ABOUT US

The purpose of the San Francisco Tenants Union is to promote the preservation and expansion of the rights of tenants and the supply of affordable housing.

Guiding Principles (downloads as a pdf)

Our History

For more than 50 years, the city’s renters have turned to the San Francisco Tenants Union, a mostly volunteer-run organization, for advice on how to secure and maintain habitable and affordable housing. Through counseling services and the distribution of the Tenants Rights handbook, the SFTU has educated thousands of San Francisco renters on their rights under local, state and federal law, and empowered residents to assert those rights in an informed and dignified manner.

San Francisco Tenants Union is the only tenant counseling organization in San Francisco that can endorse or withhold endorsements for politicians who pass laws that affect tenants. Legislation is the most powerful tool to advocate for tenants, and as a 501(c)(4), the SFTU is not restricted in advocating for or against legislators. The SFTU organizes tenants to pressure the politicians on legislation.

The beginnings of the Tenants Union was in 1971, when a small group of San Francisco State University students banded together to form the Tenant Action Group. Initially motivated by stymied attempts to effect improvements within their own housing, these early pioneers sought to build a broader network of community members who shared their concerns and from this network came the seeds of the tenants rights movement in San Francisco.

In its early years the organization used the Haight Ashbury Switchboard as the administrative home base while the real work was undertaken directly within the community. Volunteers counseled tenants on street corners and assisted in organizing campaigns among neighbors with shared housing concerns. Though its location and name have long since changed, the SFTU has adhered closely to its original model of organizing and counseling as the two primary means of achieving greater economic and political equity for tenants. These two activities complement each other by both helping tenants to address their own individual concerns while simultaneously linking those concerns to those of other tenants City-wide and to the structure of political power weighted toward the land-owning class. To this end, counseling and education are viewed as both a technique for addressing individual concerns and a means of organizing a tenant constituency motivated to pursue broader neighborhood and city-wide aims for renters. The Tenants Rights Handbook embodies both of these activities by providing the most comprehensive, accurate treatment of tenants rights in San Francisco, while simultaneously clarifying the links with the broader political  structure.

More Info in SFTU in the News

San Francisco Tenants Union Newsletter Tenant Times 1979–1995.

Our Victories

Since the 1970s, the Tenants Union, in conjunction with other tenant groups, has helped design and advocate for legislation that restricts unjust rent increases and evictions. Notable victories have included:

      • 1979: The passage of the Rent Control Ordinance which restricts evictions and rent increases.
      • 1982: Elimination of a section in the Rent Ordinance which required that tenants actively object to unlawful rent increases for such increases to be considered illegal.
      • 1992: Proposition H which reduced the yearly rent increase for tenants protected by rent control in half.
      • 1994: Proposition I which extended the protections of the Rent Ordinance to tenants residing in buildings consisting of 2-4 units.
      • 1998: Proposition G which limited owner move-in evictions.
      • 2000  Proposition H which limited landlords’ ability to pass on the costs of capital improvements to their tenants.
      • 2002: Defeated Proposition R to repeal rent control.
      • 2002: Defeated Proposition R which, had it passed, would have drastically boosted the number of condominium conversions in the city, thereby eliminating vast portions of rental stock.
      • 2005: Provided relocation payments for tenants evicted by the Ellis Act.
      • 2006: Limited condominium conversions again.
      • 2006: Proposition H provided or increased relocation payments for tenants evicted for certain no-fault causes.
      • 2008: Defeated Proposition 98 which would have repealed rent control.
      • 2013: Limited condominium conversions again.
      • 2014: Regulated tenant buyout agreements with legislation sponsored by Supervisor David Campos.
      • 2015: Drafted and successfully advocated for protection from low-fault evictions, restrictions on rent after no-fault evictions, and the right to add roommates within the Housing Code limits with legislation sponsored by Supervisor Jane Kim. Campaigned for and endorsed Aaron Peskin allowing us to regain a progressive majority in the San Francisco Supervisors.
      • 2016: Advocated for legislation that passed the San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously to enforce penalties to reduce the illegal postings of Airbnb which have removed much affordable housing from the market. Influenced incumbent politicians to advocate for tenants including pressuring Airbnb to to follow the law to register hosts.
      • 2017: After the San Francisco Tenants Union and allies worked for years for legislation to rein in the illegal business practices of Airbnb which also removes affordable housing, the City Attorney reached a settlement with Airbnb which will greatly reduce the illegal removal of affordable housing.
      • Led on legislation for reducing fraudulent owner move-in evictions which passed unanimously at the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.
      • 2018: Airbnb and other short-term rental agencies are forced to comply with the law. Five thousand units are removed from short-term rental and potentially returned to housing.
      • Teacher protections from owner move-in evictions during the school year reinstated by appeals court but not in effect pending petition to the California Supreme Court.
      • Major advocates for Prop F, which now provides tenants with an attorney during an eviction attempt. Also advocated for Prop C which won and provides funding for homes for the homeless by taxing major corporations.
      • Campaigned for winning pro-tenant Supervisors Gordon Mar, Matt Haney, Rafael Mandelman, and Shamann Walton, giving progressives a majority on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.
      • Passthroughs of mortgage costs from a change in ownership to tenants are restricted.
      • 2019: Rent Board Commissioner Reese Isbell, appointed by Mayor London Breed with no Rent Board experience, is replaced by an experienced tenant rights attorney after protests by tenant activists.
      • Senate Bill 50, sponsored by Scott Wiener, which may demolish affordable rental units since there are no enforcement provisions preventing demolition, is on hold until 2020 while we continue to advocate for preventing this one-size-does-not-fit-all bill that benefits the powerful real estate industry and its supporters.
      • Campaigned for San Francisco District 5 Supervisor Dean Preston, a tenant rights advocate, who won, giving us a possible progressive majority to override Mayor Breed’s vetoes.
      • Collaborated with the San Francisco Supervisors to extend just cause eviction requirement to post-1979 construction rental units.
      • 2020: Senate Bill 50 sponsored by Scott Wiener but opposed by 46 tenant and housing justice groups, which may demolish affordable rental units since there are no enforcement provisions preventing demolition, fails.
      • Campaigned for Supervisor Preston’s Eviction Protection Ordinance which was passed by 10-1 so even if Mayor Breed vetoes, it becomes law. The ordinance stops evictions of tenants who can’t pay because of COVID-19 related income loss but doesn’t stop landlords from collecting the debt.
      • As part of the San Francisco Anti-Displacement Coalition, requested and received extensions of the Mayor’s eviction moratorium.
      • Endorsed and campaigned for progressive San Francisco Supervisors Connie Chan, Aaron Peskin, Dean Preston, and Hillary Ronen who won, retaining a progressive majority that supports tenants. Myrna Melgar was our second choice.
      • 2021: San Francisco Supervisor Dean Preston (endorsed and campaigned for by the SF Tenants Union), continues to lead on legislation to protect tenants during the pandemic.
      • Under pressure from the San Francisco Board of Supervisors (Chan, Haney, Mandelman, Mar, Melgar, Peskin, Preston, Ronen, and Walton endorsed by the SF Tenants Union), Mayor Breed finally agrees to Prop I (supported by the SF Tenants Union) funding for rent relief.
      • 100% low-income units will be built instead of the “Monster in the Mission” with market-rate housing that had been originally proposed and opposed for seven years by tenant advocates including the SF Tenants Union.
      • 2022: San Francisco Supervisor Dean Preston (endorsed and campaigned for by the SF Tenants Union), continues to lead on legislation to protect tenants during the pandemic.
      • Historic affordable housing package for SF