New Affordable Housing Being Built on Stanyan

HAIGHT ASHBURY – New affordable housing is being built on Stanyan across from Golden Gate Park and next to Amoeba on Haight St.where a Mcdonald’s and a parking lot used to be. 

730 Stanyan under construction on Nov. 23, 2024 (Photo by Paul Singh)

The affordable housing project is called 730 Stanyan. It will compose 43 one bedroom units, 42 two bedroom units, 40 three bedroom units and 35 studio units. There will be 12 units for homeless families and 32 units will be supported by Project Based Vouchers (PBV) which is government assistance to make housing more affordable. The affordable housing development plans to be completed by fall 2025. 

A worker for Dean Prescott tweeted, “730 Stanyan is 100% affordable and looking great! Thank you for the 160 new homes, Dean Preston!”

The site where the affordable housing complex is being built was a location of a Mcdonald`s and a parking lot. 

SF Department of Building Inspection tweeted, “From burgers to bedrooms! DBI Inspector Ed Kelly conducts a plumbing inspection on a 100% affordable housing project at the former McDonald’s at 730 Stanyan Street in Haight-Ashbury. Thank you Ed for ensuring the plumbing meets safety and compliance standards.” 

The development was endorsed by District 5 Supervisor Dean Preston, Housing Action Coalition advocating for building homes for all levels of affordability, Chinatown Community Development Center with 38 properties in all city neighborhoods providing housing to over 5,000 people and Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation, a mission-led and value-driven community.

An update on construction regarding the facade of the building. TNDC tweeted, “Facade Installation Underway for 730 Stanyan Street in Haight-Ashbury, San Francisco” 

Local business owner said that this new affordable housing complex could benefit businesses along with the people who could start to live in affordable housing. 

“I mean for me I think we need more housing in this area. Yeah, I think it’s, it’s good that we’re gonna be able to have more people living in the neighborhood. I think it’ll be good for business. I think it’d be good for people living there. So for me I, I support it. I don’t see any downfalls for it,” Peterson Harter, owner of Sandy`s said. 

The 730 Stanyan affordable housing project could benefit San Francisco State University students since finding a place to live in San Francisco can be pretty expensive, some students are living in trailers around campus. 

“Around campus there’s a lot of like trailer parks or just trailers that belong to students who don’t have proper funds for housing,” Max Vegetti, barista at Cantata Cafe and SF State Cinema major, said. 

When people find out about a potential solution to reduce homelessness, people will have a positive outlook for it because they want to see the homeless not struggling. 

“To be honest, I don’t know a whole lot about it. But if I know that homeless is going to be less and people are going to be taken care of and people who are in need are getting needs met, I am very happy that that would be happening. I don’t know too much about it to say necessarily if it’s great government decision or however, but I just know if people are being helped and people who are in need are getting needs that they things they need, then that’s great,” Luke Choate from near Mount Shasta said.

The view of the new housing building on Stanyan St. on Nov. 23, 2024 (Photo by Paul Singh)

The controversial issue about this affordable housing initiative is that it could be a set of modern buildings being built for the homelessness but has the potential to not be used. 

“I think it’s progressively getting more and more out of hand and I think more action could be done to better that situation. I think with the building that’s being built on this canyon as well as a lot of the more modern kind of high rise apartments that are being built in South Elsa and kind of more downtown down or where they’re trying to I guess improve the Tenderloin or Tender Knob area. Most of the housing is very unused and most people currently living in those units because of the price point that they are for location and what’s offered. And so you spend millions and almost billions of dollars building all of these apartments and housing for virtually no one to live in,” Tate Anderson at Doc Martens said. 

According to SF.GOV charts show since 2019, the number of people living in vehicles decreased by 20%, but increased by 37% from 2022. There are 4,354 unsheltered people counted, a 1% decrease since 2022 and a 16% decrease since 2019. There are more unsheltered than sheltered homeless youth since 2019. The unsheltered homeless youth population decreased by 9% while the sheltered homeless youth increased by 76% between 2022 and 2024. Sheltering homeless youth is an important initiative due to the potential habits they could pick up from being on the streets. 

“It’s important. I think it’s a good thing because the sooner you get off the street, the better. The longer you’re there, you learn some bad habits that come in the form of survival, but also, you know, usually against the law. You know, people don’t understand. You know the streets until you’re on them. I didn’t. And, you know, it’s. It’s there. There’s not a lot of forgiveness out there. So the younger, you know, that you are, you need to. Yeah. Get them. Get them up the street before they learn the bed,” Jeremy Earhart, former carpenter said. 

Overall, this affordable housing development has many benefits. It could benefit business owners along with the people possibly living in the project. It can also benefit SFSU students since some might struggle to find a place to live due to how expensive an apartment or living in the dorms can be. The 730 Stanyan could help get homeless youth off the street preventing them from getting into bad habits to survive. Once the 730 Stanyan Project is completed, it will continue to reduce homelessness.