Priorities in the State Legislature

By David Chiu


To address our affordable housing crisis, among other things, we need to replace Prop 1C affordable housing funds that have been depleted; we need to reform our state Ellis to prevent real estate speculators from evicting tenants; we need to protect inclusionary affordable housing requirements for developers to provide affordable housing.

To educate and train our entire workforce for the 21st century, we need to establish universal preschool, ensure that per-pupil spending for public K-12 schools ranks higher than 49th in the nation, and establish a stable revenue base for our state's higher educational institutions. While there are sectors of our economy that are thriving, there are too many people who have been left out of that success, and we need an effective workforce development system that lifts all of our diverse San Franciscans struggling to be part of our 21st century economy.

To build a public transit system that works for all, we need to address our local and state transit funding cliffs + a $10B capital liability over the next 15 years in San Francisco alone. In a transit system where Muni buses are late over 40% of the time, pedestrians and cyclists are seriously injured on our streets every week, and downtown congestion is a daily experience, we need to identify new funding sources to make sure our transit system has the resources to succeed.