Thousands are on the streets, homeless in a city that has only become increasingly difficult to find housing in. San Francisco is a city with a diverse population it needs to cater to, but this struggle has only grown in recent years as the richest demographic becomes increasingly prevalent and powerful. Through lawsuits and lobbying, the rich of the city have managed to ensure that policy benefits them first.

With the demographics of the city being significantly in favor of the affluent, lobbying and lawsuits become an increasingly common solution to maintaining the status quo. In order to combat this slated demographic, San Francisco must implement measures that promote economic diversity.

According to research completed by the Henley and Partners firm, San Francisco is home to over 250,000 millionaires. The city’s propensity for attracting the richest in society is due to various factors, one of which being the exclusionary pricing of housing. The median house price is 1.2 million U.S. dollars, making it too expensive for most families in the United States to afford. Although there have been efforts to improve the housing prices, roadblocks make alleviating improvements difficult.

One of these roadblocks keeping prices high is the system in place for redevelopment and construction, which limits the housing supply. Developers trying to construct high density apartments will have to pay exorbitant fees and assessments in order to be approved, which leads to only the wealthiest being able to begin new construction projects, leading to disproportionately high amounts of luxury housing projects rather than affordable housing.

In an interview with Reason magazine, Robert Tillman described his political and legal struggles in getting his redevelopment project approved, spending over $1.2 million over five years. Both locals and politicians opposed his project, citing gentrification, even though his project was centered around more affordable housing, and no one was displaced in its construction.

Struggles with project approval are nothing new, as many projects die from the fees and requirements for new construction. “It probably takes close to a year to submit your plans,” Sean Keighran told the Market Urbanist. “Then you’re in planning for two years … so from the time you bought the land, five years (have) passed.”

Along with a system that prevents most affordable projects from becoming a reality, the city’s projects are shaped through legal battles with locals. In 2019, residents of a wealthy suburb in San Francisco raised over $60,000 for legal fees in order to block the creation of a homeless shelter. As reported by the Independent, the residents of the Embarcadero area raised the money in order to oppose a proposed homeless shelter in the area.

This behavior, often referred to as NIMBY, or not in my backyard, has become an increasingly difficult problem in San Francisco. The most wealthy of San Francisco have made any substantial changes to policy arduous and expensive. An increasing number of Silicon Valley billionaires have invested heavily into local politics, ensuring their lobbying dictates what is and is not possible in the city.

One of these political billionaires, Brian Chesky, is the CEO of Airbnb. He and his company have spent millions to ensure the longevity of Airbnb in San Francisco.

Business Insider reported that Airbnb’s political lobbying included over $8 million to prevent the passing of a ballot measure that would have restricted their business model. The business model in question, short-term rentals, is notorious for its negative impact on housing affordability and damaging effects on local communities.

With the struggles that have changed the demographics and future of the city, a movement has been growing to oppose the preservationist attitude of the rich. An increasing number of YIMBYs, or yes in my backyard, have rallied for improvements in San Francisco. Both politicians and middle-class citizens have been fighting for changes in a system designed against them, with progress slowly becoming apparent.

According to data provided by the city of San Francisco, strides have been made in the struggle against the homelessness problem. One solution in particular that has been effective and widely supported is the implementation of permanent supportive housing, which has been shown to help transition people out of homelessness. The city has built 3,081 of these permanent residencies, and is aiming for more. Although this is a promising direction for improvement, it is only a solution to a part of the problem that is homelessness.

In order for the city to reduce homelessness, it needs to improve on the construction and project approval process that has previously prevented efforts to lower the housing prices across the city. Progress in this regard has been made through legislative changes designed to streamline and hasten the process of redevelopment.

The process has been improved in part by SB35, a law that according to the San Francisco Chronicle, “overrides most of the appeals, delays, denials, lawsuits, and neighborhood negotiations that govern certain kinds of low-income affordable housing developments.” The measure was deemed a success, as approved projects skyrocketed with the time for their approval being cut down from eight years to a couple months.

With the overwhelming success of SB35, more improvements have been made through the introduction of another measure, SB423. This measure will further streamline and improve the process of apartment construction, something that will lower housing prices. SB423 will positively impact the homeless population.

Although there have been significant improvements in the systems that previously slowed down and ruined the viability of redevelopment, individual instances of NIMBYism continue to impact projects across not just San Francisco but the Bay Area as a whole. Current solutions only improve parts of the problem, and the underlying issue of a weighted economic demographic in the city has no easy solution, only mitigated by improving the city’s affordability and accessibility to other economic classes.

As more lower and middle-income citizens become able to afford housing in San Francisco, this will lead to a shift in demographics that will lessen the affluents’ control of the city. With a more balanced economic profile, San Francisco will become less susceptible to lobbying by wealthy locals. To accomplish this, both the city and the state as a whole need to continue improving legislation and regulations in favor of economic diversification. Ending control by the wealthy is possible but only through continuing to address the underlying issues that gave them leverage in the first place.