A single-toilet public restroom planned for San Francisco’s Noe Valley Town Square is expected to take two years to build, but it’s already causing a stink.

The reason: its $1.7 million price tag.

The estimated cost has garnered plenty of headlines for the restroom as well as some backlash from state officials who wanted a better explanation than what the city was giving.

The San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department admits the price tag for the single restroom is attention-grabbing, but officials promise the reason behind the estimate is “more nuanced and less sensational.”

The project is still in the early phase of its timeline and there are no designs for the proposed restroom at the town square, located in central San Francisco. The square hosts a Farmer’s Market and other popular events on weekends.

The proposed single toilet restroom would be in a 150-foot-square enclosure and is expected to be completed by 2025, according to the city.

“We will consider various options, including installing a pre-fabricated restroom,” the city’s parks department said in statement. “In the end, the project may well be delivered for far less, with leftover funding put toward further improvements or maintenance.”

“We estimate high — not because we want to spend more money, but because we want to ensure we can deliver projects to communities even if we are hit with unexpected costs,” officials said.

A planned ceremony for the restroom was canceled this week after Assemblyman Matt Haney (D-San Francisco), who secured state funding for the project, heard the city’s reasoning behind the high cost.

“The cost is insane. The process is insane. The amount of time it takes is insane,” Haney told the San Francisco Chronicle.

The city explains that construction costs have risen in the last two years due to the pandemic, inflation and the global supply chain issues, according to the city’s statement. That includes a rise in costs for fuel, materials and hiring workers who can “earn a living wage and benefit.”

“That’s in a city that is the most expensive in the world in which to build,” the city said in its written statement.

The city is also concerned about unexpected costs from the utility company PG&E. In legal filings, the city and county claim PG&E has stalled numerous projects over the years as it forced its customers to purchase specialized equipment to handle large amounts of electricity.

San Francisco’s public utility owns a power supply system that is then sold to its customers, but the power lines are owned and maintained by PG&E. This January, a federal appeals court directed the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to reevaluate PG&E’s requirements for San Francisco customers, according to court documents.

When the town square opened in October 2015, the site featured plumbing for a bathroom, but no funding to build the facility, reports the San Francisco Chronicle.

Haney secured the necessary $1.7 million to build the restroom, which will go toward not just the construction, but also the planning, permits, reviews and management of the project, according to the city.

“They told me $1.7 million, and I got $1.7 million,” Haney said. “I didn’t have the option of bringing home less of the bacon when it comes to building a toilet. A half a toilet or a toilet-maybe-someday is not much use to anyone.”

The project’s 2025 completion timeline would factor in time for architectural plans to be drawn up and time for community feedback. Eventually, the project would make its way to the city’s Recreation and Park Commission and then the San Francisco County Board of Supervisors.

The post San Francisco plans to spend $1.7 million for one bathroom appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

A single-toilet public restroom planned for San Francisco’s Noe Valley Town Square is expected to take two years to build, but it’s already causing a stink.

The reason: its $1.7 million price tag.

The estimated cost has garnered plenty of headlines for the restroom as well as some backlash from state officials who wanted a better explanation than what the city was giving.

The San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department admits the price tag for the single restroom is attention-grabbing, but officials promise the reason behind the estimate is “more nuanced and less sensational.”

The project is still in the early phase of its timeline and there are no designs for the proposed restroom at the town square, located in central San Francisco. The square hosts a Farmer’s Market and other popular events on weekends.

The proposed single toilet restroom would be in a 150-foot-square enclosure and is expected to be completed by 2025, according to the city.

“We will consider various options, including installing a pre-fabricated restroom,” the city’s parks department said in statement. “In the end, the project may well be delivered for far less, with leftover funding put toward further improvements or maintenance.”

“We estimate high — not because we want to spend more money, but because we want to ensure we can deliver projects to communities even if we are hit with unexpected costs,” officials said.

