| | Affordable Housing Month 2023 |
|  | Housing Heroes Wanted: Volunteer for Affordable Housing Month Now! May is Affordable Housing Month, a time when we come together to raise awareness about the critical need for safe, affordable housing for all. As part of this effort, the HLC is hosting a series of events throughout the month to engage our community in important conversations about housing equity. To make these events a success, we need your help! We're looking for volunteers to assist with everything from event setup and cleanup to greeting attendees and assisting with presentations. This is a great opportunity to give back to your community and make a tangible impact on the lives of those in need. If you're interested in volunteering, please click here to fill out the form. We appreciate your support and look forward to working together to make Affordable Housing Month a success! |
| | Join us for our Policy Breakfast + Bus Tour! Date: Friday, May 12 Time: 9:00 am - 2:00 pm Location: CZI Community Space Our Affordable Housing Month Policy Breakfast is a gathering of community members, advocates, experts, and leaders - all committed to making affordable housing a priority. Join us to hear from newly elected officials and Senator Becker, ask questions, and learn about the latest housing policies. Following the breakfast, we invite you to join us for a local tour of recent affordable housing developments and help us cut the ribbon on Eden Housing’s Light Tree project in East Palo Alto. In partnership with SamTrans, we will hop aboard a chartered coach after breakfast, enjoy the tour and return you to CZI by approximately 2:00 pm at the latest. |
| | ✧Events Calendar✧ We would like to invite you to our annual celebration of Affordable Housing Month, taking place in May. HLC is excited to host 12 events! Many thanks for all you do to support systemic change and develop our community! We look forward to seeing you next month. The first week of May events: |
| Data and Tools to Influence Housing Policy Monday, May 8 Learn about The Housing Readiness Report and Bloom Housing (a one-stop shop for affordable housing). We will focus on these two tools and share stories, insights, and impacts of housing policy across the bay! |
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HLC’s Policy Breakfast Friday, May 12 You’ll hear from elected officials committed to making affordable housing a priority, learn more about the latest housing policies, and celebrate recent Affordable Housing victories. Then, go on a bus tour of developments throughout the county! |
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Tenants Belong Saturday May 13 Join us to hear stories of struggle, resilience, and power from people who rent in Menlo Park and beyond. We’ll explore the policies that shape the rental experience and examine outcomes for tenants. |
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| Registrations are now open for most of the events throughout the month! |
| | If you have any questions about Affordable Housing Month or our events, please contact Fernanda at fdevelasco@hlcsmc.org. |
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| ✧Sponsor Affordable Housing Month✧ Last year, our sponsors helped us engage hundreds of new and returning supporters. Join us this year to commemorate our affordable housing partners’ achievements, learn about new challenges, and mobilize in response to our region’s housing shortage. |
| | Thank you to all our sponsors for this Affordable Housing Month! We could not do it without you. |
|  | What is Affordable Housing Month? Every year, the Housing Leadership Council of San Mateo County (HLC) and our partners dedicate the month of May to affordable housing. We engage hundreds of housing supporters around San Mateo County to collectively learn, mobilize, and understand the positive and extensive impact affordable housing brings. We do this by offering the opportunity of attending informative workshops, groundbreakings, housing policy panels, affordable housing tours, and more. |
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| | | ✧Millbrae Gateway is open!✧ |
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| Millbrae Gateway is open! Last week, Republic Urban and Core Companies celebrated the Grand Opening of Millbrae Gateway, the transit-oriented development at the BART, CalTrain, and soon-to-be High-Speed Rail station in Millbrae. The development includes 80 affordable homes with a preference for veterans that were built by Core Companies. This housing narrowly won the approval of the Millbrae City Council after many long hearings and a parade of people wanting "only retail" and claiming that "new housing will ruin our schools". It was ugly, but in the end, housing won! The affordable housing is already completely leased up. We need more affordable homes! |
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| ✧SB4 Update✧ Great news—last week, the Senate Governance and Finance Committee said YES!! YIGBY passed SB4 with a 5-2-1 vote, with Republicans voting no and Sen. Glazer abstaining. It was a long day of hearing a lot of bills, and SB4 wasn’t even discussed until 5 PM!! It was impressive to witness how many people remained in the room or stayed online waiting to offer their support. So many people worked so hard to make this happen. All of their (and our) powerful work generated over 220 supporters, ran effective district meetings with key Senators, and called in or spoke at committee. In the end, we got out by one vote! Now we move on to one of the most critical committees: Senate Appropriations.
The Senate Appropriations Committee is charged with evaluating the cost of a bill, and if a bill will cost the state a “significant” amount (generally over $50 - 100K) it will be moved to a suspense file. Every year hundreds of bills are placed on the suspense file for deeper evaluation.
We have about two weeks to make our case to all the committee members. However, Abram Diaz, Policy Director NPH, points out that “the real key decision makers are just two: Senator Anthony Portantino (D - Burbank, Glendale, Pasadena) who is running for Congress and Senate Pro Tem Toni Atkins (D - San Diego). So, if you, or anyone you know, has connections to these Senators, please reach out and advocate for SB4.
