SAN FRANCISCO — San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie is trying to get more homes built for people like Liam Murphy: a fifth-generation city kid who found himself repeatedly outbid for tiny, two-bedroom houses that wound up selling for around $1.6 million.

Murphy, 39, now lives about an hour’s drive away from San Francisco, which he serves as a firefighter. He says it’s too late for his family to move back, but he hopes others can stay in a city where the average monthly rent for a one-bedroom apartment is $3,500.

“That would just make for a better city overall,” said Murphy, “and the reason is because city kids just grow up being exposed to more. They’re exposed to all the cultures of San Francisco, which makes a more well-rounded person.”

Tiny, colorful San Francisco — just seven miles squared — embraces its image as a city that welcomes all. But its inability to add housing has put its diversity at risk.

Lurie hopes to change that with a plan to allow for denser and taller buildings throughout much of the city, including the westside Sunset neighborhood of single-family homes and the tourist friendly Haight-Ashbury, which is studded with classic Victorian and Edwardian homes.

The issue has roiled the city, and threats of recall loom over San Francisco supervisors who go along with Lurie. At a recent housing rally, the mayor who won a rare reprieve from President Donald Trump’s threats to send in federal forces struggled to be heard over angry chants of “shame” and “liar.”

Protesters demanded the city invest in 100 percent below-market-rate housing and accused Lurie of being a gentrifier and a Republican.

“I truly believe that this has San Franciscans’ best interests at heart,” said Lurie, who is a centrist Democrat. “Are some people going to be fearful? Absolutely. I get it. Change is scary. But the status quo is not working. There’s an affordability crisis right now.”

The city’s estimated 830,000 residents are passionate about both land use and equity. Housing projects have died as pressure to create more affordable units made potential developments unprofitable. Residents also want their stunning views.

But San Francisco is under pressure from the state to adopt a new zoning plan allowing for 36,000 more homes by 2031 — or else the state will decide what gets built where — and the mayor likely has the votes to pass his “Family Zoning Plan.”

Supporters say it’s a matter of supply and demand, and that more homes will bring down the overall cost of housing.

Critics say such trickle-down economics will not work in a city like San Francisco, which is in such global demand that some foreign investors buy properties sight unseen. They say developers will only build luxury housing that’s too costly for most workers, while displacing tenants and destroying entire neighborhoods’ character.

“There’s a herd of elephants in the room that no one will address,” said Eric Jaye, a Democrat and a political consultant who opposes the plan.

Much of the housing push has come from Democrats, including a former city mayor, Gov. Gavin Newsom, who signed into law a proposal by San Francisco state Sen. Scott Wiener to build more homes near transit.

The city has made enormous strides in recent years, with whole districts of tall condo buildings cropping up around downtown, said Rafael Mandelman, president of the Board of Supervisors. But he acknowledges that people come to San Francisco for its more intimate neighborhoods and access to green space.

“San Francisco, historically, was the city for people who didn’t love cities,” Mandelman said.

Katherine Roberts, 72, initially welcomed construction of an affordable housing complex near the three-story Edwardian home she labored to buy in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood two decades ago. But at eight stories, the 160-unit building has shattered her peace of mind, dominating her view.

“I’m looking out and it’s like I’m living in East Germany,” she said. “How can you build something this inappropriate in a historic neighborhood like the Haight-Ashbury? What about all the people who already live here? What are we supposed to do?”

For the most part, the new zoning plan allows for more housing to be packed into the space of a single-family home — say a duplex with a studio — without exceeding the city’s height limit of roughly four stories for such properties. At least 15 percent of new housing must be below market rate.

Buildings in neighborhood commercial corridors could be up to eight stories. Busier thoroughfares could see high-rises of 10 stories or taller, and in a few spots, on Van Ness Avenue, heights could hit 650 feet, rivaling some downtown skyscrapers.

Passage of Lurie’s proposal won’t necessarily lead to more homes in a city with high labor and construction costs and “notoriously complex and cumbersome” approval processes, as the state indicated in a scathing 2023 review.

And so city dwellers make do with overcrowded — and sometimes awkward — living situations.

Laura Foote, executive director of YIMBY Action, wound up living with the man who is now her husband — and the woman he was divorcing — in a one-bedroom apartment for about six months, until his ex could find another rental.

“We didn’t kill each other,” Foote said, “but it went on longer than it would have in a well-functioning housing market.”