A planned ceremony for the restroom was canceled this week after Assemblyman Matt Haney (D-San Francisco), who secured state funding for the project, heard the city’s reasoning behind the high cost.

“The cost is insane. The process is insane. The amount of time it takes is insane,” Haney told the San Francisco Chronicle.

The city explains that construction costs have risen in the last two years due to the pandemic, inflation and the global supply chain issues, according to the city’s statement. That includes a rise in costs for fuel, materials and hiring workers who can “earn a living wage and benefit.”

“That’s in a city that is the most expensive in the world in which to build,” the city said in its written statement.

The city is also concerned about unexpected costs from the utility company PG&E. In legal filings, the city and county claim PG&E has stalled numerous projects over the years as it forced its customers to purchase specialized equipment to handle large amounts of electricity.

San Francisco’s public utility owns a power supply system that is then sold to its customers, but the power lines are owned and maintained by PG&E. This January, a federal appeals court directed the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to reevaluate PG&E’s requirements for San Francisco customers, according to court documents.

When the town square opened in October 2015, the site featured plumbing for a bathroom, but no funding to build the facility, reports the San Francisco Chronicle.

Haney secured the necessary $1.7 million to build the restroom, which will go toward not just the construction, but also the planning, permits, reviews and management of the project, according to the city.

“They told me $1.7 million, and I got $1.7 million,” Haney said. “I didn’t have the option of bringing home less of the bacon when it comes to building a toilet. A half a toilet or a toilet-maybe-someday is not much use to anyone.”

The project’s 2025 completion timeline would factor in time for architectural plans to be drawn up and time for community feedback. Eventually, the project would make its way to the city’s Recreation and Park Commission and then the San Francisco County Board of Supervisors.

The post San Francisco plans to spend $1.7 million for one bathroom appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

Odds are that most San Franciscans have never even heard of the Lake Merced Tunnel, but it’s a historic piece of 19th century infrastructure that’s critical to keeping the city’s sewers flowing without dumping filth straight into the Pacific Ocean.

It’s also in danger of being destroyed by that same ocean, as climate change sends the tides creeping ever inward, forcing the city to embark on a $150 million-plus preservation plan.

According to the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC), the Lake Merced Tunnel is a 14-foot wide drainage pipe that runs underneath the Great Highway and serves the Oceanside Treatment Plant and related pumping station on Ocean Beach.

The plant is one of three in SF responsible for sanitizing both stormwater and sewer discharges before dumping them, and handles about 20 percent of the city’s wastewater.

When there’s too much waste for the plant to take in all at once, like during big storms, the overflow goes into the Lake Merced Tunnel.

While being a giant sewer pipe may not sound very impressive, when it was built in 1896, the San Francisco Call hailed the tunnel as “one of the most difficult pieces of engineering work ever undertaken in the state” and gushed about its completion in just 17 months despite “many difficulties encountered in eddies of subterranean water.” (Note that the tunnel predates the treatment plant by nearly 100 years; the Oceanside facility wasn’t built until 1993, adapting the existing tunnel for its purposes.)

The tunnel was one of the crowning achievements of what you might call a sewer century in San Francisco.

“Back in the 1800s we built more sewers than anyone,” George Engel, an operations manager at the SF Public Utilities Commission, tells Curbed SF.

“We still have in the order of 100 miles of sewers” from the 19th century in operation in San Francisco today, Engels adds, tunnel included.

The Lake Merced Tunnel, like the entire apparatus that disposes of SF’s waste, is a bit of a hidden gem. In 2014 SPUR marveled at the “invisible infrastructure” that keeps the system moving but also out of sight of the beach-going public.

But this obscure bit of plumbing is important—and it’s also in serious danger. The Planning Department warns that erosion and sea level rise threaten to swamp the tunnel and related infrastructure in the near future.

The city has not said in so many words that the coastal water plant itself is in danger—SFist describes the facility as potentially being “flushed into the Pacific”—but there is important plumbing infrastructure inland of the tunnel, and it is plausible to imagine more elaborate problems in the future.

