Housing Solutions

Efforts to achieve housing justice in the Bay Area are both extensive and diverse. The Equity Campaign Leaders, who serve as the community advisory board for the Bay Area Equity Atlas, play an active and vital role in addressing the regional housing crisis through a wide array of initiatives. From policy advocacy and housing production to preservation and coalition building, their work is key to creating a future where every Bay Area resident can access affordable, safe, and high-quality homes in inclusive, well-resourced communities.

Despite broad awareness of housing challenges, the Bay Area has grappled with a persistent housing crisis for decades. In recent years, cities and counties throughout the region have  severely underproduced affordable housing  while simultaneously overproducing high-cost housing at or above market rates. As a result, working families face escalating difficulties, including finding affordable rental housing, staying in their homes as costs rise, and enduring poor living conditions and landlord abuses. Addressing this vast crisis demands an equally expansive approach.

Across the Bay Area, local advocates and community-based organizations are employing diverse strategies united by a shared vision: ensuring that all residents — especially low-income workers and families at the highest risk of displacement — have affordable, high-quality housing.

Many of these housing justice efforts involve members of the  Equity Campaign Leaders  (ECL), a community advisory board that partners with the Bay Area Equity Atlas to shape our research agenda and advance our community engagement strategies. As this survey illustrates, ECL member organizations manage a range of programs, campaigns, and initiatives that have been successful in advancing housing equity and hold promise for creating more affordable housing opportunities throughout the region. Their housing justice work falls into four broad categories:

1. Ensuring equitable governance in local implementation of state and federal housing and community development policies
2. Mobilizing community members and advocating for equitable policies at both the local and state levels
3. Producing affordable homes, preserving deed-restricted and rent-controlled units, and protecting low-income renters from displacement
4. Building coalitions and envisioning just futures for the Bay Area’s diverse communities

The activities highlighted in this survey are interconnected and reflect a broad spectrum of efforts, though they are not exhaustive. Together, the Equity Campaign Leaders demonstrate that housing justice initiatives in the Bay Area are expansive, inclusive, and imaginative.

A key element of the Equity Campaign Leaders’ housing equity work is ensuring that local, regional, and state governments invest in and produce high-quality, affordable housing for all residents. While this push for strong governance may not always be as visible as other housing justice efforts, it is vital to creating new affordable housing, protecting low-income tenants, and preserving neighborhoods at risk of displacement.

EBHO also plays a leading role in ensuring that local governments remain committed to producing and preserving affordable housing while protecting tenants through the  housing elements  of each city and county’s general plans. California’s Department of Housing and Community Development mandates that all municipalities update their housing element plans every eight years. During the 2023-2031 cycle (the sixth cycle), EBHO and its members engaged in advocacy and closely monitored more than 20 housing element plans across the Bay Area, later publishing a  report  with key observations and recommendations.

All jurisdictions in California are required to comply with the state’s  Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH)  policies, which build on  federal fair housing laws . AFFH requires local governments to meaningfully address housing needs, reduce housing segregation, and promote community development in areas of concentrated poverty. This framework has been a vital tool in ensuring that elected officials prioritize affordable housing as a central strategy for meeting these obligations.

EBHO and its partners demonstrate that achieving equitable housing and community development is a long-term endeavor. The campaign to pass a transformative regional housing bond has been years in the making, driven by both public officials and advocates. Community-based organizations play a critical role in holding lawmakers and public agencies accountable to state housing laws while shaping the planning and policy framework for housing programs at the city and county levels.

While some Equity Campaign Leaders have concentrated on promoting good governance and ensuring municipal compliance with state and federal fair housing laws, other ECL organizations have pursued grassroots policy reform by mobilizing residents and community groups. They engage in activities such as petitioning local elected officials and organizing efforts to place renter protections on ballot initiatives. This grassroots organizing is a vital component of the Bay Area’s broader housing justice movement, especially given the immense impact of high rents on community well-being throughout the region. If all rent-burdened households in the Bay Area were no longer rent burdened, they would gain a combined $5.78 billion in disposable income, an average increase of about $10,700 per household.

Collectively, ECL organizations highlight the importance of a multifaceted approach to local housing policy reform: keeping renters in their homes, preserving affordable housing as a community asset, ensuring landlord accountability to fair housing practices, and creating new pathways to homeownership.

Many housing justice advocates promote a  “3 P’s” approach to equitable growth : the production of new affordable housing, the preservation of affordable housing at risk of market-rate redevelopment, and the protection of existing low-income residents who are susceptible to displacement. Several Equity Campaign Leaders, particularly those rooted in low-income communities of color, have embraced this comprehensive strategy as well.

Two ECL member organizations, the  Mission Economic Development Agency (MEDA)  and  Young Community Developers (YCD) , are place-based nonprofits serving the Mission District and Bayview Hunters Point in San Francisco, respectively. Both neighborhoods are historic communities of color: the Mission is a vibrant hub for Latinx immigrants, while Bayview Hunters Point has long been home to a Black community. However, both areas have experienced increasing levels of gentrification in recent decades. Amidst the tech boom, San Francisco’s working-class neighborhoods have become prime targets for market-rate redevelopment. As of 2020,  54 percent of low-income Latinx households and 74 percent of low-income Black households reside in neighborhoods at risk of or undergoing gentrification .

In response to these challenges, many of YCD and MEDA’s direct service programs focus on safeguarding low-income residents at risk of losing their homes. Both organizations assist residents in navigating the city’s housing programs, including helping them file applications through the city’s  online affordable housing lottery system .

