12-month period ending in August — uses a limited number of goods and services, and takes average prices across 10 counties in the region, where the cost of housing has not risen quite as rapidly. Changes in the federal index have real-world consequences, as 65 million Americans who receive Social Security benefits found out in mid-October, when the Social Security Administration announced that for the next year it would not make a cost-of-living adjustment pegged to the index. That leaves San Francisco seniors and people with disabilities, who rely on monthly Social Security checks, with less buying power than their peers in other parts of the country. Another problem is that the federal poverty level is outdated. If it accurately reflected the cost of living and the full set of resources received from government programs, it would characterize 24 percent of San Francisco residents — about 200,000 — as poor or nearly poor, said Sarah Bohn, a research fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California. The revised rate was developed by the institute in 2012 with Stanford University’s Center on Poverty and Inequality. This alternative measure is based on the cost of local housing and other necessities minus safety-net supports such as food stamps, Bohn said. “What you count can really change the picture substantially.” By contrast, under the current federal formula, just 13.8 percent of San Francisco residents and 14.3 percent of Americans were living in poverty.
EXPENSIVE MARGINAL HOMES It is much harder than it was just a few years ago to survive on a moderate income in San Francisco, and nowhere is that more evident than in formerly low-priced neighborhoods. Even downtown flophouses are getting makeovers, where luxury prices do not necessarily mean luxury housing. Anthony Richmond, a 25-year-old San Francisco native, gave up a $1,000-a-month apartment near Candlestick Park so he could live somewhere nicer and closer to work. He had no idea how hard it would be to find a new place. He stayed with his mother and friends while he was searching, and he thought about moving to another city with lower rent, but that would add commute time and cost. “I work in San Francisco,” he said. “I would rather live in San Francisco.” During the last tech boom, Richmond could have found a one-bedroom flat to share on his current takehome income of about $1,600 a month as a receptionist at a methadone clinic. But in this rental market, all he could find was a room with a bunk bed, a sink and a microwave in the 7th Street SoMa apartments — and it costs $1,600 a month. For that price, he had to find a roommate to split the rent. The property managers billed the place as suitable for students, interns, young professionals, entrepreneurs,
COST OF LIVING continued on B6
ABOUT THIS REPORTING PROJECT Local and state governments, among other institutions, rely on economic indicators that are often outdated, and use average prices from across the Bay Area — glossing over the distinct spike in the cost of housing in the city. In our research, we found that city leaders are struggling to formulate policies to rescue longtime residents from the effects of surging costs, which are reflected in price increases across a wide array of goods and services. REPORTING: Angela Woodall, Tatiana Dzekon, Caroline Cakebread, Sophie Murguia, Peter Snarr, Dayvon Dunaway EDITING: Laura Impellizzeri, Michael Winter, Michael Stoll DATA GRAPHICS: Amanda Hickman, Tom Guffey, Eric Lawson PHOTO: Dayvon Dunaway, Tearsa Joy Hammock, Peter Snarr, Stella Sadikin ILLUSTRATION: Anna Vignet ONLINE: Eric Lawson, Meka Boyle SPECIAL THANKS: Todd Johnson, Bureau of Labor Statistics THIS PROJECT WAS MADE POSSIBLE BY DONATIONS FROM PUBLIC PRESS MEMBERS AND BY A CHALLENGE GRANT FROM THE SAN FRANCISCO FOUNDATION
READ MORE ONLINE: SFPUBLICPRESS.ORG/COSTOFLIVING Buying directly from farmers can save shoppers money on high-quality produce at the Heart of the City Farmers Market at United Nations Plaza. Photo by Peter Snarr // Public Press
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San Francisco to Expand Health Insurance Support Federal affordability scale falls far short of helping thousands pay for coverage By Angela Woodall // Public Press
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he cost of living in San Francisco is so distorted that several thousand city residents who became eligible for health insurance subsidies under the Affordable Care Act almost two years ago still go without insurance, forgo care they need, or use free services intended for the poor. They make too much to qualify for Medi-Cal or the city’s Healthy San Francisco program but not enough to afford the premiums, deductibles and co-pays for plans under Covered California, the state’s new program adopted under the Affordable Care Act. New federal data show that people nationwide are in this bind. But the scale the federal government uses to measure affordability is especially inapplicable to San Francisco, ranked the third-most-expensive place to live in the world. To help offset that imbalance, San Francisco is offering a new, subsidized plan and expanding Healthy San Francisco to bridge the gap for city residents caught between the need for health insurance and their ability to afford it. Covered California premiums are relatively affordable. The cheapest one for single San Franciscans earning $58,850 — the cutoff for the new city subsidy — would cost roughly $202 a month. But the cheapest plans have the highest deductibles, out-of-pocket expenses for doctor visits, hospital stays and drug prescriptions, potentially totaling thousands of dollars per year. And the subsidies for these expenses that are
available in states with market exchanges, like California, come only with plans on the costlier “silver” tier. As a result, many residents choose to remain uninsured, said Colleen Chawla, deputy director of health at the San Francisco Public Health Department. This means people eligible for Covered California are turning to clinics intended for people who can’t get in-
“We have as many patients as ever. We’re here to catch them, and they're still falling through the cracks.” Richard Gibbs, president of the San Francisco Free Clinic
surance at all or who have Medi-Cal, the state's version of free medical insurance for very low-income residents. “We have as many patients as ever,” said Richard Gibbs, the president of the San Francisco Free Clinic. “We’re here to catch them, and they’re still falling through the cracks.” San Francisco often takes the lead nationwide with social programs because of the city’s values, said Anthony Wright, executive director of Health Access, a consumer health care advocacy group in Sacramento
