Good afternoon, everyone.

Uh, this meeting will come to order.

Welcome to the uh sorry here.

February 26, 2024, regular meeting of the Land Use and Transportation Committee of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

I am Supervisor Mirna Melgar, Chair of the Committee joined by Board of Supervisors President Aaron Faskin and Vice Chair Dean Preston.

The committee clerk today is John Carroll, and I would also uh like to acknowledge James Kawana from SFGup TV for their support on today's meeting.

Mr.

Clerk, do you have any announcements?

Yes, thank you, Madam Chair.

Please ensure that you silenced your cell phones and other electronic devices you have brought with you into the chamber today.

If you have any documents to include as part of any of today's files, you should submit them to me by bringing them forward to the rail.

I'll meet you there and add them to the file.

Public comment will be taken on each item on this agenda.

When your item of interest comes up and public comment is called, please line up to speak along your right-hand side of the room, and I'll point it out each time.

Alternatively, you may submit public comment in writing in either of the following ways.

You may send your written comments to me via email at J-O-H-N, period C-A-R-R-O-L-L at SFGOV.org.

Or you may send your written comments via U.S.

Postal Service to our office in City Hall.

That's the clerk's office, room 244, and City Hall's address is one.

Dr.

Carlton B.

Goodlit Place, San Francisco, California, 94102.

If you submit public comment in writing, I will forward your comment to the members of this panel, and I'll also include your comments within the file upon which you are commenting.

And finally, Madam Chair, items acted upon today are expected to appear on the Board of Supervisors agenda of March 5th, 2024, unless otherwise stated.

Thank you so much.

Uh Mr.

Clerk, please call item number one.

Agenda item number one is an ordinance amending the administrative code to establish the forgivable loan for first-time homebuyers program and the forgivable loan for first-time homebuyers fund to assist low, moderate, and middle income first-time homebuyers who would otherwise not be able to purchase a primary residence in the city.

And to require the Human Rights Commission to establish policies and procedures to issue and possibly forgive loans from the fund and to provide oversight, monitoring, and forgiveness of such loans.

Thank you so much, Mr.

Carroll.

Colleagues, I am uh proud sponsor of this legislation in partnership with the Human Rights Commission.

We have Director Cheryl Davis here from the Human Rights Commission who will present after my remarks, and also Ms.

Brittany Chikwata, who I'm very proud to have worked with on this.

As we all know, homeownership is uh more out of reach uh today in San Francisco than at any other generation, in large part because there are systemic challenges, challenges to accessing capital and financing.

In America, most folks have bought their homes with help uh from their family, and that presupposes that you have uh equity uh that you can tap to to help the next generation, which many folks have not been able to be a part of.

Homeownership offers a multitude of benefits, including economic security, housing stability, and an opportunity to build intergenerational wealth.

There's a long pervasive history of disparate access to homeownerships in San Francisco, including discriminatory practices of residential redlining and restricted covenants, limiting access to wealth accumulation uh through home purchasing, um, have greatly contributed to these uh wealth gaps.

Particularly in San Francisco, we're seeing the worsening inequities of being able to attain homeownership and ultimately establishing long-term roots in San Francisco and maintaining agency over your own future.

Our most recent housing element lists a number of actions that could help increase access to homeownership for communities that have been harmed through targeted economic disruption, displacement and manufactured barriers to accumulating intergenerational wealth.

So, this ordinance uh intends to provide down payment assistance to communities that have been harmed through targeted economic disruption, displacement and manufactured barriers to accumulating intergenerational wealth so that San Francisco can address multi-generational inequities in access to homeownership and to narrow and ultimately close homeownership wealth gaps.

I want to thank the human rights commission and also Sarah Fabian at the City Attorney's Office for their work on this ordinance.

And I will now turn it over to uh Director Cheryl Davis from the Human Rights Commission to share remarks.

Welcome, Director Davis, and thank you so much for your leadership on this issue.

Good afternoon, and thank you for this opportunity.

Thank you to the supervisors and thank you, Supervisor Melgar, for leading this effort.

Is a lot around the wealth gap that we see, not just in San Francisco, but across the country.

And one of the challenges and one of the things that's been uplifted is homeownership as a way to make that happen.

And over the years, as we've engaged with folks in the mission and Bayview and other places, what we've heard is that a lot of the practices that we have with regards to our below market rate housing and all these other things is that they don't have the opportunity to actually benefit from the purchases that they make, right?

And so whether it is not being able to sell at full value or not being able to reap the full value of those properties, this is part of why this is so important.

I would also just say what we learned through the Dreamkeeper Initiative down payment assistance program is how challenging it has been for folks to go through that process, and then once they go through it, there's actually no real benefit on the other side once they do these programs.

And so as we think about building out and addressing the economic disparities that we see, uh this is a good strategy to do that.

Uh and then as we also know we've lost not just um people of color, but we've lost a lot of our middle class, we lost a lot of our families, and programs like this will actually make it appealing for folks to stay in San Francisco or to come back to San Francisco.

And so um I want to thank you, Supervisor Melgar, for your uh leadership with this because um this is something that we've heard for decades uh as someone who's been here for a while, the idea that it is really hard to find housing uh and be able to afford housing for folks who would like to stay here in the city, and I think that this will go a long way to address that issue.

Thank you, Director Davis.

Um, do any of my colleagues have questions or issues uh to ask Director Davis?

I I I don't think there, well, I guess there could be some questions for the department.

Um my highest level question is where's the money coming from?

Um, but that's not necessarily a question for the department.

Uh I mean, insofar as the mayor's office of housing and community development has historically done down payment assistance.