With so many factors contributing to the Bay Area and California’s housing shortage, displacement, and affordability crisis, pro-housing advocates need to press for a myriad of solutions to alleviate our housing headaches.
One critical set of solutions must come from state and local lawmakers enacting reforms to make it faster, easier, and – ideally – less expensive to build more housing more equitably for residents of all income levels.
That’s why HAC has already begun waging robust advocacy campaigns to lobby our state and local legislators and collaborate with pro-housing lawmakers and partner organizations to pass bold reforms.
This year we’re concentrating our efforts on three key areas that we believe will go a long way toward boosting housing production at all levels of affordability:
- Advancing Zoning Reform. HAC will continue our staunch support for ending exclusionary zoning and allowing for more multifamily housing and more subsidized affordable housing to be built widely across the region. For decades, single family zoning has restricted our housing supply, driven up the price of homes, and devastated communities of color. As such, we are striving to make the Bay Area a more inclusive region by working to advance zoning reform efforts in San Francisco, Berkeley, and San Jose and calling on other cities to follow suit.
- Streamlining the Post-Entitlement Permitting Process. For far too long, it has been far too difficult and arduous to get housing built in San Francisco and other Bay Area cities. People need housing now, especially middle and low-income residents and our unhoused neighbors, and the excessive and burdensome hoops that home builders must jump through is only exacerbating our housing crisis. That’s why we’re pressing to significantly streamline the post-entitlement permitting process to make it easier and faster to build much-needed new housing.
- Shaping Cities’ Housing Elements. As a way to accommodate population growth and address the underproduction of housing, every eight years California law requires cities across the state to change their zoning in order to create more affordable and equitable housing opportunities. HAC will continue to take part in conversations with local leaders, organize community members to speak at meetings, and generally support all efforts to urge cities to rezone in ways that creates as much affordable and equitably distributed housing as possible.
In addition to our talented team of organizers and partners organizations, we need your active participation in our advocacy efforts. Be sure you’re signed up for HAC’s weekly newsletter and following HAC on social media to learn about our latest campaigns and how you can help!