To counter this aquatic encroachment, the city has a $151.3 million plan to pushback the ocean.

In a November memo SFPUC General Manager Harlan Kelly laid out the two critical initiatives: removing several thousand feet of the Great Highway between Sloat and Skyline Boulevard (a stretch that is doomed to be eaten away), and creating a “multipurpose coastal protection/restoration /access system.”

That last one is a broad term consisting of actions ranging from “managed retreat” of the shoreline to “beach nourishment”—ie, carting in vast amounts of sand to replace eroded material (something the city already does every year).

The city hopes to begin actual construction work in 2023.

As the San Francisco Examiner notes, the current price tag has swelled some $60 million compared to previous estimates. The city blames “refinements” in the construction plan for increasing costs.

In 2015, environmental group Surfrider advised that the city consider relocating the Lake Merced Tunnel altogether, arguing that since “sea level rise and climate change‐driven storms are due to intensify in the years ahead” that keeping the tunnel where it is only delays the inevitable, but SFPUC will nevertheless move forward trying to preserve the tunnel at its original location.

The post San Francisco will spend $150 million to avoid wasting an enormous sewer pipe appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

Evidently no longer content to flush public money down just any old toilet, the city of San Francisco is upping its toilet game and is prepared to spend up to $1.7 million to build a single commode in one neighborhood plaza.

City leaders are slated to gather Wednesday afternoon at the Noe Valley Town Square to officially announce a “$1.7 Million state budget win” to build a toilet there, according to an online event schedule. The proposed facility would include just one toilet in a 150-foot space, according to a new report by San Francisco Chronicle columnist Heather Knight.

The city’s Recreation and Parks Department and the Department of Public Works, which will work together to build the pricey potty, expect it will take three years to complete.

San Francisco tops the list of the world’s most expensive cities to build in, and the proposed million-dollar toilet helps explain why. While construction costs everywhere have risen over the past couple of years due to inflation and supply-chain challenges, the process to install a single toilet in a San Francisco plaza that already has plumbing includes a maze of planning, permitting, reviews, and public outreach , according to the Chronicle report.

First, an architect needs to draw plans for the toilet, which will then be presented to the public for feedback. The Arts Commission’s Civic Design Review committee will be responsible for conducting a “multi-phase review” of the project, like it does for all projects on public lands. According to the Arts Commission’s website, “the committee evaluates each project’s design, scale and massing for accessibility, safety and aesthetic merit.” The review process “ensures that each project’s design is appropriate to its context in the urban environment, and that structures of the highest design quality reflect their civic stature.”

Before the project is put out for bid, it will be subject to review under the California Environmental Quality Act, according to the Chronicle. The public toilet will be built by union workers who will “earn a living wage and benefits,” according to a joint statement from Rec and Parks Department and the Department of Public Works, which added that, “While this isn’t the cheapest way to build, it reflects San Francisco’s values.”

Story continues

California Assemblyman Matt Haney, who secured the $1.7 million funding from the state to install the toilet, told the Chronicle he requested that sum because that’s what the Rec and Parks Department told him the going rate for a public bathroom was. The city said the $1.7 million estimate “is extremely rough.”

“They told me $1.7 million, and I got $1.7 million,” Haney told the paper. “I didn’t have the option of bringing home less of the bacon when it comes to building a toilet. A half a toilet or a toilet-maybe-someday is not much use to anyone.”

In an email to National Review Wednesday, the Recreation and Parks Department said it will consider various options for constructing the toilet, including installing a pre-fabricated restroom. The department said it budgets for the worst-case scenario, so it estimates high. “In the end, the project may well be delivered for far less [than $1.7 million]with leftover funding put toward further improvements or maintenance,” the email stated.

San Francisco, which is struggling with a troubling homelessness and public-defecation crisis, needs more public toilets. A 2018 report in the Guardian questioned “Why is San Francisco … covered in human feces?” One city non-profit has turned old municipal buses into rolling showers and toilets to help with the problem.

