John Elberling, the longtime nonprofit housing leader who shaped South of Market for decades, has died at 79. And like most things in San Francisco housing politics, his legacy is anything but simple.

Elberling was, by virtually all accounts, a force of nature — a combative, politically savvy operator who dedicated his career to preserving affordable housing in SoMa. He earned genuine admirers for his tenacity in protecting low-income residents from displacement in a neighborhood that has seen wave after wave of development pressure. That commitment is worth acknowledging.

But here's where it gets complicated.

San Francisco's nonprofit housing ecosystem — the one Elberling helped build and wield as a political weapon — is also part of the reason this city's housing crisis is so intractable. For decades, nonprofit housing leaders accumulated enormous political influence, often using it to block or slow market-rate development that could have eased the crushing supply shortage driving rents skyward. The result? A city where everyone who isn't already locked into a subsidized unit or a rent-controlled apartment is getting squeezed.

Elberling was a power player in a system that conflated "affordable housing advocacy" with opposition to building more housing, period. The nonprofit-industrial complex he helped shape has given us a city with endless bureaucratic hurdles, community review processes weaponized against new construction, and a development timeline that would make a Soviet planner blush.

None of this is to say Elberling was a villain. Protecting vulnerable residents from displacement is a legitimate and important goal. But the political infrastructure he helped create often prioritized control over outcomes — and the outcome is a city where a one-bedroom apartment costs $3,000 a month.

You can honor someone's dedication while honestly assessing whether the system they built actually worked. San Francisco's housing numbers suggest it didn't — at least not for most people.

Rest in peace, Mr. Elberling. The debates you helped ignite are far from over.