that backed San Francisco's plans. And the adoption in 2007 of Healthy San Francisco, which provides free care inside the city for poor residents who don’t qualify for any subsidies, was supposed to ensure that all San Franciscans got the care they needed. So far, the Public Health Department has spent more than $885 million on Healthy San Francisco alone, and even more on other health care programs. But the rising cost of living has stayed several steps ahead of San Francisco’s best efforts to fight it. Responding to this reality, San Francisco’s Department of Public Health is rolling out two programs in 2016 for working people who fit three criteria: they are eligible for the Covered California plan; they make less than five times the federal poverty level ($58,850 for a single person, for example, or $121,250 for a family of four); and they work for employers that pay into a citymandated health insurance account instead of offering insurance as an employee benefit. One program, Bridge to Coverage, will help these lowand moderate-income residents pay their Covered California premiums using funds from the city’s employer health insurance account. The city expects 3,000 people to enroll the first year and 1,000 more by 2020, and it expects the program to cost $8 million the first year. The second program would allow those same residents to choose free care under Healthy San Francisco by expanding the income ceiling. That could help people caught in the middle, such as workers who are self-employed. Although some self-employed people can write off health care costs when they file their taxes, they
Hidden Costs of Affordable S.F. Public Transit
Low-income residents relying on upredictable service lose economic opportunity still have to pay the premiums, deductibles and co-pays out of pocket before receiving a tax credit months down the road. Importantly, users will still have to pay a fine under the Affordable Care Act for not having health insurance because Healthy San Francisco provides only care; it is not insurance. The Public Health Department does not expect many people to opt for either program, which the city is calling “affordability extensions.” And it is not clear whether either break would be enough to shield people from the pressure that housing and other costs are putting on residents. At least one nonprofit clinic is asking how long it should — or can — keep operating in this climate. The rising cost of living has led many patients of the Native American Health Center to move out of San Francisco, said the center’s strategy director, D’Shane Barnett. “The Affordable Care Act has done a lot for our clients,” he said. “The cost of living, on the other hand, is pushing them out of San Francisco. So it doesn’t matter how good it is.” San Francisco’s high cost of living is even pushing out the clinic’s modestly paid staffers. Two have moved across the bay. One now commutes from Newark, near Fremont, and another moved to San Leandro. If free and low-cost clinics close, it could weaken the safety net that took San Francisco decades to build — and that the Affordable Care Act promised to strengthen. “We have to make a decision about whether we stay here,” Barnett said. “But we need to make sure we’re making a decision in the community’s best interest not just 12 months from now but 10 years from now.”
State Subsidies Lag Behind Local Child-Care Costs
By Sophie Murguia // Public Press
S
an Franciscans spend less on transportation than residents of any other Bay Area city. But there are hidden costs for public transit riders: unreliable trains, long, slow commutes and unsafe pedestrian routes. Muni service is slow citywide, but it can be particularly burdensome for lower-income riders who must repeatedly switch lines or buses just to travel a few miles to downtown. Lacking transportation options or flexibility for when they must be at their jobs, they often trade comfort, promptness and even safety for affordability. “If you think of affordability in terms of what you pay out of your pocket, you’re going to get wrong answers sometimes,” said Elizabeth Deakin, a professor of city and regional planning at the University of California, Berkeley. “What you want to think about is the overall time and cost combination that people can afford to pay with the incomes that they make.” A single ride on Muni now costs $2.25, up from a dollar in 2000. And because more than half of Muni’s 702,000 weekday riders make less than 200 percent of the federal poverty level (or $23,540 for individuals, $31,836 for a family of two), rising fares have a disproportionate effect on low-income San Franciscans.
“If you think of affordability in terms of what you pay out of your pocket, you’re going to get wrong answers sometimes. What you want to think about is the overall time and cost combination that people can afford to pay with the incomes that they make.” Elizabeth Deakin, a professor of city and regional planning at the University of California, Berkeley
With eligibility for aid frozen at 2005 income levels, critics press for wider distribution of aid
But the single-ride Muni fare remains on par with mass-transit fares in most major U.S. cities, and Muni offers reduced-fare programs to help ease the economic burden of transit for those who need it most. “No other city has been as comprehensive as San Francisco has been in trying to make mobility more affordable,” said Joel Ramos, regional planning director at transportation advocacy group TransForm and a board member at the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency. The Center for Neighborhood Technology, a nonprofit research group, estimates that a household making the city’s median income of nearly $76,000 spends $8,552 on transportation per year. In contrast, median-income households in other Bay Area counties often spend as much as $13,000 or $14,000 a year — largely because they rely more on automobiles. But the San Francisco County Transportation Authority found in 2013 that low-income communities are disproportionately likely to experience slow transit and unsafe conditions for pedestrians.
By Tatiana Dzekon // Public Press
J
ulia and her 4-year-old daughter got their big break last year when Julia was hired full-time as a program coordinator for a local nonprofit organization at $50,000 a year. They had been homeless for the child’s first seven months, and they struggled for two more years as Julia worked full time at minimum-wage jobs. But the only reason Julia is making the rent now on their apartment in a rundown building in the Bayview is that her daughter’s care is fully subsidized. Yet, if she reports her new income as required, that will disqualify her for the subsidy. Like other low-and moderate-income San Francisco parents with young children and
Above: Public transit systems in San Francisco carry hundreds of thousands of passengers a day and make it possible to get around without buying and fueling a car. Left: For those who live in the outer neighborhoods, such as Bayview, Muni and BART delays can come at a high cost: limited shopping and job opportunities. Photos by Dayvon Dunaway // Public Press
school than to take the bus. She lives in Chinatown and attends high school 1.1 miles away at Galileo Academy. Because the city gives Muni passes to students in low- and moderate-income households, Yu can ride for free, but it can take as long as 25 minutes. Sometimes overcrowded buses will zoom by her stop without even loading new passengers. “That happens to me a lot,” she said. WALKING IS CHEAP, BUT OFTEN DANGEROUS
THE COST OF A SLOW COMMUTE
“It’s foolhardy, because folks who want to get ahead and go to school and go to work are hit the hardest.”
