With pro-housing momentum building at the state and local levels, 2023 has been a hectic year so far at HAC.

At the state level, we’re co-sponsoring five pieces of legislation that will remove significant barriers to housing production and help propel California toward its goal of building 2.5 million homes by 2031.

The San Francisco Planning Commission just helped to right a major wrong. On April 20th, the proposed housing project at 469 Stevenson Street was once again approved by the San Francisco Planning Commission. After it was infamously shot down in 2021 by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, the project quickly became the poster child for San Francisco’s housing dysfunction.

Five years after the city of San Francisco acquired the site on the corner of Haight and Stanyan, the largest affordable housing complex in the history of the neighborhood is set to finally break ground in June. The project, located at the eastern entrance of Golden Gate Park, will create 160 permanently affordable apartments for low and moderate-income individuals and families.

Exciting news from Sacramento! Today three HAC-sponsored bills successfully passed out of the California State Assembly Housing and Community Development Committee and are moving on to their next respective committees. 

At nearly 10pm on February 22, after two separate four-hour hearings, the San Francisco Board of Appeals finally decided to reject an appeal of 2550 Irving Street’s demolition permits. This 3-2 decision was essential in allowing the 100% affordable housing project to move forward.

On any given night in San Francisco, there are over 4,000 people living on the street, unsheltered. There aren’t enough homes or shelter beds for our City’s homeless population, so unhoused residents sleep on the streets—in tents, sleeping bags, or any place they can find with a sliver of warmth and security.

In the housing world, the word of the year for 2023 is accountability. For far too long, NIMBY cities have been able to stand idly by while the Bay Area’s need for new housing has grown more and more severe. Anti-housing elected officials, backed by a coalition of NIMBY single-family homeowners and others have abused the power of local control to block, restrict, and prevent the construction of much-needed multi-family housing.

To create pro-housing change we need bold pro-housing leaders who are committed to solving our state’s severe housing shortage, affordability, and displacement crisis.

To that end, here are the pro-housing candidates in critical local and state races HAC is proud to endorse for the November 8 election.

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.