Under California law, every eight years, cities and counties are required to develop local affordable housing action plans called the Housing Element. The Housing Element must identify land on which new affordable housing can be built and adopt a specific “program of action” to meet the housing needs of people of all income levels. These actions are designed to ensure that low-income families can find an affordable place to call home in every community, contributing to economic and environmental sustainability throughout the region.
Community Advocates has worked for nearly twenty years to implement, enforce, and strengthen the housing element law. Through state legislative advocacy, precedent-setting litigation, and the work of local and regional coalitions in the Bay Area, we seek to make the promise of adequate affordable housing law in every community a reality.
Over the past two years, Community Advocates and our partners have actively advocated to ensure that Regional Housing Need Allocation (RHNA), which incentivizes local housing elements, combats racial segregation and displacement, and a fair share of housing available to low-income residents and people of color. This work used two fair housing laws that community advocates were instrumental in passing in 2018, AB686 (Santiago) and AB1771 (Bloom).
As a result of our advocacy, the final methodology adopted by the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) distributed 50,199 low-income housing units to the 49 most exclusive jurisdictions in the region and included a “fairness adjustment” that added 3,068 low-income units to 18 exceptional jurisdictions. cities and counties that would have otherwise received disproportionately low allocations.
28 cities and counties appealed their decisions. In August 2021, we sent a letter to our partners and allies at 6 Wins urging ABAG to reject all 28 appeals, noting that they did not meet the statutory requirements for reduced allocations. In November, ABAG rejected nearly all but one of the appeals, which found a minor calculation error.
Despite its diversity, the Bay Area is more segregated today than it was three decades ago. These campaign victories will have a major impact on advancing housing justice regionally and will open up great opportunities for local organizing and advocacy.