Get ready to celebrate Affordable Housing Month 2024 with the electrifying theme "Building Inclusion"! Throughout the month of May, we will highlight the importance of creating diverse and inclusive communities where everyone has access to affordable housing. We are thrilled to invite you to a month-long celebration, offering a variety of events to foster connections with fellow housing advocates and provide unique learning opportunities. Come join us!

Building Inclusion: Affordable Housing Bus Tour

Announcing the return of HLC's Annual Affordable Housing Bus Tour on May 24! This year, we will be exploring developments, including Alta Housing’s Fair Oaks Commons in Redwood City and Eden Housing’s Nugent Square in East Palo Alto!  Seats will be limited, so click the button below to be notified when registration opens to secure your seat!

Sponsor Affordable Housing Month 

We are more than halfway to our $150,000 sponsorship goal for Affordable Housing Month! Your support can help us surpass our target and grant you extensive benefits, including exposure across various platforms. Don't miss out on this opportunity to showcase your organization's commitment to housing. Click the button below to learn more about the benefits of sponsorship, or download our Sponsorship Interest Form today and join us in creating positive change in our community!

Join us for an engaging community meeting featuring Vice Mayor Flores as we discuss housing affordability and displacement in South San Francisco. 

🗓️ Thursday, April 4 

🕕 6:00 pm - 7:30 pm

📍 400 B St, South San Francisco (in the library of the High School)

We would first like to thank our Leaders on the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors for their leadership and collectively voting UNANIMOUSLY on Tuesday (3/26) to approve the Cypress Point Family Community proposal in Moss Beach by MidPen Housing! This WOULD NOT have happened without YOUR help to counter the narrative by a small but extremely vocal group of residents who managed to delay the only DEED-RESTRICTED affordable housing proposal on the mid-coast for 8 years. Your advocacy helped to ensure that at least 71 of your community members will now have a safe and stable place to call home in Moss Beach!

Meet Evelyn (Evvy) Stivers, HLC’s Executive Director, whose dedication to affordable housing spans two decades of impactful advocacy. With a rich background in organizing and regional initiatives, Evvy has been instrumental in advancing housing equality throughout her career, paving the way for countless people to find stable and secure homes.

Joining Evvy is Kalisha Webster, our Associate Director! Kalisha has been a driving force behind our organization's success since joining us last September. In just six months, Kalisha has made a significant impact across the entire organization. From leveraging her skills in advocacy and communications to support the Organizing and Development teams to serving as HLC’s certified editor, her diverse contributions have improved coordination and efficiency across the organization.

As we highlight the remarkable achievements of both Evvy and Kalisha, we must also recognize the broader significance of valuing and acknowledging all forms of labor, particularly those often overlooked, such as the behind-the-scenes efforts made by women. Their dedication and expertise serve as a testament to the indispensable contributions that women make to our organization and society as a whole, emphasizing the importance of honoring and celebrating their often unseen but essential work. 💪🏠

On March 16, HLC proudly hosted our second Know Your Rights training for renters in Millbrae!

A heartfelt thank you goes out to Community Legal Services in East Palo Alto, the City of Millbrae, the wonderful translators who helped make these events accessible in multiple languages, and all the community members in attendance. 

These Know Your Rights trainings are becoming increasingly popular, and we’re excited to announce that we plan to host two more sessions in 2024. 

In the meantime, CLSEPA, Legal Aid, and HLC collaborated to create an informational brochure to help renters know their rights in San Mateo County. We aim to have these brochures in every library in the County by May 2024. If you are a City staffer or elected/community leader who can help us get this information at your local library, please contact Kiana Simmons ksimmons@hlcsmc.org

Each year, HCD requires that jurisdictions submit Annual Progress Reports (APRs), detailed summaries of annual housing production. Last year’s APRs illustrate a bleak story: Across San Mateo County, housing development ground to a halt in 2023. 

Though cities recently updated their housing elements with more pro-housing policies, many did not account for the impact of rising interest rates. More policy changes may be necessary in coming years to restart the housing development pipeline. 

Upper left: An APR from San Carlos suggesting not a single lower-income unit was proposed in the city in 2023. Upper right: An excerpt from Foster City’s APR suggesting just four homes were proposed in 2023, all ADUs, none of which are likely to actually be rented on the open market at an affordable rate.

HLC is Hiring ✨

We are seeking a detail-oriented and proactive Operations Coordinator to manage various administrative tasks and support the overall operations of our organization, including our new language justice commitment. 

Housing Experience Survey- San Bruno

The City of San Bruno needs to hear your thoughts and feedback on your experiences finding and keeping your housing in San Bruno. Your voice is a powerful tool to help city leaders shape future housing policy and address displacement, unaffordability, and inequality throughout San Bruno

We believe in the strength of grassroots efforts. That's why HLC is actively supporting this community-run survey in hopes of elevating the housing experiences of all communities in San Bruno.

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