Foundation Housing: Permanently Affordable Housing in San Francisco Pitch

Foundation House in San Francisco

I had the pleasure of meeting with a district supervisor of San Francisco, Jane Kim, and found the #3 priority on her whiteboard was “Non-Profit Displacement”, and #1 was “Balanced Housing”.    So Foundation Housing would fit in both categories.   I gave her a short blurb on it, and she was excited to introduce us to others trying to figure this out, and a ribbon cutting as we get our first non-profit employees in there.   We will see, but encouraging.

Foundation Housing Benefits for San Francisco

Brewster Kahle    May 2, 2014    brewster@archive.org

Permanently affordable housing for non-profit workers.

Idea:

  • Special Foundations acquire houses and apartment buildings

  • Market Rent for current tenants (no evictions)

  • ? of Market Rate for employees of selected non-profits (selected by sponsoring Foundation). Cost-based, debt-free housing rate is written into the charter of the Foundations.  Any surplus goes into making more Foundation Houses

 

Benefits to San Francisco:

  • Permanently affordable housing for non-profit workers
  • Conflict-free:  all incentives aligned

  • No government funding needed

  • Can be used to help city employees, teachers, non-profits, others.

  • Being tested now

  • Close to work, so no commutes or cars

 

Status:

  • 1st Apartment building purchased (295 19th Avenue in the Richmond)

  • Serving the Internet Archive (6 blocks away)

  • First employees will be housed in 2014

 

Help needed:

  • Clarity if any tenant issues

  • Treat Foundation House as a non-profit with real estate tax exemption

  • Help with publicity / spreading the word
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One Response to Foundation Housing: Permanently Affordable Housing in San Francisco Pitch

  1. featherlite says:

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