For residents of lower-income neighborhoods like the Bayview, a slow commute is part of the price of getting around. High school teacher D’Wana Stewart takes two buses from her Bayview home to her second job at Macy’s. “I take the 54 to the 8X, and that will be about 45 minutes to an hour,” she said. She could take the T-Third Street light rail, but that takes even longer. “It’s not as accessible,” she said. “And it doesn’t always come on time.” Bayview resident Veronica Shepard commutes on the
Monica Walters, director of Wu Yee Children’s Services
no relatives nearby to provide free care, Julia, whose husband is incarcerated, faces a series of obstacles paying for child care so she can support her household. Half her pay would go toward her daughter’s tuition at market rates. But, to receive any subsidy at all, a family of three must earn less than $42,216, and a family of two, like Julia’s, must earn less than $39,393. (The Public Press is not using Julia’s full name in order not to jeopardize her benefits and livelihood.) Part of the problem is that the income cutoff to qualify for subsidies is based on the 2005 state median income, while the average cost of putting a preschooler in care full time has almost doubled since then, rising from $9,786 to $18,000, according to city figures. The squeeze is especially tight in San Francisco because that increase is much greater than what state officials report for other Bay Area counties and California as a whole. “It makes it nearly impossible for two parents making minimum wage in San Francisco to get subsidies, because they make too much,” said Monica Walters, director of Wu Yee Children’s Services, a local agency that serves about 3,500 children and families. “It’s foolhardy, because folks who want to get ahead and go to school and go to work are hit the hardest.” In 1998, a state child-care voucher for low-income parents provided access to 85 percent of licensed centers in San Francisco, as it was designed to do. By 2012,
It takes Julia two hours — and four buses — to drop her daughter off at day care and get to work. She said she worries that the salary she earns on her new job will disqualify her from state subsidies that enable her to remain in the workforce. Photo by Dayvon Dunaway // Public Press
not one child-care center in San Francisco charged tuition to match those vouchers, according to the San Francisco Human Services Agency and the Controller’s Office. Today, the subsidies cover 77 percent of the statewide average cost of preschool care and 87 percent of the average cost of infant care. “Somebody should have sued and they would have won,” said Michele Rutherford, the deputy director of the San Francisco Office of Early Care and Education, “because the reimbursements don’t give families access to the market.” Rutherford said this situation persists because the state’s process for measuring costs doesn’t reflect reality. Federal law requires the California Department of Education to study regional market rates every two years, but the state is not required to adjust its subsidy ceilings to comport with what it finds. Compounding the problem, the state now bases its subsidies on the results of the 2009 Regional Market Rate
Survey — minus a 10.1 percent cut made in January to address a budget deficit that was partially offset by a 4.5 percent increase in June. When asked why the subsidy cutoffs are set so low that families with two parents earning minimum wage don’t qualify, Margaret Reis, the state’s policy administrator for early childhood education, sidestepped the question. She said her agency surveys prices every two years as required, the Legislature proposes budgets that set the subsidy ceilings, and the governor implements them. While those bureaucratic wheels turn, child-care prices continue soaring beyond the reach of even more middle-income San Francisco families. Elizabeth Travelslight discovered it was cheaper for her to stay home with her baby than to work full time and pay for full-time care of an infant. Now that her daughter is 2 years old, Travelslight works part time as
an adjunct professor at the San Francisco Art Institute, and her mother watches her daughter once or twice a week to keep down costs. “We’re a pretty middle-income family of three and make do in a one-bedroom apartment,” Travelslight said. “We’ll be with many families vying for space in the city’s few nursery co-ops.” Orkid Sassouni said she has to make sacrifices all the time to be able to put her kids in quality care. She lives in Bernal Heights and works as a librarian’s assistant. As a city employee, she gets access to the day care at City Hall, but she also works on the weekends when the center is closed. “The cost of living really hurts families who just feel like they need to give up living in the city because it is better suited for millionaires and couples with a dual income and no kids,” Sassouni said. And Julia said she has no idea how she will cope with the cost of after-school care
when her daughter outgrows her child-care subsidy as she starts kindergarten next year.
Solution for crossword on page A2
T–Third Street to work in Civic Center at the city Department of Public Health. She considers Muni “pretty cheap,” but her roughly 6-mile commute takes an hour door to door, and she says delays are constant. “I’m paying for this service, but I’m not getting what the rest of San Francisco is getting,” she said.
The T is one of Muni’s less reliable lines, but spotty service is a problem citywide. A recent city report found Muni’s on-time performance hovering at or below 60 percent, far below the 85 percent on-time performance rate mandated in San Francisco’s charter. For 16-year-old Lisa Yu, it’s often faster to walk to
A volunteer at the Chinatown Community Development Center, Rosa Chan advocates for pedestrian safety and affordable transit. She said Kearney Street, one of the neighborhood’s busiest streets, often feels like a highway because cars drive so fast along it. City research shows that a disproportionate number of San Francisco’s least safe streets are in communities with economically disadvantaged, minority and transit-reliant populations, such as Chinatown and the Tenderloin. Peter Cohen, co-director of the Council of Community Housing Organizations, said the city has not done enough to address what he calls “the gentrification of our transit system.”
