This November, Bay Area voters could decide on an unprecedented bond measure to raise up to $20 billion for as many as 90,000 desperately needed affordable homes across the nine-county region. Ahead of a crucial vote by a regional agency next week to put the measure on the ballot, the mayors of three of the Bay Area’s largest cities gathered in San Francisco on Thursday to rally support for the proposal. “If you’re concerned about homelessness, this is the measure to support,” San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan said.
“If you’re concerned about the high cost of housing and the high cost of living, this is the measure to support.” San Francisco Mayor London Breed and Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguín were also at the event, held at an affordable housing complex near the Chase Center arena in San Francisco’s Mission Bay neighborhood. Absent was Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao, who was a no-show after the early Thursday morning.
Across the Bay Area, some 1.4 million residents — 23% of all renters — spend more than half their income on rent, according to regional officials. Meanwhile, an estimated 37,000 people in the region are homeless on any given night — more than the entire population of Menlo Park.
To alleviate the region’s chronic affordable housing shortage, the , established by the state legislature in 2019, has worked for years to put the bond measure on the ballot. The measure now needs approval from the finance authority’s board — made up of local elected and.