If you want to learn more about the process, here are two informative links: https://sapro.senate.ca.gov/committeehome https://www.capradio.org/articles/2021/05/20/understanding-how-a-california-bill-dies-without-public-debate/. (4-minute audio file) ✧South San Fransisco Anti Displacement ✧ |
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| Preventing displacement and homelessness means keeping your neighbors housed where they are now. You can help by joining the movement! Learn about anti-displacement strategies and advocate for your local leaders to adopt equitable housing law that prevents the displacement of your community members.
Scan the QR code or click the link below to sign up and get involved. http://bit.ly/3LCsCxa |
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| ✧Housing Readiness Report✧ |
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| Track the Bay Area’s Ability to Meet Its Affordable Housing Needs The housing crisis impacts our vulnerable neighbors’ ability to have a stable and affordable place to live. Right now, we have a chance to address this crisis, invest in our communities and create better housing options for all. The Housing Readiness Report is a tool that provides the data to track how impactful the housing crisis is to our most vulnerable communities as well as how ready our cities are to tackle the crisis. Additionally, it provides numerous ways for the community to get involved in their city’s housing plans - it’s as much a discovery of how your city is working towards solving the affordability issue as it is about finding all sorts of ways to make a difference in your community. The latest release of the tool comes just in time for Affordable Housing Month to give housing champions and our communities an avenue to voice their support for equitable, affordable housing solutions. Now is the time to get involved, and the Housing Readiness Report makes that easy with many new features and improvements, including: - Data on all 109 cities and counties in the Bay Area
- An interactive map
- Tracking all steps and documentation of each city’s Housing Elements
- More resources to get involved in each city’s housing plans
Get involved today at housingreadinessreport.org. |
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| |  Housing Elements Review |
| On April 20, the County of San Mateo received its first review letter from HCD, featuring 16 pages of feedback on the County’s housing element. The county received extensive feedback echoing somewhat standard concerns we’ve seen HCD raise with other jurisdictions as well. Some findings of note include: - Lots of questions about the county's opportunity sites, indicating HCD may want to see more rezoning to justify the sites.
- Similarly, lots of questions about generic constraints, including fees, and entitlement processes, and land use controls like parking. Making clearer commitments to expedite a wider range of entitlements and reducing parking requirements in a larger area may help the county satisfy HCD.
- Multiple notes about inadequate analysis of special needs housing, especially for those with disabilities. HCD also specifically requested clearer deliverables to support farmworker housing needs.
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| | Since submitting its housing element to HCD on January 20, 2023, San Mateo County has made a number of new housing commitments that will strengthen its housing element and help satisfy the state regulator. Most importantly, the county made a one-time $10 million allocation of Measure K sales tax funds toward workforce housing on the coast side of San Mateo County, $8 million of which will support farm labor housing. (See page 15 of this summary from the BoS’s February 28, 2023 meeting.) Furthermore, in March, Supervisors Slocum and Corzo announced they are working on an update to the County’s Tenant Protections Ordinance, which may further help the county demonstrate the capacity to Affirmatively Further Fair Housing. We’re excited to see what’s in the ordinance! We expect the county will revisit its housing element at the Board of Supervisors' June 13 meeting. More updates are to come in our next newsletter. |
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| | | ✧HLC is hiring an Organizing Intern!✧ Are you or someone you know looking for an internship in affordable housing advocacy? We have an opening for an Intern Organizer at HLC! Click here to learn more and apply today! |
|  | ✧On the Verge: Transitional aged youth leadership development opportunity✧ |
|  | On The Move is still recruiting youth for their housing justice-focused cohort of On The Verge. They are particularly looking for young people from Marin, Contra Costa, and San Mateo to ensure representation from across the bay area. Program Description On the Verge offers a year-long, paid leadership development program for transitional-aged youth (TAY). Participants will have an opportunity to develop their personal, interpersonal, and professional growth while building key leadership skills and working on collaborative high-stakes projects to address housing justice in the Bay Area. For more details about the program, please review this slide deck from a previous info session or schedule an appointment with Erin and Adrian to discuss this further. Erin Gutierrez eagutierrez@dons.usfca.edu Adrian Maldonado adrian@onthemovebayarea.org The application link is here. The application is also available in Spanish here. The deadline to apply is May 23, 2023 ✧Partnership for the Bays Future is Hiring for a fellow in South San Francisco✧ Coro is hiring a Fellow with expertise in affordable housing to participate in the Partnership for the Bay's Future Fellowship, a collaboration between Coro, San Francisco Foundation, Enterprise Community Partners, and Informing Change. This Fellow will work with the South San Francisco Site Team. Apply today and/or share this post with your network. Job Description: https://lnkd.in/gAbB4xNn Apply here: https://lnkd.in/gxzvzQAw (position open until filled) |
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| Housing Leadership Council of San Mateo County
2905 S El Camino Real | San Mateo, California 94403
650-242-1764 | info@hlcsmc.org |
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