San Francisco also has a history of overspending on seemingly mundane items. Last year, the city spent nearly a half-million dollars to develop new trash can prototypes because city leaders “weren’t happy with the look” of off-the-shelf cans.

Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to include additional details from a Recreation and Parks Department email received early Wednesday evening.

More from National Review

The post San Francisco to Spend $1.7 Million to Construct a Single Public Rest room appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

A single-toilet public restroom planned for San Francisco’s Noe Valley Town Square is expected to take two years to build, but it’s already causing a stink.

The reason: its $1.7 million price tag.

The estimated cost has garnered plenty of headlines for the restroom as well as some backlash from state officials who wanted a better explanation than what the city was giving.

The San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department admits the price tag for the single restroom is attention-grabbing, but officials promise the reason behind the estimate is “more nuanced and less sensational.”

The project is still in the early phase of its timeline and there are no designs for the proposed restroom at the town square, located in central San Francisco. The square hosts a Farmer’s Market and other popular events on weekends.

The proposed single toilet restroom would be in a 150-foot-square enclosure and is expected to be completed by 2025, according to the city.

“We will consider various options, including installing a pre-fabricated restroom,” the city’s parks department said in statement. “In the end, the project may well be delivered for far less, with leftover funding put toward further improvements or maintenance.”

“We estimate high — not because we want to spend more money, but because we want to ensure we can deliver projects to communities even if we are hit with unexpected costs,” officials said.

A planned ceremony for the restroom was canceled this week after Assemblyman Matt Haney (D-San Francisco), who secured state funding for the project, heard the city’s reasoning behind the high cost.

“The cost is insane. The process is insane. The amount of time it takes is insane,” Haney said.

The city explains that construction costs have risen in the last two years due to the pandemic, inflation and the global supply chain issues, according to the city’s statement. That includes a rise in costs for fuel, materials and hiring workers who can “earn a living wage and benefit.”

“That’s in a city that is the most expensive in the world in which to build,” the city said in its written statement.

The city is also concerned about unexpected costs from the utility company PG&E. In legal filings, the city and county claim PG&E has stalled numerous projects over the years as it forced its customers to purchase specialized equipment to handle large amounts of electricity.

San Francisco’s public utility owns a power supply system that is then sold to its customers, but the power lines are owned and maintained by PG&E. This January, a federal appeals court directed the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to reevaluate PG&E’s requirements for San Francisco customers, according to court documents.

When the town square opened in October 2015, the site featured plumbing for a bathroom, but no funding to build the facility, reports the San Francisco Chronicle.

Haney secured the necessary $1.7 million to build the restroom, which will go toward not just the construction, but also the planning, permits, reviews and management of the project, according to the city.

“They told me $1.7 million, and I got $1.7 million,” Haney said. “I didn’t have the option of bringing home less of the bacon when it comes to building a toilet. A half a toilet or a toilet-maybe-someday is not much use to anyone.”

The project’s 2025 completion timeline would factor in time for architectural plans to be drawn up and time for community feedback. Eventually, the project would make its way to the city’s Recreation and Park Commission and then the San Francisco County Board of Supervisors.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

The post San Francisco plans to spend 2 years, $1.7 million to construct single-toilet public restroom appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

Evidently no longer content to flush public money down just any old toilet, the city of San Francisco is upping its toilet game and is prepared to spend up to $1.7 million to build a single commode in one neighborhood plaza.

City leaders are slated to gather Wednesday afternoon at the Noe Valley Town Square to officially announce a “$1.7 Million state budget win” to build a toilet there, according to an online event schedule. The proposed facility would include just one toilet in a 150-foot space, according to a new report by San Francisco Chronicle columnist Heather Knight.

The city’s Recreation and Parks Department and the Department of Public Works, which will work together to build the pricey potty, expect it will take three years to complete.