In the Heart of Tech, a Persistent Digital Divide 100,000 city residents cannot afford the Internet at home By Peter Snarr // Public Press
I
n recent years, San Francisco has become the epicenter of technological development. While multibillion dollar companies develop the latest new Internet services, 100,000 San Francisco residents cannot afford a home connection, according to a report from the city’s budget and legislative analyst. Access is increasingly taken for granted — for finding a job, attending all levels of school, managing a business, enjoying affordable entertainment and even communicating with family and friends. So doing without puts people at an increased disadvantage. Lourdes Alarcon, who supports herself and two children by providing child care out of her Excelsior home, cancels even her low-cost Internet access when her clients are home with their kids and not paying for her services. While Alarcon pays $9.95 a month through Comcast, she has to cut her spending in any way possible to cover rent, clothing and food. “It forces me to be on task when I use the Internet,” Alarcon said. “I have one hour at the library and I just go to do a list: interview, meeting with a teacher, check the email. I don’t like to use the Internet, but everyone is using it.” The city report found that the 100,000 residents without home Internet access include:
• 31 percent of residents over 65 • 32 percent of residents without a high school diploma
• 25 percent of households with an income of less than $25,000
• 30 percent of African-Americans • 16 percent of Latinos. In contrast, 94 percent of college graduates, 98 percent of homes with an income over $100,000, 90 percent of whites and 89 percent of Asian and Pacific Islanders do have access to home Internet. Kami Griffiths, executive director and co-founder of the Community Technology Network, said some students stand outside coffeehouses to get the free Wi-Fi they need to do their schoolwork. “Kids need Internet at home,” Griffiths said. “The academic divide is increased when they don’t. These kids are doing whatever they can to get their homework done.” While the city report didn’t survey residents who access the Internet through mobile devices, Griffiths says the point is moot, asserting that mobile devices aren’t good tools for job searching and homework. She argues that one must have a home connection with a non-mobile device to fully utilize the Internet. In public housing, where a disproportionate share of San Francisco’s young African-Americans live, Web access is a critical need, said Takai Tyler, executive
director at Hunters Point Family after-school program. “The majority do not have Internet access,” Tyler said. “The ability for someone to afford and buy a computer in public housing isn’t there. There’s also issues of the effectiveness of a good signal.” The city and Internet providers have started to broaden access. Low-income seniors and families with at least one child in the National School Lunch Pro-
“It’s very important having access to high-speed Internet. It’s an economic necessity. This could be one of the great equalizers.” Jess Montejano, spokesman for Supervisor Mark Farrell
gram can get Comcast Internet access with download speeds of 10 megabits per second for $9.95 a month (including a router and installation). AT&T offers much slower service for about $36 a month at a 0.75 Mbps download rate. The FCC provides a $9.25 discount for low-income households, and offers the choice to spend
it on broadband or phone service. And there is limited free online access at San Francisco Public Library (an hour at 10 Mbps); inside most of the city’s 137 public schools; and outdoors in 33 city parks and near hot spots the city has set up along Market Street. But that does not solve the needs of students with several hours of homework each night requiring Internet access. It is not enough for job-seeking residents who need to make dozens of applications online and be instantly available by email for employers that respond. And it can leave seniors and others without affordable entertainment or modern means of communication. Those gaps increased in January when the Federal Communications Commission changed its definition of high-speed broadband to 25 Mbps for downloading and 4 Mbps for uploading. The agency’s 2015 Urban Rate Survey found that four Internet providers can deliver those speeds in San Francisco — at an average price of $68.75 a month for the most basic service. Supervisor Mark Farrell in August called for the city’s budget and legislative analyst to research how San Francisco can deliver 1-gigabit-per-second Internet service to residents and businesses citywide for free or very low cost, according to a press release. Jess Montejano, a spokesman for Farrell, said the city might use public or private funding or both. “It’s very important having access to high-speed Internet,” Montejano said. “It’s an economic necessity. This could be one of the great equalizers.”
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Above: Steven Gaynes, a retired advertising sales representative, owns a two-bedroom tenancy-in-common in the Mission District, which he is trying to rent out for $3,950 per month. His asking price is one-third higher than it was five years ago. “That’s the going rate. I’m looking at it as an investment,” Gaynes said while showing the apartment with his friend, Rob Callbeck. Gaynes himself lives in a rent-controlled unit in the Castro and worries about being displaced someday. “I’m feeling so insecure about whether I’ll be able to stay in San Francisco.” Photo by Michael Stoll // Public Press
Left: Marielle Neri shows a Victorian-style apartment to prospective buyers in October. The 817-square-foot, one-bedroom condominium in Lower Nob Hill was on the market for $699,000. Photo by Tearsa Joy Hammock // Public Press
Policy Ideas Play Catch-Up With Skyrocketing Housing Prices COST OF LIVING continued from B1
artists and “anybody looking for a place to call home in the City by the Bay.” In reality, the 108-year-old, three-story building is a residential hotel that in 2013 was lightly renovated — new carpet, paint and hardwood floors — to make it more attractive to a higher-paying demographic. But there is just one bathroom on each floor and one kitchen for everyone in the building. “We’re crammed in there,” Richmond said. He doesn’t have much of a choice. He earns too much to be eligible for programs that help low-income residents — even though half of his monthly pay goes to rent a room with no bathroom or kitchen.
