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Committee backs ordinance requiring housing needs reports for seniors and people with disabilities
Summary
The Land Use and Transportation Committee approved an ordinance (as amended) directing the Department of Disability and Aging Services to produce a housing needs overview for seniors and people with disabilities and a later, deeper needs-assessment and pipeline report. The measure was amended to add interagency collaboration and include the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing.
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors’ Land Use and Transportation Committee voted Dec. 7 to send to the full Board an ordinance requiring the Department of Disability and Aging Services (DAS) to report on housing needs and production for seniors and people with disabilities.
The ordinance, introduced by Supervisor Norman Yee’s staff member Jen Lowe, directs DAS to produce an initial ‘‘overview’’ report by Oct. 1, 2021 and a more detailed needs-assessment and pipeline report by Oct. 1, 2022, with the deeper report then due every three years. Lowe said the change was meant to give departments time to meet deadlines delayed by the COVID-19 emergency while still providing both near-term and long-term information for planning officials.
“Affordable housing that we’re building for people with disabilities and seniors is not really affordable,” Lowe said, urging the committee to require data that compares rents in city-funded projects with the incomes of local seniors and people with disabilities.
The committee amended the ordinance to make the work explicitly interagency. The revised text calls for DAS to work in collaboration with the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development, the Planning Department, the Mayor’s Office on Disability and — at Vice Chair Asha Safaei’s request — the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing. DAS Director Shereen McSpadden told the committee staff and partner agencies had already begun preliminary coordination and that the department believes it can serve as the lead “quarterback” for the effort.
Public commenters, including senior-service advocates and neighborhood organizations, urged a faster timeline and broader inclusion of unhoused seniors and people with disabilities. Theresa Flandrick and Lorraine Petty, among others, told the committee that existing waiting lists and the mismatch between senior incomes and ‘‘affordable’’ rents make immediate data collection urgent.
Supervisor Dean Preston raised questions about sequencing and overlap with other recurring housing reports; DAS and MOHCD staff said some report timing will be aligned administratively and that the amended schedule was chosen to avoid duplication while preserving a focused needs assessment.
The committee adopted the sponsor’s amendments and agreed to include HSH in the collaboration; the motion to forward the ordinance as amended passed on a 3-0 roll call (Preston, Safaei, Peskin). The item will return to the full Board for final consideration.
