| Newsom: Fix expensive housing problem (2/08) | | Print | |
| Written by Sanyee Yuan | |
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During the inauguration for his second mayoral term, San Francisco
mayor Gavin Newsom shared several new objectives for the city,
including a Baby Boomers Fund.
Under the initiative, the city would deposit $500 for every baby born in San Francisco, which, after earning interest for 18 years, would be accessible to the child after high school graduation. The projected estimate for the interest earned, at 0.4 percent would be $432, adding up to a total of $932 for the child's college fund. Although Newsom is publicizing the initiative as a way to help San Francisco teenagers on their way to higher education, it seems more aimed at curbing the flow of families leaving the city by offering them an incentive to stay. But the plan fails to properly solve the real problem prompting families to flee: the city's prohibitively expensive housing and high cost of living. San Francisco has the fourth highest cost of living among the nation’s 20 largest metropolitan areas in the third quarter of 2007, according to the Council for Community and Economic Research. The city’s cost-of-living index is 166.4, which, compared to the national base average of 100, is approximately 66 percent higher and more expensive than other large U.S. cities. The new condos currently being built downtown target people who make between 120 and 150 percent of the city's median family income, which, according to sfgov.org, is $86,500 for a family of four. Although 15 percent of these homes are set aside for affordable housing, the fact of the matter is that the focus of new housing projects is not affordability, but luxury. The mere promise of a donation of $500 towards their child's education thus seems like little incentive for families to remain living in San Francisco. For many parents, the sensible action seems to be to move to another city in the Bay Area with cheaper housing and invest the significant amount of money they save into their child's college fund. Newsom should create incentives that would encourage more construction of homes that middle-income buyers could afford and delegate a larger percentage of new developments to be sold at affordable rates. Newsom cannot ignore the issue any longer — he needs to come up with a better way of dealing with expensive living costs. |
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