of the Bay Area plus Santa Cruz. “The key word is average,” said Jonathan Church, an analyst with the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, which publishes and updates the index monthly. Phrases like “market rate,” “consumer price index” and “federal poverty level” do not spring to most people’s minds when the price of eggs doubles or rent goes up. Consumers have to pay what stores and landlords are charging. But these measures and the ways government officials apply them affect how San Francisco designs its social supports, who qualifies for the help and ultimately who can afford to live here. PROPOSALS FOR AFFORDABILITY
City leaders recognize that the cost of living is distorted here, when compared with the national picture and with most other cities. BRINGING THE BOTTOM UP This fall’s local ballot was stocked with proposals to address soaring costs, though it New city-sponsored affordability policies is not clear that any will have enough effect and programs use measures that do not on the housing market to keep longtime reflect the economic reality for the half of residents in town if they don’t scrimp to pay San Francisco households surviving on less for the basics. than $76,000 that lack subsidized or rentProposition I sought to help Mission controlled homes. District residents stay in their homes by At current prices — the median monthly temporarily suspending new market-rate rent for a two-bedroom apartment was construction in the neighborhood. But it $4,900 in September — it would actually did not include a take an income of concrete plan for $196,000 a year for delivering an afa market-rate twoNovember’s ballot measures fordable housing bedroom unit to be The affordable by the came too late for those replacement. city’s chief econofederal norm, which already pushed out of San mist, Ted Egan, has 30 percent of in September pay going toward Francisco by the housing said that a moratorium shelter. on market-rate affordability crisis. (People who pay construction in more than that the Mission Dishave traditionally trict would push been considered up housing prices there and citywide by less able to afford other basic needs such tightening the supply, and would neither as medical care, retirement and savings for prevent evictions nor slow gentrification. He emergencies. Electricity, food and Internet suggested instead that the city increase its access stretch paychecks even thinner.) subsidies for affordable housing and loosen San Francisco voters have long wrestled land-use controls. with the problem of lagging wages for Proposition J, which passed, will attempt bottom-tier workers. In 2014, they approved a measure making the city the second in the to help longtime businesses stay in San U.S. to raise the local minimum wage to $15 Francisco by giving annual grants of $4,500 to landlords that extend their leases and by an hour. It rose to $12.25 this year, goes to giving the businesses $500 per employee. To $13 in 2016 and reaches $15 in 2018. But qualify, businesses would have to meet nuLuke Reidenbach, a policy analyst with the merous requirements and prove they have California Budget and Policy Center, said been in the same location for more than two $31,200 a year for full-time work — that is, decades. 2,080 hours at $15 an hour — already falls But there are no guarantees that the cash far short of the current cost of living. allowances are enough to keep businesses Many housing subsidies offer a life preafloat. The Public Press also found that server to longtime city residents who otherProposition J was based on an analysis of wise would have been permanently priced business closings before 2011 that Legout of their hometown. But each relies on islative Analyst Julian Metcalf also said different economic criteria, and many of included duplicates. those standards vastly underestimate the Proposition A, Mayor Ed Lee’s signature number of San Franciscans who cannot $310 million bond issue for building and afford market rents or ever dream of buying renovating affordable housing is the costlia home. est. It may not be much more than a gesThe federal government’s regional consumer price index does not fully reflect what ture, however. That amount of direct funding will cover just 775 apartments at the San Franciscans pay in stores, at the doc2014 average apartment construction cost, tor’s office or for rent. Most unhelpfully, it which the San Francisco Business Times averages out the prices in the nine counties
Bay Area from Sacramento this year, even though he works here. He knew the city would be too expensive.
pegged at $400,000. The measure includes a “bucket” of $80 million for moderate-income renters, but it does not spell out how that money would be spent or whom it would benefit. The Bay Area Council Economic Institute, a market-oriented policy group in San Francisco, says the city needs policies that directly help current residents who are being priced out. “If we aren’t getting outcomes we want, we are probably not putting the right policies in place,” said the group’s president, Micah Weinberg. For his part, Weinberg did not even bother to look for a home in San Francisco with his wife when they returned to the
AVERAGE RESIDENTS DROWNING Most residents are unlikely to benefit soon from the new laws. Anthony Richmond can attest to that after signing a new five-month lease in September on his portion of his shared room. He also took a second job, recruiting customers for a commuter app. The ballot measures came too late for those already pushed out of San Francisco by the housing affordability crisis. Nicolas Gauthier-Pin, a Web designer,
and his wife, Sue, an art therapist, lived for most of this year in a one-bedroom flat in Noe Valley after a fire forced them out of a house they shared in Daly City. The flat was affordable — as long as their insurance was covering half the rent. To stay in a comparable place in San Francisco once the insurance ran out would have taken all of Sue’s pay and half of Nico’s. So on Sept. 1 they moved to Long Beach, where a two-bedroom apartment near the ocean costs them $1,700 a month. “We can afford to rent something for ourselves and start a family,” Nico said. “Anything in San Francisco was completely out of the question.”
Economic Microclimates San Francisco’s median income is nearly $76,000, but in some neighborhoods most households are getting by on less than half of that. Across the city median incomes vary by a factor of five.
$34,276 94108
$75,182 94111
$111,738
$122,532
$48,759
94123
94129
$42,083
94133
94104
$60,876
$137,199
$71,521 94109 $81,943 $73,696
94105
94115
$24,545
94118
94102
94121
94116
94131
94127
$49,922 94124
$64,730 94132
$75,275 94112
FOOD
Market rates for housing, both for rent and for purchase, far exceed 30 percent of most city residents’ gross income, the federal norm for affordability. San Francisco now has the largest share of high-income residents of any city in the U.S., but low- and moderate-income residents are often ineligible for housing subsidies that are pegged to the federal poverty level and other measures.
A Muni ticket now costs $2.25, up from $1 in 2000. Passes are available, but the fare is unaffordable to customers who make less than 200 percent of the federal poverty level. Part of the problem is that state and federal transportation planning and funding prioritizes commuter car traffic, and state and new federal transportation funding bills are stalled.
Eligibility for the CalFresh food assistance program (formerly food stamps) is based on federal income standards that do not keep pace with San Francisco’s cost of living. Stigma and procedural problems also impede access to food assistance. And CalFresh recipients have to reapply every six months.
What is the city doing? San Francisco requires that developers of large buildings offer 12 percent of new housing units at affordable prices, pay a fee or build more affordable units elsewhere. A $310 million bond measure voters passed on Nov. 3 aims to increase the supply of affordable housing by building and preserving hundreds of apartments at restricted prices, as well as funding a program to help renters buy the buildings they live in when they are up for sale. What else could the city do? • Tax secondary units that are used as vacation homes. • Offer a tax break to owners who help increase the supply of housing when they sell vacant units. • Impose additional fees on housing development to compensate for the burden on city infrastructure caused by adding new residents. • Seek an exception to the state’s Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act to let rent control apply when apartments are vacated, or apply rent control to buildings constructed after 1978.