San Francisco tops the list of the world’s most expensive cities to build in, and the proposed million-dollar toilet helps explain why. While construction costs everywhere have risen over the past couple of years due to inflation and supply-chain challenges, the process to install a single toilet in a San Francisco plaza that already has plumbing includes a maze of planning, permitting, reviews, and public outreach , according to the Chronicle report.

First, an architect needs to draw plans for the toilet, which will then be presented to the public for feedback. The Arts Commission’s Civic Design Review committee will be responsible for conducting a “multi-phase review” of the project, like it does for all projects on public lands. According to the Arts Commission’s website, “the committee evaluates each project’s design, scale and massing for accessibility, safety and aesthetic merit.” The review process “ensures that each project’s design is appropriate to its context in the urban environment, and that structures of the highest design quality reflect their civic stature.”

Before the project is put out for bid, it will be subject to review under the California Environmental Quality Act, according to the Chronicle. The public toilet will be built by union workers who will “earn a living wage and benefits,” according to a joint statement from Rec and Parks Department and the Department of Public Works, which added that, “While this isn’t the cheapest way to build, it reflects San Francisco’s values.”

Story continues

California Assemblyman Matt Haney, who secured the $1.7 million funding from the state to install the toilet, told the Chronicle he requested that sum because that’s what the Rec and Parks Department told him the going rate for a public bathroom was. The city said the $1.7 million estimate “is extremely rough.”

“They told me $1.7 million, and I got $1.7 million,” Haney told the paper. “I didn’t have the option of bringing home less of the bacon when it comes to building a toilet. A half a toilet or a toilet-maybe-someday is not much use to anyone.”

San Francisco, which is struggling with a troubling homelessness and public-defecation crisis, needs more public toilets. A 2018 report in the Guardian questioned “Why is San Francisco … covered in human feces?” One city non-profit has turned old municipal buses into rolling showers and toilets to help with the problem.

San Francisco also has a history of overspending on seemingly mundane items. Last year, the city spent nearly a half-million dollars to develop new trash can prototypes because city leaders “weren’t happy with the look” of off-the-shelf cans.

More from National Review

The post San Francisco to Spend $1.7 Million to Construct a Single Public Rest room appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

With $122 million projected to be spent on affordable housing over the next 15 years, South San Francisco officials have begun to figure out how the city’s supply of below-market homes will grow amid deteriorating housing affordability can be best strengthened on the peninsula.

The money is expected to come in via fees the city charges commercial developers looking to build in the city — mostly biotech developments it plans to roll out incrementally over the next few years. Officials said they plan to spend the bulk of the funds for acquiring land for the construction of residential buildings below the market price.

Deanna Talavera

“These funds must be spent to support our ultra-low, very low and middle-income households,” said Deanna Talavera, an analyst with the city’s Department of Economic Development and Housing.

By acquiring land, the city hopes to attract developers who specialize in creating affordable housing by reducing project costs. The city has already begun using surplus city property for this purpose, including last year when it sold a $1 lot to a developer to build 82 affordable senior-citizen units.

“One of the biggest barriers to building and securing housing is securing the land,” Talavera said. “Having enough money to be able to track these sites is an important tool.”

City projections suggest that $16 million could be spent on land acquisitions by 2024 and $60 million by 2027. The funding stream, called Commercial Linkage Fees, charges a fee of $16.55 per square foot for office and biotech projects. The fees were approved by City Council in 2018 to help offset displacement caused by the area’s job and housing imbalance.

The fee is often in the tens of millions for large developments similar to those proposed at several locations east of Highway 101. Unlike traditional impact fees that are earmarked for infrastructure or city services, the money must be used solely for housing construction. According to the city, the fund is currently worth $5.5 million.

Other suggested uses of the money include $15 million through 2027 to provide gap financing in the form of low-interest, long-term loans to support affordable development funding. An additional $5 million was recommended for preserving existing affordable housing, some of which may face the expiry of deed restrictions that would return the units to market price.

The city’s Assistance Housing Program, which provides resources to homeowners to help them build such homes on their lots, could also get $2.5 million. Half a million could flow into the city’s existing rental subsidy program.

