To alleviate our severe housing shortage, displacement, and affordability crisis it’s essential to enact new policies that make it faster and easier to build more homes for residents of all income levels.

Among the myriad obstacles facing California home builders one of the most frustrating is the long and arduous process to get a housing project built. In San Francisco, a city infamous for its laborious approval and permitting process, it can take as long as 10 years for an affordable housing project to have people move in. These inordinate delays substantially drive up building costs and can often derail a project.  

The California Legislature recently approved  a critical bill designed to speed up California’s lagging housing production by addressing inefficiencies in the permitting process – AB 2234 (Rivas) Planning and zoning: housing: post entitlement phase permits. This common-sense legislation brings certainty to the building permit acquisition process after local housing developments are approved.

As San Francisco’s housing crisis has grown progressively worse, so too has our city’s discourse around housing. Having spent the past six years working to advance evidence-based solutions to SF’s housing shortage, displacement, and affordability crisis, it’s been alarming to watch housing conversations become increasingly devoid of facts. What’s worse, much of the inaccuracy is coming directly from SF Supervisors themselves. 

In Oakland, the housing approval process is both complex and inaccessible. While residents are often interested in the new housing projects being built in their neighborhood, concern is common because they are also often unfamiliar with what needs to happen before construction can begin. We want to address skepticism with transparency so folks can have confidence that environmental review is comprehensive.

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! 

Last month, I wrote about the Affordable Homes Now ballot measure backed by Mayor Breed and led by HAC and a coalition of pro-housing, labor, and environmental organizations that will make it faster and easier to build new homes in San Francisco that are affordable to low and middle-income San Franciscans and teachers.

For a city’s essential workers, housing is essential. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the term “essential worker” became a commonly used phrase. As cities across the world shut down and people began sheltering in place, there was a recognition that despite the health risks, certain professions—teachers, nurses, Muni drivers, and firefighters among them—were too integral to the functioning of a city and an economy to stop working in person. Now in Year 3 of the pandemic, and as more industries have returned to in-person work, the essentialness of these professions hasn’t changed.

The San Francisco Housing Action Coalition and regional arm the Bay Area Housing Advocacy Coalition have a uniquely collaborative relationship with our boards of directors; 2 diverse cohorts of leaders in housing policy, construction and development, law and finance, advocacy and activism, and more. 

While HAC started as a San Francisco based organization focused on supporting homebuilders to get their projects approved, over the past couple of years the breadth and scope of our work have expanded immensely. 

What do the Bay Area and Los Angeles have in common? Temperate weather, coastal views, and a severe housing shortage, displacement, and affordability crisis. Despite being two distinct regions, the two metropolitan areas are both saddled with record rates of homelessness, widespread rent burden, and rapid rates of displacement. What’s more, many of these issues are driven by NIMBYism and years of bad policy decisions like single-family zoning that have restricted growth and led to exorbitant housing costs.

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.

Nearly a year ago, when the San Francisco Board of Education was making national (negative) news, I made the case for why urbanists must engage more actively in public education. Now with the SF Board of Education recall fast approaching on February 15, I’m strongly encouraging urbanists to vote YES on the recall of Commissioner Alison Collins, Vice President Faauuga Moliga, and President Gabriela López.

Even as 2021 was winding down, our team was busy gearing up for an eventful 2022 by announcing the launch of our new political action committee (HAC PAC) and our expansion to Los Angeles County! We also spent December…

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.

Leveraging the collective outrage against the San Francisco Board of Supervisors’ recent votes to block 800+ new homes, HAC waged advocacy campaigns on numerous fronts throughout November. We were proud to…

While 2021 may be winding down, the Housing Action Coalition is gearing up to accelerate our pro-housing advocacy with two new initiatives!

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. 

Despite the SF Board of Supervisors’ abysmal housing votes, we at HAC had a productive and successful October! A sampling of our accomplishments include…

Everything we do at the Housing Action Coalition is a team effort and we enormously appreciate our longtime friends and partners at Reuben, Junius & Rose, LLP for teaming up with us once again as Presenting Sponsor of our 2021 Housing Heroes awards program.