YCD and MEDA are also dedicated affordable housing developers focused on creating new homes for low-income families. In the 2010s, YCD partnered on a 60-unit affordable housing project at the Hunters Point Shipyards and is actively involved in several development teams for projects on San Francisco’s Eastside, including a  100-unit apartment complex in Potrero Hill  and a  168-unit, below-market condominium development in Mission Bay . YCD also emphasizes workforce development, providing training and job connections for San Francisco residents in the construction industry to ensure that development projects hire workers from the very neighborhoods they serve.

Organizations like YCD, MEDA, and RNHS demonstrate that achieving affordable housing is a long-term endeavor. Housing development projects often involve years of planning, negotiation, and construction, while managing affordable rental housing necessitates a sustained commitment to supporting residents, many of whom grapple with complex financial situations and support needs. A successful “3 P’s” approach goes beyond merely building and maintaining housing; it encompasses programming and support systems designed to empower residents and help them thrive within their affordable housing communities.

As our community partners demonstrate, housing justice is inherently a collaborative endeavor. Several Equity Campaign Leaders are dedicated to uniting fellow advocates and organizations around shared policy goals, mobilization efforts, and common community spaces. Coalition-building strengthens housing justice movements by harnessing collective power and fostering an environment for innovative problem-solving that drives systemic change. These coalitions not only push for immediate, achievable policies, such as city-level tenant protections, but they also champion expansive, long-term visions for the equitable redistribution and stewardship of land and resources. Efforts to envision and create more democratic, inclusive  spatial futures  are crucial to advancing housing equity throughout the region.

The  Bay Area Regional Health Inequities Initiative (BARHII)  leads the charge with the  Black Housing Advisory Taskforce (Black HAT) , a statewide coalition of more than 80 Black-led organizations. With RNHS leadership represented on its advisory board, Black HAT is dedicated to preventing the ongoing displacement of Black families, addressing the rising rates of unhoused Black residents, and revitalizing historic Black communities and business districts. Moreover, the coalition recognizes that the ongoing gentrification of historic Black neighborhoods has broadened their scope of concern, as many Black residents have recently relocated to areas lacking established community support systems or organizational networks. To combat these challenges, Black HAT has advocated for the establishment of a Black Housing Fund, proposing a $1.5 billion allocation in the state budget over five years. This initiative aims to invest in Black housing developers and community organizations that serve Black residents, with $500 million earmarked specifically for a  Bay Area Regional Black Housing Fund .

Several Equity Campaign Leaders (ECL) members are championing state-funded solutions to address the intertwined housing and climate crises.  Jobs with Justice San Francisco  and the  Asian Pacific Environmental Network (APEN)  serve on the steering committee of the  California Green New Deal Coalition , a statewide network of environmental justice groups and community organizations dedicated to pursuing equitable solutions to the climate crisis. One of the coalition’s key focus areas is green social housing, which refers to environmentally sustainable, publicly funded, mixed-income housing within mixed-use communities. The  Stable Affordable Housing Act of 2023  mandates the California Department of Housing and Community Development to conduct a study on the implementation of social housing by 2027, providing the California Green New Deal Coalition and other advocates with an opportunity to influence future state social housing initiatives.

ECL members also collaborate closely with community land trusts (CLTs), nonprofits that own, develop, and manage land and housing as vital alternatives to market-driven housing solutions. The ACCE Institute is a founding partner of the  Oakland Community Land Trust (OCLT) , which works alongside local organizers and community members to acquire and maintain permanently affordable housing throughout the city. OCLT is also a member of the  People’s Land and Housing Alliance (PLHA) , a coalition of community land trusts and allied organizations across the Bay Area, including Urban Habitat. PLHA promotes a coordinated strategy centered on community-controlled affordable housing and initiatives aimed at preventing the displacement of low-income residents.

PLHA members have actively participated in campaigns such as the Community Opportunity to Purchase Acts (COPA) and Tenant Opportunities to Purchase Acts (TOPA). These laws grant qualified nonprofits and renters the right of first offer to purchase rental homes for sale, thereby creating pathways to community ownership and long-term housing stability for low-income renters.

These initiatives to develop new ownership, financial, and cultural models for housing are essential for securing a future in the Bay Area where safe, affordable housing is accessible to everyone. The urgency of the Bay Area’s housing affordability crisis demands immediate action within existing frameworks—building more homes, keeping people in their homes, and supporting the rising number of unhoused residents. However, it is equally important for advocates and community leaders to envision solutions that extend beyond these frameworks. Addressing crises like housing affordability and climate change necessitates long-term transformations in how we organize and cultivate the land we inhabit. Within various coalition spaces, Equity Campaign Leaders play a pivotal role in shaping this visionary future.

The Equity Campaign Leaders illustrate that housing justice in the Bay Area encompasses a wide array of strategies, campaigns, and initiatives. This diversity emphasizes that advancing housing equity requires a multifaceted skill set, from influencing lawmakers to managing multimillion-dollar construction projects and mobilizing grassroots voting initiatives. Many of these efforts are coalitional, uniting organizations from across the region around shared goals and visions for equity.

The ongoing partnership between the Bay Area Equity Atlas and the ECL embodies this spirit of collaboration in the quest for a more inclusive future. Just as data on housing inequity is crucial for understanding the scope and scale of the issues at hand, it is equally vital that advocates across the region leverage this data to transform their shared vision into reality.