San Francisco’s bold zoning overhaul could finally address the city’s housing crisis—here's how.

Our Regulatory Committee spotlighted two housing challenges facing California: widespread student homelessness across CA’s public colleges and a collapsing fire insurance market. Learn how these parallel crises impact development statewide and what solution experts propose to address them.

HAC’s Regulatory Committee hosted Tom Mayhew, partner at Farella Braun + Martel LLP and HAC’s lead attorney, for an in-depth look at our lawsuit against the City of Lafayette over its non-compliant Housing Element, and what’s at stake for housing accountability statewide.

San Francisco’s bold zoning overhaul could finally address the city’s housing crisis—here's how.

California has passed important laws to support housing, but big barriers still remain. In 2025, HAC is backing new legislation to cut delays, lower costs, and get more homes built.

As a Democrat and pro-housing advocate, Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson’s book, Abundance, is music to my ears.

We are proud to sponsor a robust package of pro-housing legislation for the 2025 legislative session, focused on our core policy areas.

Our bills aim to streamline housing development, reduce unnecessary costs, improve feasibility, and ensure that existing pro-housing laws are implemented as effectively as possible.

When cities like Lafayette try to dodge state housing laws, we take action. That’s why the Housing Action Coalition just filed a lawsuit — with powerhouse legal firm Farella Braun + Martel LLP’s Tom Mayhew — to hold Lafayette accountable for a Housing Element full of loopholes and misleading claims.

We welcomed Jodie Medeiros from Walk SF and Dylan Fabris from San Francisco Transit Riders for a conversation about making San Francisco’s streets safer and ensuring public transit remains accessible, reliable, and fully funded.

We co-hosted the Oakland Special Election Candidate Forum in Downtown Oakland last week. This event brought together six candidates vying for both the Mayor’s office and District 2 Council office ahead of the special election that will be held on April 15th.

This year, we have an incredible opportunity to advocate for more housing in California by voting in a critical (but often low-turnout) upcoming election called ADEM (Assembly District Election Meetings). These elections determine the delegates who will shape the Democratic Party’s platform, endorse candidates, and decide which ballot measures to support.

In December, San Francisco Chronicle Housing Reporter JK Dineen wrote an article titled “S.F. has the same housing goals as New York City — which is 10 times its size.” The piece covers how New York recently passed a plan to encourage the construction of 82,000 new housing units over the next 15 years.

Following the election, I’ve been reflecting on this quote from Harvey Milk: “The American Dream starts with the neighborhoods.” As a housing advocate, this resonates deeply—it’s a reminder that much of the progress we’ve made toward creating more abundant and affordable communities begins at the local level.

As we close out 2024, the Housing Action Coalition 501(c)(4) is proud of the work we did for endorsed candidates around the state. In total, 71 of the 90 HAC-endorsed candidates were successful in their races this November. 4 of the 6 ballot measures we endorsed were also successful, including an important defeat for Proposition 33 (a victory for pro-housing).

As the Executive Director of the Housing Action Coalition, I’ve been working for over a decade to make it easier to build housing in San Francisco. We are still deep in the midst of our housing crisis – it is simply too difficult and expensive, right now, to build the housing we need so working people can afford to live here – but the tides are starting to shift. Much of that progress is thanks to the work of Mayor London Breed.

This October is an exciting time for the Housing Action Coalition. There are three important things we’re working on that I want to make sure you’re following…

August was an intense month for the housing world. There was the good: Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Barack Obama embraced a pro-housing agenda, with Harris declaring the importance of ‘ending America’s housing shortage’. And there was the normal sausage-making at the end of the legislative session in Sacramento with multiple HAC-sponsored bills moving to the Governor’s desk.

Prepare to cast your votes in November and check out our list of endorsements for the state of California and county elections.

Learn how housing policy is climate policy and what you can do to bring about positive change.