Shahram Shariati was born in California. He earned a graduate degree from the California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo in 2010. His career experience includes working as a civil engineer and owner of a real estate company. Shariati has worked with the city of San Francisco's affordable first-time homebuyer program.[1]
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Shahram Shariati completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2024. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Shariati's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
Shahram grew up in a government employed household. His mom retires next year after serving as a USPS mail carrier for over 20 years. His dad retired during the pandemic after working at the famous maximum security prison in Folsom. Both parents instilled the importance of helping the community and not judging anyone by their past.
Now, the baton has passed down to Shahram who has worked for the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency for 10 years and San Francisco's Mayor's Office of Housing for 8 years. His work consists of designing infrastructure for sustainable modes of transportation and helping first time homebuyers navigate the below market rate program.
Shahram attended California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo and earned three degrees over the course of six years. He possesses a Bachelor of Science and Masters of Science degree in civil engineering, focusing on urban planning, environmental studies, and transportation. The third is a Master of Business Administration degree. In addition, Shahram possesses a California Real Estate Agent license. The MBA and licenses have allowed Shahram to start his own real estate business.
Shahram's diverse background aligns perfectly with the qualities a mayor should possess. Having worked closely with the everyday problems facing our city, Shahram has developed solutions to address them
Shahram discovered a loophole in the red tape, allowing him to bypass the legislative process and provide 8,000 shelters for the homeless in under a year using secondhand cruise ships. A cruise ship is essentially a floating city, where everyone has their own private room and bathroom, with access to a cafeteria, medical facilities, and job training centers.
San Antonio and Austin, Texas, have built such facilities within their jurisdictions, and both report over an 80% success rate in helping the homeless population reintegrate into society. In contrast, San Francisco currently has a 27% success rate, as there is no facility in California that offers housing, food, medical care, and job training all in one place like the ones in Texas.
Shahram is the only mayoral candidate actively promoting homeownership for San Francisco residents. The city currently has an affordable housing program for first-time buyers, offering up to $500,000 for a down payment if you earn less than $200,000 annually and live or work in San Francisco.
Shahram used this program eight years ago to buy his home for $245,000. His mortgage and HOA fees combined are still less than market rate rents.
As a licensed real estate agent, he's spent the last eight years helping others take advantage of this program, recognizing that few agents in the city are familiar with it.
Shahram plans to expose the entire San Francisco government to the world because he has nothing to hide. He is promoting a documentary series where every elected and appointed official will be on camera during his term as mayor. This will force people to choose between two options:
Quit if they have something illegal to hide.
Do the right thing to keep their job and/or get reelected.
Each episode will focus on a different topic, such as homelessness, accounting audits, building permits, etc., along with follow-up episodes on actions taken to improve the system. Shahram believes this approach will help clear up corruption in San Francisco in record time.
The areas of public policy that Shahram is most passionate about are housing, climate change, safety, and building/business permits. A city needs strong public policies in these four areas to maintain a robust and lasting economy.
Shahram recommends people to watch the documentary called "Beyond Homeless: Finding Hope" on YouTube , "Unlocked" on Netflix and "How to Change Your Mind" on Netflix.
Shahram believes that transparency is the most important principle for an elected official. This single principle could solve many issues that plague the entire United States. Few people are satisfied with their elected officials.
The media plays a significant role in politics, but they are often not transparent in their coverage. Shahram attended a San Francisco Chronicle event with 200 people in attendance. The political writers informed the audience that they could rank up to 10 candidates in the upcoming San Francisco mayoral election, but only discussed five.
When the two SF Chronicle political writers were asked why it costs $50,000 for a candidate to be mentioned in their poll and have articles written about them, they avoided answering, and Shahram could hear gasps from the audience. Shahram wasn’t aware of this process himself until he began his political journey.
I like to lead by example. I don't just talk to the talk, I walk the walk. My background in civil engineering, business and real estate also contribute to my success as an officeholder.
Shahram believes that the core responsibility of an elected mayor is to act in the best interest of the majority of residents. Too often, we see elected officials prioritize money and power over helping the people, which is unacceptable. The most frustrating part is that the worse an official's approval rating, the more media attention and endorsements they seem to receive. This makes ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE! In any other industry, if someone is doing a terrible job, they would be fired, not promoted. But in politics, it’s common for the worst performers to get promoted while the best are silenced or ignored.
The first historical event that happened in my lifetime that I remember was 9/11 as I was a sophomore in high school and the Spanish teacher stopped the class to pull out the TV to watch the news. Since I am half Middle Eastern I experienced hate crimes and have continuously been randomly selected for security checks at airports to this day due to my name.
Shahram loves the city's topography, architecture, diversity, art and food scene. San Francisco literally has all the components of a large city snuggled within 49 square miles.
Shahram believes that the greatest challenge facing San Francisco over the next decade is getting the media to report the truth about political corruption. The media also needs to be unbiased and provide equal opportunities for all political candidates. Currently, the media only covers candidates who pay them large sums of money, and these are often the most corrupt. For example, there are 13 candidates running for mayor of San Francisco, but the media keeps telling the public that only five are running. This is because the five candidates mentioned in the news are the ones who pay high fees to have articles written about them. The average person cannot afford $50,000 to get their name mentioned in the San Francisco Chronicle.
A politician dies and gets to choose to go to heaven or hell. But before choosing is given the opportunity to try each place for a day. The politician chooses to spend the first day in hell. Upon arrival, the politician experience a rock concert vibe with music, fireworks, lasers, smoke, dancing, etc. The politician has a lot of fun.
The second day the politician goes to heaven which has a chill vibe with people meditating. The politician isn't as excited being in heaving and chooses to go to hell.
Upon arrival in hell the politician experience screaming and torture. The politician asks the devil what happened to the rock concert. The devil responds back to the politician saying they were campaigning two days ago.
The mayor appoints the San Francisco Chief of Police and sets the tone for law enforcement. Mayor Breed has cut funding to the city's law enforcement and does not punish people who commit crimes. Instead of impounding cars involved in sideshows, Mayor Breed instructs law enforcement to ticket and tow RVs parked on the street that serve as people's homes. Additionally, Mayor Breed sent over 50 police officers to Dolores Park to stop skateboarders from going down a hill, despite there being far more important matters that need attention.
Financial transparency and government accountability Shahram's highest priorities because if these two issues are addressed, the majority of San Francisco's problems could be resolved. Shahram has seen politicians misuse funds for many years. The city has a higher budget than Los Angeles and Chicago, yet it is only a fraction of the size of both cities. This doesn't make sense, and everyone knows there is corruption, but for some reason, nothing is done to stop it. This prevents the city from being the crown jewel it deserves to be.
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