Market-Driven Policies Don’t Keep Workers in SF

Collaboration between labor and housing activists shows that current market-driven policies won’t keep workforce in town.

The report concludes that the city needs more non-market housing to create new units that will affordable to its workforce.

Workers surveyed include custodians and janitors, hotel and stadium workers, security guards and airport workers, educators, transit workers, electricians, health workers, firefighters, and nonprofit and public sector workers.

Of all workers surveyed, only registered nurses were considered not to be “rent burdened,” as defined by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, under San Francisco market-rate rent, meaning having to pay more than 30 percent of their pre-tax income on rent. Registered nurses in San Francisco on average earn $162,469 annually.