Among other issues discussed was the feasibility of building city property and operating housing, which Councilor James Coleman urged last year. Traditionally, below-market projects, while supported by city funds, are owned and operated by non-profit developers who specialize in the task.

Nell Selander, director of the Department of Economic and Community Development, said creating city-owned and operated units would likely cost the city three times as much as units built using the traditional method. The most recent 456 affordable units built in the city cost taxpayers $27,000 per unit, she said.

The staff suggested that going forward, city property should be retained by the city and leased to developers rather than being sold. Selander said such an arrangement, while potentially less attractive to developers, would ensure the properties continue to be used for affordable housing and generate ongoing revenue. Typical charter restrictions that require units to be listed with rents below market price expire after 55 years.

The recommendations have been reviewed by the City Planning Commission and will be submitted to City Council for approval.

According to the cities’ Regional Housing Needs Allocation, a state law that dictates how much housing Bay Area cities must build in eight-year increments, South San Francisco must allow for 2,093 units of affordable housing between 2023 and 2031. Units are required to be divided into three categories, with rents of $1,713, $2,741 and $3,426 or under for a one bedroom unit.

corey@smdailyjournal.com

(650) 344-5200, ext. 105

The post South San Francisco has $122M to spend on housing over subsequent 15 years | Native Information appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

The European Commission has approved a Romanian plan to spend EUR 254 million of its Structural Funds on repairing Bucharest’s city-wide district heating system

Bucharest has a total of 950 km of main lines and almost 3,000 km of secondary lines, which supply 1.2 million people in 562,000 apartments in 8,200 apartment blocks. It is the second largest district heating system in the world after Moscow.

In 2019, it was found that Radet, the state-owned company that operates the facility, was losing up to 2,000 tons of hot water per hour (see further reading).

Ciprian Ciucu, a member of the Bucharest City Council, commented at the time: “The Radet network is in a very poor condition and therefore the pressure has to be increased so that the heat can reach the houses. And when the pressure increases, other damage occurs. It is a doom-loop.”

The problems have persisted ever since. According to the Romania Insider website, thousands of households in Bucharest were without heating or hot water for several days in a row due to burst pipes and power failures.

The repair job aims to restore the integrity of the pipes that distribute the hot water. In particular, the main heat transfer pipes will be renewed, with around 10% of the total length of the network being renewed.

Margrethe Vestager, Executive Vice President of the European Commission, commented: “This 254 million.”

Image: Radet workers on duty in Bucharest (Radets)

Continue reading:

The post Bucharest to spend €250m on world’s largest plumbing job appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

South San Francisco officials stand ready to pass a budget limited by the economic damage associated with the pandemic but backed by a hefty reserve fund.

The South San Francisco City Council held a meeting on Tuesday, June 15,

With travel restrictions affecting the local tourism and hotel industries, officials expect a loss in annual income that will result in a slight deficit of about $ 2.5 million.

The gap between the proposed $ 112 million in spending and nearly $ 109.5 million in revenue can be made with a portion of the city’s $ 6.1 million in government pandemic aid or $ 56.8 million to be closed to the city’s reserves.

In terms of revenue, officials expect growth across the board in most major sources such as sales tax, which is expected to raise $ 19.4 million in the coming fiscal year, about $ 1 million more than last year.

Similarly, officials estimate the hotel tax will raise $ 7 million in the coming year, up $ 1.1 million from last year when travel bans nearly destroyed the local tourism industry. While growth is forecast, the total expected for the coming year is roughly half of what was received in the 2019-2020 budget year before the public health crisis.

“It shows the amazing impact COVID is having on our hotel and tourism industries,” said Finance Director Janet Salisbury.

South San Francisco expects property taxes to be around $ 41 million in the coming fiscal year, a slight decrease from $ 43 million last year.

Salisbury attributed the loss to the state’s contribution to vehicle registration fees, but noted that continued investment in the city’s biotech sector east of Highway 101 was a major source of income in South San Francisco.