HEALTH CARE
$66,069
94107
$100,178 $129,360
TRANSPORTATION
What is the city doing? San Francisco covers free medical care for its very low-income residents under Healthy San Francisco. The city Department of Public Health also plans to offer new local subsidies under “Bridge to Coverage” for people insured under Covered California. It will fund it by tapping into the employer health care tax. Residents are eligible if they earn less than 500 percent of the federal poverty level (about $58,000 for a single person or $121,250 for a family of four).
$84,599 $88,728
HOUSING
94110
$113,709
94114
94122
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any public policies in San Francisco are designed to take the edge off the city’s extra-high cost of living, including rent control for most tenants and free, clinic-based medical care for low-income residents and workers. But the city has been slow to react to the red-hot housing market, which has pushed the cost of living past what more than half of city residents can afford, according to federal norms. The biggest problem is that several standards used to adjust payouts for low-income people — including the state and regional median income and the federal poverty level — do not match San Francisco’s true cost of living. Only one policy described in the list below — the Bridge to Coverage and Affordability Extension for health care — bases eligibility on an income level that is relevant to San Francisco. Here are some examples of how the city has tried to soften the blow of rising prices, and some examples of policies that advocates for low-income people say San Francisco should adopt.
The subsidies available under the Affordable Care Act (or “Obamacare”) aren’t high enough to make premiums, deductibles and copayments affordable for many San Francisco residents. The subsidies are based on the federal poverty level. Republican opposition to Obama’s health reforms blocks any potential federal fixes.
$118,354
$83,550
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By Angela Woodall // Public Press Illustrations by Anna Vignet // Public Press
$90,315
$48,328
$95,871
How San Francisco Plans to Shield Residents From Runaway Prices
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What else could the city do? • Set eligibility for benefits according to an income standard other than the federal poverty level. Source: San Francisco Health Partnership
Map by Amanda Hickman // Public Press
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What is the city doing? San Francisco offers free Muni passes for children and teens, funded by a grant from Google Inc. BART and AC Transit launched a yearlong pilot program to increase late-night bus service between San Francisco and the East Bay. City officials are considering hiking the top transportation impact fees paid by developers of commercial projects from $14.59 to $18.04 per square foot and imposing a fee of $7.74 per square foot on new residential development. And San Francisco is investing big in public transit: Voters approved a $500 million bond in 2014 for improvements to Muni. What else could the city do? • Offer more passes and adopt other measures to control cost increases in public transit. • Increase transit service for the more than 50,000 people who work in San Francisco at night.
What is the city doing? San Francisco uses a higher scale to assess food insecurity risk; it considers someone at risk of “food insecurity” if the person earns $1,962 per month or less. The federal limit, by contrast, is $1,265. For a family of three, the threshold is $3,348, in contrast to the federal limit of $2,144 (that is 200 percent of the federal poverty level compared with the federal limit of 130 percent). And a program called Eat San Francisco offers fresh produce vouchers for Tenderloin residents who have children younger than 5 years old or who have diet-related health conditions. What else could the city do? • Base eligibility for CalFresh food assistance on the cost of living in San Francisco. • Actively enroll Medi-Cal applicants in CalFresh. • Shorten the waiting period for eligibility.
CHILD CARE State reimbursement rates do not meet providers’ costs of doing business, and the state is using outdated income data to determine residents’ eligibility for subsidies. What is the city doing? San Francisco offers child-care providers a subsidy on top of what the state provides. It also runs subsidy programs for homeless and other vulnerable children, plus child care vouchers for children from birth to age 3, and it offers Preschool for All, which is free and not based on family income (but includes only part-time care). What else could the city do? • Update income eligibility requirements for parents. • Increase reimbursement rates to match the cost of running a child-care business, including high commercial rent.
WAGES The federal minimum wage is frozen at $7.25. What is the city doing? San Francisco residents voted in 2014 to increase the local minimum wage gradually to $15 per hour in 2018, from the current $12.25. What else could the city do? • Increase San Francisco’s local minimum wage to meet real expenses — and peg it to cost-of-living increases that account for local housing inflation.
WEB ACCESS Expensive high-speed broadband plans by Internet service providers such as Comcast limit Internet access, especially to low-income residents. Less expensive plans and Wi-Fi in public places offer slower speeds and less bandwidth. What is the city doing? Supervisor Mark Farrell’s office is analyzing ways to make the city’s broadband fiber-optic network available to all residents for free or at very low cost using public funding, private funding or a hybrid. A report from the city’s Legislative Analyst’s Office is pending. What else could the city do? • Provide gigabit download speeds for free or at a low rate to residents and businesses citywide by subsidizing the cost. • Increase competition by forcing Internet providers to share networks with competitors. • Build community-owned networks. • Bypass providers by connecting homes and businesses directly to fiber-optic cables.
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The Market, an upscale 28,000-square-foot emporium and food hall, opened in January 2015 in the Twitter building at 10th and Market streets. Photos by Sara Bloomberg // SF Public Press
A Tale of Two Markets
As high-price food arrives in tech epicenter, city program brings basic, fresh options to nearby Tenderloin coalition began working with Tenderloin merchants to provide readily available fresh food. The resultant Healthy Retail S.F. program this year is transforming three Tenderloin stores, another in the Bayview and one in Oceanview. Last year, as the program finally got under way, Radman’s, at 201 Turk St., was the first corner store to get made over. Supervisor Jane Kim this year presented owner Fadhl Radman with the Brother Kelly Cullen Service Award for emphasizing fresh produce, adding a meat counter and bulk bins for dry goods. The coalition also has been working with Amigo’s Market at Ellis and Leavenworth to improve its produce display with new shelving, signage and architectural consultation on how best to use the limited space. This past summer, the MidCity Market in the 900 block of Geary has also undergone changes, most noticeably in an impressive U-shaped refrigeration unit the store helped pay for itself, along with consultation on store design, product placement and improved signage.
