SFAA President Eric Andresen honored Scott Wiener of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors with this year’s President’s Award. Wiener, who represents District 8 (which includes, among other neighborhoods, the Castro, Noe Valley and parts of Mission-Dolores) has been on the Board of Supervisors since 2010 and has worked tirelessly to address San Francisco’s housing shortage crisis. Andresen cited Wiener’s history of collaboration with the San Francisco Apartment Association, his ability to bring diverse constituents together to create housing solutions and his LGBT community work as the factors that led to the supervisor winning this year’s award.
Wiener has authored a plethora of housing-related legislation during his two terms on the board. These include legislation providing a density bonus for new developments that include affordable units; legislation allowing the addition of in-law units; “micro-unit” legislation; and the Good Samaritan program, which allows interested landlords to provide temporary emergency housing to tenants who have been displaced by disasters. (For more on the Good Samaritan program and how to get involved, please see the feature on page 16 of this issue.)
Accepting his award, Wiener spoke of coming to San Francisco in the nineties as a young gay man and being able to rent an affordable apartment in the heart of the Castro. “I’d like for a young gay man—or straight woman—arriving in San Francisco today to be able to make a home like I did.” Wiener also expressed the need to work together to solve San Francisco’s housing crisis, stating that collaboration and cooperation between government and the seemingly disparate landlord and tenant communities is what crafting sustainable solutions requires.