In terms of savings, $ 24 million is held in general fund reserves, $ 20 million is held for capital projects, $ 5.5 million is held for pension obligations, and $ 6.7 million is unallocated.

The financial flexibility caused some council members to look for opportunities for additional investment.

To that end, Vice Mayor Mark Nagales questioned the city’s schedule for hiring an equity officer, which is a proposal from the Racial and Social Justice Subcommittee.

City manager Mike Futrell said two candidates are being hired for the year as consultants and could be permanent next year. However, he said officials were reluctant to hire new full-time workers until the local economy fully recovered from the pandemic.

Nagales, for his part, said he was satisfied with the proposal as long as there was an obligation to recruit the Equity Officer.

“I think it is important to continue the work that the Commission has started,” he said.

Nagales also asked if officials could find extra space in the budget to provide a grant to the Chamber of Commerce.

Nagales noted that chamber staff hours were reduced due to financial difficulties following the pandemic and reached a consensus with his colleagues to help the organization support local businesses.

Officials agreed, suggesting that a grant of roughly $ 10,000-15,000, similar to the amount given to local small businesses during the pandemic, would be appropriate.

“I think if they are asking for help and have been part of our arm to help small businesses in our community, I think it is our responsibility to help them as best we can,” he said.

The post South San Francisco appears to be like to spend after finances dinged by COVID | Native Information appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

In 2018, San Francisco voters passed Proposition C, a measure that taxes the city’s largest corporations to fund services for the homeless. The campaign to pass the measure has been bumpy: it split tech companies and city leaders, including Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, who argued San Francisco’s largest corporations could afford the tax hike, and Mayor London Breed, who suggested the city give theirs existing homelessness spending before you double the money. For years since it was passed, the controversial business tax has been embroiled in a lawsuit that has withheld millions of dollars from the city.

Now the funds have finally been released and it is an unprecedented sum: $ 800 million. Combined with one-time federal and local funds, San Francisco now has over $ 1 billion available for homeless services, increasing the city’s stake to make a noticeable difference in one of its most persistent problems.

The department believed to benefit most from this budgetary benefit is San Francisco’s Homelessness and Supportive Housing Department, under the new director Shireen McSpadden, who took over the reins last May. McSpadden joins Fifth & Mission podcast host Cecilia Lei to talk about how Prop C funds could make a difference to San Francisco, even as the city’s spending on homelessness has been booming in recent years.

Listen to the full interview on the podcast player above or read a transcript below of Cecilia Lei’s interview with Shireen McSpadden, director of the San Francisco Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing, for clarity.

CECILIA LEI: This department that you now lead was founded in 2016, but has struggled in the past to make significant progress despite having expanded budgets beforehand. How can San Francisco taxpayers be sure the Department can handle this really large sum of Proposition C now, right?

SHIREEN MCSPADDEN: One of the things I’ve noticed in the few months I’ve been in the department is the incredible under-equipping of the department. It struggled a little at first and of course was hit by a lot of mandates to accommodate people and do some of the other things it has to do. And it’s really difficult because the budget has grown to be able to provide the infrastructure necessary to make all of these things happen.

One of the really exciting things about the mayor’s two-year budget, along with the props dollars – the Our City, Our Home dollars – is that we are now going to have funds to really build that infrastructure and really build the homelessness response system the way it is set up got to. I’ve seen staff who are very, very dedicated and very open and very compassionate about homelessness and really want to help people and get them into homes. And they have been struggling with hours and hours of overwork, you know, definitely [a] System problems where we don’t have people in the right place at the right time. We had fluctuations due to this workload problem. And we are now because we’ve seen 62% growth since 2019-20. And with our budget, we now have the opportunity to really make change within the department, which ultimately makes us more effective at getting people into apartments and really moving the needle in San Francisco.

CECILIA LEI: You just mentioned the workload as part of the improvements you want to make. What are some of the other important improvements you want to make in the department?