By Mark Hedin and Geoff Link // Central City Extra
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ood justice. It’s a buzzword for access to wholesome, fresh foods for people with limited budgets and nutritional options. The contrasting corner stores that now serve both sides of Market Street show that disparities persist in San Francisco. In January, the $4 million, 28,000-square foot supermarket called simply The Market opened in the Twitter building at the southeast corner of 10th and Market, across from the new NEMA apartments that rent for $4,200 a month and up. At the same time, the Tenderloin is getting its best shot at emerging from its historical food desert with the publicly financed greening of traditional mom-andpops. The latest remake in what will become a string of updated stores, Daldas, has gotten an uptick courtesy of the Tenderloin Healthy Corner Stores coalition. Daldas, about 1,800 square feet of basics at Eddy and Taylor, near Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corp.’s way-below-market-rate Curran House for lowincome families, has converted to an oasis of healthy options displayed in new bins and on shelves provided through Supervisor Eric Mar’s 2013 ordinance creating the Healthy Food Retailer Incentives Program. A branch of the mayor’s office and the Department of Public Health coordinate with the coalition to encourage all 70 or so of the neighborhood mini-markets to offer fresh, healthy food. With an annual budget of $60,000 to fund the program, Gloria Chan of the Mayor’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development said her department finances physical renovations with “up to $15,000” for the effort on any given store. The Department of Public Health handles administration and makes expert consultations. The coalition handles community outreach.
The majority of the Tenderloin’s corner stores had no fresh produce for sale, and all but eight carried alcohol and cigarettes. So the incentive to bring those mangos, ginger, tomatoes, apples, bananas, cucumbers, tomatoes, potatoes, lemons, onions, garlic, peppers, lettuce, grapes and the occasional watermelon to the front of Daldas’ busy liquor store is a part of City Hall’s nod to food justice. In the nearby fridge are waters, teas, juices, aloe, coconut beverages and kombucha, replacing wine and champagne. Deeper in the store are nuts, dry goods such as rice and beans and, in the deli case, blocks of cheese and a selection of meats — chicken and beef links, about a half-dozen different Oscar Meyer sandwich meats, hot dogs, sausages, bologna, bacon, breakfast sandwiches and barbecued beef heroes. Chips and wine, candy, tobacco, liquor, lottery tickets and sundries as varied as batteries, toiletries, bug spray, condoms, phone chargers, headphones, cat food and even watches are all still readily available. Daldas still sees a steady stream of customers for such things, and beer distributors continue to roll in hand trucks stacked high with their products. But nowadays, according to the development corporation’s Ryan Thayer, co-coordinator of the coalition, at least these stores’ humble selection of fruits and vegetables sell well enough that they need constant
JOBS AT THE MARKET
Daldas, at the corner of Eddy and Taylor streets, has a new produce section, courtesy of a healthy food program.
replenishment. “Anything for the community,” said Satwinder “Bill” Multani, the always smiling, turbaned owner, who bought Daldas eight years ago. A ‘FRIENDLY PLACE’ Daldas is rocking from 7 a.m. till 2 a.m., seven days a week, Satwinder said, staffed by him, his wife and two employees. Satwinder is Punjabi from northern India. He said the store, named by his predecessors, means “friendly place” in Arabic. Although the cash register at Daldas is ensconced behind what appears to be a bullet-proof, shoulderhigh partition, and security cameras and strategically placed mirrors are plainly visible, Multani said that crime is not much of an issue for him, and that he can usually shame the occasional shoplifter with reminders that his is a community store and should be treated respectfully. Meanwhile, across the streetcar tracks on the south side of Market Street, past the ever-present Admiral security guard at the front of The Market, its spacious aisles lead past sumptuous displays of fresh fruit and vegetables and highgrade coffee and craft beer offered at commensurate prices. There’s a butcher, baker, fishmonger and a wine shop, too. Customers can take a seat to eat from steaming trays of prepared foods such as barbecued chicken, Cajun potatoes and roasted vegetables, all for $8 per pound. At the rear of the market is concessionaire Azalina’s, offering Malaysian food. There is also a pizzeria, a taqueria and a tapas bar with beer on tap and televisions overhead. Several other food concessions operate from
alcoves — each nearly as large as Daldas’ entire space — where shoppers can peruse chocolates, ice cream and other sweets made by the local company Nuubia, which describes its “amazing signature confections” as “the best artisan indulgences in the precise French discipline” made by “the first food producer in the world to earn the right to be labeled ‘Wildlife Friendly,’ ‘Gorilla Friendly’ and ‘Palm-Oil Free.’” Beauty products maker EO Exchange operates from another alcove, at the front of the store. “Love Life. Live Clean,” its pitch on The Market’s website urges, is so over-the-top PC that it smacks of satire: “Indulge your senses with EO natural & organic personal care, crafted with pure aromatherapeutic essential oil blends … natural, GMO-free, gluten-free, and cruelty free,” sourced from organic ingredients “whenever and wherever” possible and “formulated and manufactured” in, you guessed it, Marin County. HAPPY-HOUR BIVALVES There’s a sushi and oyster bar where the happy-hour bivalves go for a discounted price of $1.50 each and each glass of wine is $1 off, Market spokeswoman Elaine Trierweiler said. In the south corner, accessible from 10th Street, is the uber-high-end Blue Bottle coffee concession. A survey conducted by the coalition in 2013 found that the majority of the Tenderloin’s corner stores had no fresh produce for sale, although all but eight, mainly the halal markets, carried alcohol and cigarettes. The coalition arose out of community frustrations over the inability to attract a full-scale supermarket into the neighborhood despite years of advocacy. The
