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Civil grand jury urges more transparency on housing finances; Mayor’s housing office commits to online tools and reports
Summary
The 2013–14 civil grand jury called for clearer public access to financing, eligibility and project pipeline information for affordable housing. The Mayor’s Office of Housing agreed with the recommendations and outlined an electronic unified application, website redesign and new reporting to be completed by year‑end.
The Government Audit and Oversight Committee on Sept. 25 heard the civil grand jury’s report The Mayor’s Office of Housing Under Pressure and Challenged to Preserve Diversity, which urges more transparency about affordable‑housing finance, eligibility and project status so residents can monitor delivery and hold officials accountable.
"The ultimate tool of gaining citizen support and citizen engagement is to make sure that there's a free flow of information," Elena Smith, chairwoman of the civil grand jury, told the committee when introducing the report.
The jury reviewed the Mayor's aggressive housing pledges and the work of the Mayor's Office of Housing and Community Development (MOCD). The report highlighted a series of obstacles — including the end of redevelopment funding, stewardship questions about the housing trust fund, long project timelines and strongly rising demand — that complicate meeting affordability targets.
"We have to do more to address affordability for middle and lower income households," the report said, noting both the mayor's earlier pledge of 10,000 affordable units and later administration targets that the jury called ambitious. The report recommends clearer public reporting on sources and uses for individual projects, regular pipeline updates and improved application procedures so residents can track opportunity and access programs equitably.
Olson Lee, speaking for the Mayor’s Office of Housing, said the office broadly agreed with the jury’s recommendations and described steps already under way: a designated website manager, a short unified electronic application to replace lengthy paper packages, translations of core materials, and a plan to publish both an annual report and a quarterly pipeline report on the city’s housing portal.
"We will endeavor to put that information on the website," Lee said, adding the office aims to complete major website and short‑form application work by the end of the calendar year.
Supervisors pressed staff on middle‑income eligibility ranges and workforce housing. Supervisor Katie Tang said constituents have asked for clearer guidance about where to apply and how programs treat incomes above 80 percent of area median income (AMI); Olson Lee said the office is considering expanding eligibility bands and will pilot the short application electronically.
Public commenters including Larry Bush, a grand jury member, urged more family‑size housing and implementation of information‑sharing agreements between departments to improve housing quality oversight.
For the record, Chair London Breed read a recommended response agreeing with the grand jury finding that new production over the prior decade delivered mostly market‑rate units and that the Board should convene a hearing on the mayor’s housing working group. The committee tabled the hearing to allow inclusion of the language read into the record, amended the resolution accordingly and forwarded the item as a committee report to the full Board of Supervisors.
The committee’s actions include submitting a hearing request for the Mayor’s housing working group to report on policy recommendations and regional housing tracking by the end of the year; that hearing request was entered into the record and the committee recommended the item to the full board as a committee report.