SHIREEN MCSPADDEN: One of the things I would like to do is improve the communication within our department, both internally and externally, and I would really love to work on the relationship we have with our community providers and the people we serve. to have . And I think some of the lack of communication is definitely an artifact of the fact that we’re understaffed, that we haven’t necessarily been able to invest in all the right places.

The other thing that I think is really crucial is that we are working on a strategic framework that was developed in 2016 and should guide us into the future. And we are now at the end of that process and ready to start a new strategic planning process. And I’m really looking forward to joining in with new resources at this point, with the opportunity to build up the infrastructure within the department and really get the community involved. And by community I don’t just mean our community providers, but people with lived experience. I also mean San Francisco residents. I mean, the different counties and the board of directors and the mayor’s office work together, along with some other key departments that really feed the homeless assistance system as well. So I see it as our city’s plan and not just the homeless department’s plan. We don’t own it. This is a citywide problem, a citywide challenge, and we must all work together to solve it.

CECILIA LEI: And what did we learn about what works in the fight against homelessness and how was this prioritized in Proposal C spending?

SHIREEN MCSPADDEN: One of the things that the Prop-C Committee did a really good job on is that it spent a lot of time looking at best practices around the country. You had some really important people on the committee who were very focused on that. They also spent a lot of time in social engagement. They gave us some really valuable information from parishioners all over the city, and based on that, made some important decisions. And I think it’s really revealing that the Prop-C Committee and the Mayor and our department got together and got a very high level of coordination on this funding.

CECILIA LEI: What are you most optimistic or enthusiastic about with regard to the priorities that are different than before?

SHIREEN MCSPADDEN: I think the biggest thing is simply the sheer amount of expansion that funding Our City, Our Home has allowed us to do. Our housing investments will create 2,500 or 3,000 new places for adults, families and young people in the transition phase over the next two years, which is enormous. I think we’re just going to see unprecedented funding that, in turn, will create housing for people.

And yes, we had that, but we haven’t had it at that level yet. We’ll also be able to spend a lot more on prevention, and that includes things like subsidies, behavioral health, and clinical services, what we call problem solving. I think this new funding allows us to bring together all the resources we need to help people. We are a Housing First city. We firmly believe that without housing, people cannot really improve their lives. It’s such a basic need. And yet we also know that they need other things in order to keep this apartment or to be able to get involved in the first place.

CECILIA LEI: It’s a $ 1 billion price tag and there is so much money involved and the department you run is also one of the few that has no oversight. What do you think of metrics for success and what will the progress be and how will this be communicated to the SF residents and taxpayers who care about this issue?

SHIREEN MCSPADDEN: I am impressed with what this department and what the city has done regarding homelessness, [but] Unfortunately, we don’t tell the story very well. And one of the things that we’re really working on right now is building our ability to tell our story and really keep track of the data the way we need to. One of the keys to doing this is really learning how to use metrics to show success. And we have a new system called the ONE system that really allows us to put data in one place. And we’re really working on building our planning and data reporting capabilities so we can get information out to the public as they need it.

We know people really want to see what changes on the street. And that’s not just what people or companies want to see. People who are homeless want to feel that, and people who are homeless in their own families or who are older or young people in transition, I mean, people need an apartment. They want to feel like the system is working for them. And we want to know that it is so.

CECILIA LEI: San Francisco is a leader in many ways. And I know other cities struggling with homelessness are looking to see how they’re spending the budget. This is a very big moment for San Francisco. Do you feel that way too?

SHIREEN MCSPADDEN: I do. I think this is a really good opportunity for San Francisco. I feel like people have laid all the building blocks to make it successful. And now we just have to do it. While the department struggled with insufficient resources, the public was struggling to see the change they would like to see. And our community providers are struggling with this department. I think everyone has good intentions and worked really hard to put these building blocks in place, and Our City, Our Home Dollars are a part of it, but they’re a big part of it, and they’re really going to help each other to reach the next level.

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