At Amigo’s, the coalition also helped coordinate with the EatSF program to enable its clients, typically those at risk of chronic diseases, to use its produce vouchers, becoming one of just four stores in the Tenderloin to accept them. The Market, adjacent to the opulent Dirty Water bar, is the site of what the mayor’s office touts as its biggest success in providing jobs for San Franciscans — those here before the tech boom, that is. A dozen District 6 residents from the Office of Economic and Workforce Development’s training programs were among the 43 hired at The Market early this year. The jobs pay San Francisco’s minimum wage, except for one or two line cook or lead line cook spots, where the pay ranges from $15 to $17 per hour, according to city data. That might be enough for them to afford The Market’s grass-fed ground beef at $5.99 a pound or one of its pound-size mangoes at $1.49 each — they cost 30 cents more at Daldas — but maybe not the organic tomatoes that run up to $5.49 per pound. The Market, whose owners plan to open two more such stores in the city next year, is of a scale and location to be the neighborhood’s longed-for supermarket. But it’s not. The city’s meager subsidy of the Tenderloin corner stores’ transformation to healthier fare is in keeping with other City Hall policy on the Tenderloin–tech interface. Twitter and related businesses moving into mid-Market got a tax break worth tens of millions. If the bottom line is your target, Mayor Lee and Supervisor Kim hit a bull’s-eye and the Tenderloin way of life is simply collateral damage. Their giveaway lured a consumer base affluent enough to finally be able to support a neighborhood supermarket. But The Market is a seven-digit resource, out of reach for most of those who live in the Tenderloin. Their corner stores, like Daldas, will phase in healthier fare one market at a time under the city’s investment of $15,000 per store. Central City Extra is a monthly newspaper that covers San Francisco’s inner-city neighborhoods — the Tenderloin, Sixth Street and Civic Center. It is published by the San Francisco Study Center.
Local Mission Market prides itself on seasonal food and tells shoppers about the people who produce it. But the store, where prices run high, is not for everyone. Photos by Stella Sadikin // Public Press
Well-Off Foodies, Bargain-Hunters, Cruise Different Aisles As income inequality grows, gourmet trend highlights the need for inexpensive groceries stamps and now often known as EBT (for the electronic benefits transfer cards that recipients f you shop at Casa Lucas and then Local use) — and WIC, which serves women, infants Mission Market three blocks away, the conand children. But officials have said that only trasts of modern-day San Francisco come about half the California families that qualify into sharp focus. for food assistance are getting it, and many Casa Lucas, on the Mission District’s central families that don’t qualify for public assistance artery of 24th Street for 35 years, boasts a masstill can’t afford sufficient nutritious food. sive selection of produce, meats and traditional The SF-Marin Food Bank estimated last Latin American items, such as tamarind candy year that families of 11,000 city public school and chicharrones, near the register. You can get students were eligible for CalFresh but not red potatoes for 79 cents a pound and a loaf of receiving help. Already, 30,000 families in San bread for $2.99. Francisco and Marin counties receive help from At Local Mission Market, which opened in the pantries each week, and food for 107,000 2013, pulsating house music greets shoppers, meals is distributed daily. and artfully lettered chalkboards announce Guillermo Garcia sells at farmers markets that everything is locally sourced and fresh. throughout San Francisco for Edith’s Gourmet Here, red potatoes go for $1 per pound and the Baking Co., which is based in Modesto. He cheapest loaf of sandwich bread is $6.50. has seen shoppers cut These stores are back as his company targeting two distinct increased bread prices populations with difto offset higher costs “If you want to come in and for flour, butter and ferent priorities. One serves the area’s longtake advantage of the high- sugar. time Latino residents, “Before, when we end population, then you’ve had a two-for-$7 many of whom are lower-income and need they would buy got to make sure people deal to spend as little as postwo loaves,” Garcia sible when shopping to across the city are fed.” said. “Now, since we feed their families. And changed our prices to its stock comes from $4, they only buy one.” Paul Ash far and wide. The other It is not just lowexecutive director, serves residents from wage and unemployed SF-Marin Food Bank far and wide who can people who cannot afafford premium prices ford healthy groceries. for freshness and the “We have a sense that cachet of buying from there are people in the local vendors. middle tier who need food assistance,” said Paul The latter group can choose to shop any Ash, executive director of the SF-Marin Food number of ways and in many places. But Bank. lower-income San Franciscans are increasingly “We are trying to come up with a food-assisunable to afford enough of the food they need to tance model that doesn’t seem like handouts, stay healthy. that feels good to go get,” Ash said. “These The San Francisco Food Security Task Force, are busy working people; they can’t stop in the a city-sponsored working group, reported in middle of the day to go to a pantry at their kids’ May that one-third of adults in the city with school.” incomes less than double the federal poverty Lena Miller, who was born and raised in the level were “food insecure” in 2011 through Bayview, said that as a single parent of two 2012. That was up from 26 percent in 2003 but teenagers, she has to cut into everything else down from 44 percent in 2009, the depths of the to pay for food. Entertainment is gone. “You Great Recession. People are food insecure when can have less food, but it’s hard to tell kids that they cannot afford or get enough nutritious food there’s no food.” that they’re accustomed to in order to support a Ash said that a big obstacle to creating food healthy life. security in San Francisco is the large gap between the maximum income that CalFresh SUBSIDIES FALL SHORT OF NEED recipients can earn and what it takes to be selfsufficient in San Francisco. Low-income state residents struggling to put Ash urged the city to pressure businesses not food on their tables can get help through two to cater only to the forces of gentrification. “If federally funded programs: CalFresh, which you want to come in and take advantage of the administers the Supplemental Nutrition Ashigh-end population,” he said, “then you’ve got sistance Program — formerly known as food to make sure people across the city are fed.” By Caroline Cakebread // Public Press
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One neighborhood, two price points. Casa Lucas sells baguettes for $1.49. At Local Mission Market they are $3.