Supervisor London Breed has told SF Weekly that $2 million in city funds and a shade under $500,000 in federal money have been freed up to repair 172 dilapidated public housing units -- and begin moving in homeless families.
"The city never invests money into public housing because the feds do. But this is a better way to get 172 families housed," Breed says. "What better way to invest this kind of money than to get these families out of shelters and into this housing?"
As touched upon in this week's SF Weekly cover story, much of the money city voters were told would go to erecting new affordable housing is, instead, being diverted into rehabilitating existing housing for the very low-income.
The city's electorate -- and the folks who earn their bread by building affordable housing -- have been thrown a curveball. But, Breed contends, the city's public, affordable housing stock is falling apart. And it makes little sense to build a few new homes while large numbers of existing homes go to seed.
"All of this affordable housing is falling apart," she says. "If you ignore that and just build new housing, you'll get 10 new families at the expense of, what, 300 old ones?
Homeless families hoping for spots in public housing have been signing onto a waiting list. Breed hopes that the last of the units will be revamped within nine months, with families who pass through vetting moving into housing as each unit is readied.
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