When it comes to social problems facing our cities, homelessness commands much of the focus. Yet no astute observer could fail to have noticed that, in the last few years, San Francisco has become a gentrified, unaffordable enclave, steadily pricing out and shutting out not just the poor, but also the middle class.
Our cover story this week lays bare the stark impact rising housing prices have had on average San Franciscans, including members of the Jewish community. Apparently a family of four with an annual income of $100,000 cannot afford even a tiny one-bedroom apartment. Many have given up and are leaving the city that once boasted a strong working class. These are often young families, the next generation of our community.
Commendably, organizations such as the S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation, Jewish Family and Children’s Services and Shalom Bayit have done what they can to offer emergency assistance, subsidized child care and other forms of aid. This may help take some of the pressure off paying ever-escalating rents. Unfortunately, it adds up to only a drop in the bucket.
The squeeze is on. Young couples earning six figures between them are not normally seen as welfare cases, nor do they like to see themselves as such. Infirm seniors, the poor and the homeless still move to the front of the line. Meanwhile, a great city is losing good people because too few can afford housing.
Heading south, east or north won’t help much. Median home prices in Berkeley, Marin and Silicon Valley have risen dramatically as well. People must move farther away, and commute longer, just to keep pace.
There is no easy fix. In a free economy such as ours, we have little choice but to wait for market forces to shift enough to allow the middle class back in. Of course, San Francisco being the liberal bastion that it is, we may expect efforts to legislate solutions. It remains to be seen how effective that strategy will be.
Meanwhile, we applaud the efforts of our communal organizations to recognize the problem and provide what relief they can to struggling middle-class Jewish families. We urge our leadership to devote even greater attention to the needs of young families in particular — subsidized child care and scholarships to Jewish day schools are welcome indeed, but if a family can’t afford to live here, these subsidies become moot.
We add our voice to those who lament these changes to San Francisco. It’s a sad day, indeed, when a city like ours turns into a virtual gated community for the wealthy.