SAN FRANCISCO — Mayor Daniel Lurie of San Francisco on Thursday declared a rent emergency and proposed several actions to combat evictions as residents face a deepening housing crisis amid the artificial intelligence boom.

Lurie’s emergency declaration will not allow him to bypass laws and regulations the way a disaster declaration might. But Lurie told The New York Times that it was a way to focus city leaders’ attention on the matter.

Lurie said he will throw his support behind several legislative actions that forestall evictions by an extra month, limit the size of allowable rent increases and increase funding for nonprofit lawyers working on eviction cases.

“There are too many people who are asking if they can still afford to live here,” he said. “Our city is finally moving in the right direction, but we need to build a recovery that reaches everyone, including the working-class people who make San Francisco run.”

The renewal of San Francisco has coincided with a huge injection of tech wealth, and rents are spiking more than anywhere else in the country, according to the mayor’s office. In the past year alone, the median rent has soared more than 25%, and an average one-bedroom unit now tops more than $4,000 per month.

San Francisco has long had high housing costs, but the current atmosphere has been unusually difficult for residents to navigate. The housing frenzy has become so extreme that some landlords and apartment owners have offered tens of thousands of dollars to encourage longtime residents to leave their rent-controlled apartments.

Landlords have initiated more than 2,400 evictions since January, according to the Eviction Defense Collaborative, a tenants rights group, putting the city on pace to see more renters cast out this year than during any year in the past decade.

Housing cost concerns have gripped large cities around the country, and some have responded in more dramatic fashion than others.

In New York City, Mayor Zohran Mamdani this year froze rents for 1 million residents in rent-stabilized apartments. Santa Fe, New Mexico, last year became the first city in the country to factor in rent prices when calculating its local minimum wage. Last month, Seattle banned rental “junk fees,” such as extra charges for pets or package deliveries, requiring one upfront price instead.

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Heather Knight
c. 2026 The New York Times Company