Rents are sky-high in SF because it is very hard to build new housing, due to laws like this. It's sad to see the city turn into a weird hostile clusterfuck split between people paying 5k a month and $200 a month, clinging onto rent control, due to this kind of obstructionist NIMBYism. It could be a metropolis with enough housing for everyone. I say, if you don't want to live in the city and deal with the constant change that has been a part of cities since cities were invented, then you shouldn't live in the city. -Jehan On Fri, Mar 21, 2014 at 10:38 AM, Yar <yardenack(a)gmail.com> wrote:

Jehan, and everybody I don't really have an opinion about the evictions/ rent control side of the story, but I do feel strongly about the difficulty of building new side of the story. It turns out that having real live humans that want to see more housing built appear at planning commission hearings in support of specific projects is Super Helpful. I made an organization about it. SF Bay Area Renters Federation. (get it!?) Here is the website I made: www.sfbarf.org. Here is our FB page: https://www.facebook.com/BARentersFed 100 units here, 50 units there, people are trying to build in SF, and many projects are abandoned or downsized because NIMBY neighbors show up to the planning dpt opposing the new construction. The people that benefit from new construction are dispersed. We complain about the housing crunch on FB, and on message boards, but we usually don't know when and where to show up to make an effective statement. I'm trying to change that!!! This Thursday - March 27th - we are going to the planning commission around 1:30 in the afternoon to support 96 new units at 3rd and Mariposa in Dogpatch. If you work for yourself, make a date and come with me please! If you work for someone else, take a beautiful afternoon off! (that's what I'm doing) On Fri, Mar 21, 2014 at 10:47 AM, Jehan Tremback <jehan.tremback(a)gmail.com