May 18, 2015 Housing Action Coalition

SFHAC’s Twitter Rally Trends Above Tina Fey

Participating in the political process can be difficult. San Francisco residents with jobs or family obligations find it challenging to get to City Hall to have their say on issues that are important to them. SFHAC’s job as housing advocates is to find ways to bring people to City Hall to express their views, even if they can’t physically be there.

On Friday, May 8th, the SF Housing Action Coalition held a Virtual Twitter Rally to collect the voices of folks opposed to Supervisor Campos’ proposed moratorium on market-rate housing in the Mission. Hundreds of people participated in real-time from from their desks, MUNI buses and lunch tables across the City, while countless more followed the conversation using our hashtag #NoHousingHalt.

Using data and facts, and partnering with the Bay Area Council and SFYIMBY, the SF Housing Action Coalition used a 1-hour lunch break to engage a new audience to rally against the moratorium and coalesce around the fact that stopping building new housing will only worsen our housing affordability crisis.

 

The Twitter Rally allowed individuals to express their personal beliefs on the proposed moratorium.

Some directed tweets to their own Supervisors:

Besides bombarding the recipient’s Twitter feeds, the #NoHousingHalt urged Tweeters to take action using this email petition to get people to join hundreds of others in opposing the Mission Moratorium. During the Twitter Virtual Rally, we collected over 80 new signers to our petition. In just one week, over 1,100 San Francisco residents and business owners –20% of them current residents of the Mission District– have signed the petition, flooding the email inboxes of Supervisor Campos, the Board of Supervisors, the Mayor’s office of Housing and Mayor Lee.

Other Supervisors joined our conversation. District 2 Supervisor, Mark Farrell, voiced his opposition to a moratorium.

During that one hour Twitter Rally, our hashtag #NoHousingHalt was a top 10 trending topic in San Francisco (above Tina Fey!)

SFHAC_Trending

Since the Virtual Rally, the hashtag #NoHousingHalt has continued to build momentum. In addition to the SF Housing Action Coalition’s tweets, over 350 tweets have been tracked using the #NoHousingHalt hashtag.

Supervisor Campos has since responded, and will be joining the SF Housing Action Coalition’s June Monthly Membership Meeting as our guest speaker on June 3rd. Join us to hear Supervisor Campos’ rationale behind the moratorium. RSVP necessary. You must be a current SF Housing Action Coalition member to come.

RSVP Here

Housing Action Coalition

The Housing Action Coalition is a member-supported non-profit that advocates for the creation of well designed, well-located housing at all levels of affordability. We believe more housing means more choices and better solutions.

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