Family outside of apartment building enjoying playing on the grass
Credit: MOHCD / Bruce Damonte

Affordable Housing Funding and Strategies

Part of the Housing for All initiative

Meeting required affordable housing targets will take substantial coordination and funding commitments from government, private, non-profit, and philanthropic sources.

 Achieving San Francisco’s housing targets will require immense new funding streams and innovative approaches to produce and preserve housing affordable to people with low and moderate incomes. To develop this funding plan, the Housing Element calls for many actions that together are called the “Affordable Housing Funding and Strategies”. Through this body of work, San Francisco will develop the innovative resources and new strategies necessary to produce or preserve 46,000 affordable homes for families at very low, low and moderate incomes.

SF Planning is working with the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development (MOHCD), fellow City agencies, and other public, private, and philanthropic partners to identify existing and new funding and financing strategies to produce and preserve affordable housing.

Funding advocacy and affordable housing finance and development strategies are needed at the local, regional, state, and federal levels. As a first step, the City is convening the Affordable Housing Leadership Council. The Leadership Council will develop recommendations to expand affordable housing funding and financing tools with input from community organizations, philanthropy, private and non-profit development, and business sectors.

In addition to funding and financing strategies, San Francisco will need to strategically plan for: 

  • How to ensure the development of sites already in the pipeline for affordable housing

  • Strategies to identify and/ or acquire new sites for affordable housing

  • Implementing existing and new tools to preserve existing rental housing

  • Growing homeownership opportunities affordable to low and moderate income families

  • Supporting other housing priorities, as identified by equity communities

Affordable Housing Leadership Council

Solving the housing affordability crisis requires insight and perspective from a range of community and industry experts. The Planning Department is convening individuals from community-based organizations, housing development, academia, business, and philanthropy to explore new and expanded affordable housing funding and financing tools to create the Affordable Housing Leadership Council.

The Affordable Housing Leadership Council is made up of two groups, the Executive Committee and the Technical Working Group.

Executive Committee

Seven leaders to identify new funding opportunities and direct recommendations:

Technical Working Group

Approximately 20 experts to advise on specific topics including local and regional funding sources, new funding tools, state and federal policies, and cost reduction. The Technical Working Group provide additional perspectives and insights on approaches proposed by the Executive Committee and will meet as-needed.   

Some of the key Leadership Council tasks for 2023 include: 

  • Evaluate available funding across all levels of government relative to needs, including recent changes and growing competition for funds; 
  • Improve funding deployment and reduce housing production costs for greater impact; 
  • Explore new funding sources including BAHFA (Bay Area Housing Finance Authority) and potential 2024 regional bond; 
  • Identify priorities for federal & state advocacy for affordable housing funding; and 
  • Consider and recommend renewal and expansion of local funding sources. 

The Office of the Mayor, Mayor’s Office of Housing and Development (MOHCD), and San Francisco Planning will be supporting the Leadership Council deliberations by providing financial and policy analysis of possible funding and financing sources and related tools.  

The work of the Leadership Council will help bring cross-sector investment, insights, and alliances. Only through working with other local, regional and state governments, advocacy organizations, and other sectors will San Francisco be able to address the needs of our diverse communities. 

The Affordable Housing Leadership Council will meet from May 2023 to January 2024.

The City will publish recommendations and analysis in a report in the Winter of 2024.

For questions on the project, please contact:  

James Pappas 
Acting Principal Planner
Project Manager
james.pappas@sfgov.org