Lurie wants to solve SF’s rent crisis. It could be impossible.

Last month, Mayor Daniel Lurie announced on a sunny Thursday morning in San Francisco that he was going to fight the city’s AI-driven housing crisis. As he stood in Alamo Square Park, with the downtown skyline and Salesforce Tower, the iconic symbol of the city’s shift to being a tech hub, looming in the distance, he declared that “San Francisco is in a rent emergency” and his new package of laws would help fight it.

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“Rising rents are making it harder for the people who built their lives here to stay here,” he said, mentioning teachers, nurses, artists and restaurant workers, all of whom he said are the fabric of the city: “The people who make San Francisco what it is. … There is no recovery without them.” 

Lurie made it clear that the city also “must build more housing” to truly fight the rising rents, but he still doubled down on his positive message: “There is no doubt –– no doubt –– that our city is headed in the right direction.”

Lurie’s news conference was covered by outlets across the country as a sign the widely liked mayor was taking the crisis seriously. But a housing expert, tenant advocates, city supervisors and the city’s landlord lobby all told SFGATE Lurie’s emergency package will leave the core problem untouched: Apartments will still remain unaffordable. 

“This does nothing to lower rents at all,” Jason Ward, an economist and the director of RAND Housing Center, a nonprofit that finds housing policy solutions, said of the mayor’s rent emergency in a phone call with SFGATE. “This is really about keeping people from being evicted from housing or keeping some very vulnerable people housed.”

Lurie declined SFGATE’s interview request for this story. Shelby Weiss, a spokesperson for Lurie, did not directly answer whether or not the mayor is going to lower rents, and instead referred SFGATE to the September news release from the mayor’s office and quoted Lurie’s saying at the news conference, “We are protecting renters from sudden spikes in housing costs.”

Astronomical rent spikes

Lurie’s rent emergency comes as the AI boom and 50 years of anti-density housing policies in San Francisco have combined to spike rents for the few housing units available. The AI boom is bringing an influx of new renters, and prospective renters are waiting in lines outside for apartment showings, outbidding each other with their tech salaries and leaving many renters scrambling to find housing. And despite the city’s strong rent control protections on some units, thousands of units are left unprotected and landlords are still finding ways to either astronomically bump up rent or kick tenants out. 

The median one-bedroom now costs $4,400 in the city, according to Zumper, a figure that is up 25% since last year. The number of vacant apartments in the city has dropped to 2% as of August, according to Apartment List, an online marketplace for rentals. Rent eviction notices are up 44% this year, totaling more than 1,000 notices so far, according to Lurie, who said the city is on pace for the highest number in a decade, and that about a quarter of those eviction notices were filed because of late rent payment. Many of those evicted are seniors or vulnerable tenants. Some other reasons for evictions can be because there was a breach of rental agreement, or the tenant causes a nuisance, or the owner moves in, according to the Residential Rent Stabilization and Arbitration Board.

Lurie’s big plan released in September to fight this rent emergency that’s become existential for many in the city includes a mix of proposed ordinances, most borrowed from other lawmakers, and spending previously allocated money:

• Spending $27 million in housing vouchers for 650 extremely low-income households that Lurie said are about to lose federally funded rental assistance due to Congress’ cuts.
• Raising Ellis Act eviction payments, which help tenants relocate, by 25% to nearly $3,000 per tenant.
• Adding an additional $3 million to pay for tenant right to counsel, to provide legal help for 400 households. 
• Supporting a bill proposed by Supervisor Danny Sauter that would cap delayed rent increases for rent-controlled tenants at 10% annually. Property owners currently can accrue annual increases and impose them years later, which Lurie said can mean a “devastatingly large” rent increase for renters. 
• Supporting a bill proposed by Supervisor Jackie Fielder that would protect renters from being evicted if they fall behind by less than one month of fair market rent.
• Supporting a bill proposed by Supervisor Matt Dorsey that guarantees tenants an annual reminder of rent-increase limits and just-cause eviction rules.

Lurie also pledged to spend $54 million in already available money for emergency rental assistance, rental subsidies and legal defense and compensation for tenants who are evicted.

The mayor is also planning to roll out $1 million for a “Know Your Rights” campaign. 

Lurie has received glowing reviews since he took office in January 2025. He deftly navigated issues like President Donald Trump’s vow to send in National Guard troops last year while still retaining an approval rating of 74% (the Chronicle and SFGATE are both owned by Hearst but have separate newsrooms). But the rent crisis, and his apparent inability to quickly solve it, could be the one that finally ends his honeymoon with the city.

Leaders say Lurie’s actions are insufficient

Lurie’s news conference received plenty of press but so far it hasn’t impressed the people closest to fighting the crisis. 

Maria Zamudio, the executive director of the Housing Rights Committee of San Francisco, who fields hundreds of calls weekly from tenants facing eviction, told SFGATE by phone that she appreciates the mayor has publicly acknowledged a problem but is skeptical about the package. 

“It’s very splashy for the mayor to say, ‘I can do all of these things, I’m going to fix this. I’m going to call a state of emergency’ or call a crisis a moment for something that he actually has been ignoring,” she said.

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Supervisor Bilal Mahmood told SFGATE in a phone call that announcing an emergency is “a step in the right direction, but it’s insufficient.”

“It will help a lot of people stay in their homes,” said Mahmood. “But to reduce the cost of rent, we have to be doing more.”

Fielder, a frequent critic of the mayor whose bill is included in the package, told SFGATE in an email that the package does not go far enough.

“The rent emergency package is not enough to resolve the affordability issue, we need vacancy control so that landlords can’t evict or buyout tenants and jack up the rent on empty units,” Fielder said, referring to a limit that a landlord can raise a rent once a tenant moves out and before another moves in.

Fielder also urged voters to pass two ballot measures on Nov. 3, Proposition B and Proposition I, which she said would help fund affordable housing. Prop. B would create a public bank and supporters say it would let the city use low-interest loans for affordable housing projects. Some critics argue that there is no direct affordable housing tied to the proposal.

Prop. I would reallocate $120 million in annual city funds that come from property sales tax on properties of $10 million or more, which is currently used for an array of purposes, and instead restrict its use to only subsidized housing, homelessness prevention and eviction legal defense. Lurie is backing a “No on Prop. I” campaign along with local firefighter and police unions, because they say it would hamstring the city’s move to hire more first responders and create a “massive, permanent hole” in the city’s general fund. 

The mayor’s endorsement carries weight, which is why Zamudio, who, along with Fielder is a proponent of the measure, questioned his move to influence the vote. 

“Why would he want to do that if he wants to ensure tenants have a fair chance in this city?” she said.

Charley Goss, the government and community affairs manager of the San Francisco Apartment Association, has his own solution to the problem. He told SFGATE in a call that the mayor’s package is “treating symptoms of a problem instead of the actual problem itself.”  

“The problem is San Francisco hasn’t built enough housing for decades and decades and decades to accommodate the people that want to live here,” he said. “The effect of that is we have a housing shortage, there is not enough housing to meet demand; what that results in is higher prices.” 

There’s growing consensus that the city needs more housing. Lurie is already trying to work on the city’s housing supply problem. Last year, he pushed for a new zoning density across the city, the first update to the zoning map in half a century, to allow more homes to be built across San Francisco, especially on the city’s west side, which has historically been shielded from dense housing. Lurie’s plan is an attempt to meet new state housing mandates. 

Even Sauter, whose bill is part of the package, said it falls short. “It’s a good start, but it’s not enough,” he told SFGATE in a call, adding that renters should have high standards. “I think we should hold the mayor accountable for doing more.”