To honor pride month, HAC is shedding light on the ways that San Francisco is economically exclusive while touting it's cultural inclusivity. This reality affects housing security for LGBTQIA+ folks disproportionately and needs to be addressed.

With the overwhelming success of the latest legislative session, getting multifamily housing entitled and permitted will soon be faster and easier than ever. HAC is proud to be one of the driving forces behind these recent wins as our ongoing efforts to collaborate with state and local elected officials to break down critical barriers to housing production are starting to pay off.

In the past few months, one of the challenges HAC has been working to address is financial feasibility. If you’re a Bay Area homebuilder, you know that since the pandemic, multifamily housing construction and feasibility haven’t exactly gone hand in hand. With recent hikes in interest rates, skyrocketing construction costs, and exorbitant impact fees, projects haven’t been able to receive financing because they simply don’t pencil out.

The past couple of years have been rough for public transit in the Bay Area. With the pandemic decimating ridership, transit agencies across the region have seen a severe decrease in the revenue they generate through fares. BART for example, which is heavily fare-dependent, saw its ridership drop by 90% to 95% during the pandemic. As a result, many of these agencies are on the brink of a potentially disastrous fiscal cliff.

We’re excited to share the news that as of July 1st Todd David will be transitioning into a new role with HAC as senior advisor and special projects director, and Corey Smith will become HAC’s new Executive Director! 

While December is typically a slower holiday month, at HAC we’re busy accelerating our efforts. Building on our success in 2021, during which we doubled the number of new homes we endorsed, tripled the number of pro-housing neighbors we activated, and celebrated our South Bay/Peninsula expansion, we’ve just launched two new initiatives to propel our pro-housing advocacy.

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors has long failed to address our city’s ever-worsening housing shortage, displacement, and affordability crisis, but last week marked a new low when eight Supervisors voted to derail a development project that would have added 495 new homes in place of a Nordstrom’s valet parking lot and offered only flimsy excuses and tired NIMBY talking points for their actions. 

October has always been an especially festive month as HAC gears up to honor our annual Housing Heroes, and this year we have more than ever to celebrate both as an organization and as pro-housing advocates. 

San Francisco may be considered one of the country’s most progressive cities, but you’d never know it by looking at its land use policies. With nearly 75% of SF currently zoned for low density, it is currently illegal to build small fourplex homes in most parts of the city. This explains why our severe housing shortage, displacement, and affordability crisis has only worsened exponentially decade after decade and reveals a wildly irresponsible lack of leadership from our Board of Supervisors.

From ending exclusionary zoning to legalizing more affordable housing, it’s an especially exciting and promising time to work in housing. The growing movement for more equitable, affordable, and inclusive housing across the Bay Area is why the theme of HAC’s recently-announced Spring Symposium is Building Momentum, and it’s also why everyone at HAC is busier than ever.

San Francisco’s housing shortage, displacement, and affordability crises have long made national news. But now, only two months into 2021, the media spotlight has turned to our schools and our attention-getting school board.