Prop. C On SF Ballot Would Tap Biggest Businesses To Raise Millions For Homeless

Source: Los Angeles Times, Kevin Fagan and Dominic Fracassa
Photo: Jacquelynn Evans-Gbogboade, homeless for 14 years, recently moved into this apartment with her 3-yearold son, Z’Allah Evans. It’s the first home she’s had since being kicked out of her foster home at age 18. (Scott Strazzante, The Chronicle)

That someday may finally come, he said, if Proposition C passes on Nov. 6.

Opponents of the measure, which would tax the city’s biggest businesses to raise hundreds of millions of dollars for homeless programs, say officials ought to do a better job of allocating the money already earmarked for homeless services. They also say the tax would drive jobs out of San Francisco and hurt the city’s thriving economy.

But for Williamson and many others who want to get off the streets, Prop. C is the most promising thing they’ve heard about in a long time.

“Actually getting help to rent a place? Getting off the streets for real? It sounds like an impossible dream,” the retired mover-hauler said the other day as he locked his van near Potrero Hill to grab lunch at a soup kitchen. “That proposition might really make a difference. None of us wants to be out here.”

Homelessness is the city’s most pressing problem — thousands of people sleep huddled in alleyways and drift along sidewalks, many addled by addiction and mental illness. And despite the city spending just over $300 million a year, it’s never enough to bring them all inside at once.

Prop. C proposes to fix that by raising $250 million to $300 million beginning in 2019 — the most money ever infused into the city’s homeless programs. Spurred by the obvious urgency of San Francisco’s homelessness crisis, it’s become the highest-profile election issue in years.

Also referred to as the “Our City, Our Home” initiative, Prop. C would impose an average of about 0.5 percent in gross receipts tax on corporate revenue above $50 million. As many as 400 companies in the city would be affected.

That, proponents say, could fund a range of initiatives, including housing for at least 5,000 people, 1,000 new emergency shelter beds and mental health programs for hundreds of desperate street people.

The proposition needs one vote over 50 percent approval to pass, but proponents are pushing for two-thirds to avoid legal challenges from those who say 50 percent is not enough under state law.

If it passes, the measure would represent not just the biggest injection of money for homelessness programs in San Francisco’s history, but the biggest shakeup in homeless programs since former Mayor Gavin Newsom’s voter-approved “Care Not Cash” program began diverting millions of welfare dollars into indigent housing in 2004.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/Prop-C-on-SF-ballot-would-tap-biggest-businesses