Any project whose goals involve helping friends live together people into one area will naturally stir concerns of gentrification.
We share these fears. We love San Francisco, and we take seriously any arguments that we’re harming the city.
We’ve spoken with a variety of gentrification activists and anti-eviction lawyers about these fears. This is an ongoing conversation. If you disagree with any of our current beliefs, then we’d love for you to reach out and tell us why: [email protected].
In the meantime, we’d ask for your trust. We are actively seeking feedback and are trying to do what we think is right. We are also a new effort and are bound to get some things wrong in the beginning. We’d be most grateful if you tried engaging with us before distrusting us.
Here’s our current understanding of the issue.
Bad-faith landlords. According to one anti-eviction lawyer we spoke to, the main mechanism is landlords that make their tenant’s lives unpleasant in order to maximize their profits.
This looks like landlords fumigating your apartment every week, or raising your rents by 25% after your lease ends.
Demand for housing outpacing supply. This is the larger and more difficult issue. The blame here rests squarely on the city of San Francisco for failing to keep up with demand. We are aligned with YIMBYs, who propose that only a massive increase in housing supply will fix the housing crisis (and many other linked crises, but that’s out of scope for this post).
Basically, the fear is that by encouraging lots of people to move into one square mile, we’re increasing housing prices, and therefore contributing to gentrification.
If you believe that this misrepresents the argument, then please let us know: [email protected]. We’re not going to convince anyone if we’re addressing straw man arguments.