Josh Wolf for Mayor

This is a summary of the questionnaire which consisted of yes/no answers

Josh is a renter. He owns no property and receives no income from real estate. He is not employed by nor affiliated in any way with any real estate broker or corporation or any real estate development firm.

• Josh thinks the SF rent control law is weak.
• He supports rent control on vacant units (vacancy rent control)
• He supports extending rent control to “new” (built after 1979) construction and would eliminate the new construction exemption entirely
• Josh does not support "means testing" whereby only tenants whose income or assets were below a certain level would be able to get rent control protection, with this stipulation:
  

  
  I’m a firm believer that all working people should be protected under rent control. If this certain level referenced were set at a high enough level that it only excluded the truly affluent renters then I might be in favor of such ‘means testing.’

• Josh does not support licensing landlords, with this additional comment: "Licensing landlords is appealing in that it would appear to provide more oversight to detect and deal with abuse, but it would also create a significant amount of bureaucracy for a license which would likely amount to nothing more than a rubber stamp."
• He does support an outright ban on the demolition of any rent controlled housing unit, unless that unit has been condemned.
• He also supports a requirement that any rent controlled unit demolished must be replaced on the same site with an affordable unit (affordable to someone making 50% of median) and that any displaced tenant must have the first right of refusal to that unit?
• He supports a moratorium on all condo conversions until eviction rates have declined.
• He supports legislation to ban evictions during the school year of families with school age children.
• Over 100 San Franciscans face foreclosure each [interval missing in original-ed]. Mostly these are low/moderate income households pushed into buying homes they could not afford. San Francisco advocates for home ownership to the point where evictions are encouraged in order to provide “home ownership opportunities.” As it turns out, these “opportunities” often end up in foreclosure for people who can’t afford to buy. At present only 10% of SF residents who do not own homes are able to afford them. Josh believes:
  

  We should recognize reality and preserve our existing rental housing and create more.

  The best solution to freeing tenants from their inequitable ties to their landlords is cooperative housing and collective ownership; the city should support this sustainable alternative.