Supervisors are still negotiating amendments to the zoning plan, which is still under review by the board’s Land Use and Transportation Committee. Some supervisors want to exempt historic properties, or all buildings currently used for housing. The mayor agreed to exempt buildings with at least three rent-controlled units.

The compromise was a major relief for Phyllis Nabhan, 78, who lives in the Richmond neighborhood, between the Golden Gate Bridge and Golden Gate Park. She fears becoming homeless if a developer scoops up the property she’s called home for 47 years.

But Nabhan still objects to the proposal because she says it would ruin her neighborhood’s “cozy and wonderful” feel. She blames the state for forcing the city to change.

“I think that this mayor is trying,” she said. “It’s a horrible job; I wouldn’t want to be mayor.”

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SAN FRANCISCO — California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday urged cities to clear homeless encampments, escalating once again his efforts to address an intractable issue of his time in office: the makeshift tents that line many underpasses, parks and local streets in the state.

Newsom’s administration drafted a local law that counties, cities and towns can directly adopt or modify to achieve the Democrat’s goals. He’s also releasing $3.3 billion in voter-approved funds to expand housing opportunities and treatment options for homeless residents.

“The time for inaction is over,” he stated. “There are no more excuses.”

Newsom, a former mayor of San Francisco, made tackling homelessness a priority of his administration when he took office in 2019. Other Democrats in government have since joined the effort to crack down on encampments. More than 187,000 Californians need housing; the state has one quarter of the nation’s homeless population.

With tents lining streets and disrupting businesses in numerous urban areas, homelessness has become one of the most pressing public health and safety issues in California and one sure to dog Newsom if he runs for national office.

His declaration comes a year after the U.S. Supreme Court made it easier for officials to ban homeless individuals from camping outside in public. It was a ruling welcomed by many Democratic leaders, including Newsom, despite critics describing the decision by the conservative court as cruel.

The key provisions of the model ordinance announced Monday include prohibitions on “persistent camping” in one location, a ban on encampments that block sidewalks and a requirement that local officials provide notice and make every reasonable effort to identify and offer shelter prior to clearing an encampment.

Providing a ready-made local law could bring uniformity to how cities and counties deal with encampments though Newsom is urging local officials to modify his proposal as needed.

Major cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco have already started clearing out encampments, saying they are not fair to children, seniors and people with disabilities who need access to sidewalks and parks.

San Francisco’s new mayor, Daniel Lurie, pledged to clean up city sidewalks. Meanwhile, in San José, Mayor Matt Mahan has proposed arrests if a person refuses shelter three times. Both cities have ramped up the number of shelter beds available, so more people have somewhere to go.

In Los Angeles, first-term Mayor Karen Bass, a Democrat, has made clearing encampments a priority. But sagging tents, makeshift shelters and rusting RVs remain an all-too-common sight in just about every neighborhood. An annual tally last year estimated that more than 45,000 city residents were homeless.

Efforts to reduce homelessness are facing increased stress, as the city contends with a nearly $1 billion projected budget gap along with the massive and costly job of rebuilding the Pacific Palisades neighborhood that was destroyed in a January wildfire.

Bass’ office did not promptly respond to a message sent Monday seeking comments on Newsom’s announcement.

Critics say there is no evidence that punitive policies reduce homelessness, and camping bans make it harder to link people up with stable housing and employment. People may lose critical documents or contact with a case manager, forcing them to start all over again, according to the National Alliance to End Homelessness.

The California State Association of Counties stated that the state has not provided as much money to address homelessness as it says it has, and that half of the money has gone to housing developers.

In 2024, California voters approved a measure that imposes strict requirements on counties to spend money on housing and drug treatment programs to tackle the homelessness crisis. It was a signature proposal for Newsom, who campaigned for the measure’s passage.

Under the measure, counties are required to spend about two-thirds of the money from a voter-approved tax enacted in 2004 on millionaires for mental health services on housing and programs for homeless people with serious mental illnesses or substance abuse problems.

The governor has also pushed for laws that make it easier to force people with behavioral health issues into treatment. And he has repeatedly threatened to withhold state money from cities and counties that do not step up to address homelessness.

But despite the roughly billions of dollars spent on more than 30 homeless and housing programs during the 2018-2023 fiscal years, California does not have reliable data needed to fully understand why the problem didn’t improve in many cities, according to a 2024 state audit.

The audit found California spent $24 billion to tackle homelessness over the previous five years but did not consistently track whether the huge outlay of public money improved the situation.

Editor’s note: Associated Press writers Christopher Weber and Michael R. Blood in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

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