Housing advocates and other activists issued a call to arms Friday at a conference aimed at highlighting solutions to the North Bay’s housing crisis.
They said to push progressive housing policies and ensure they are actually benefiting the people for whom they are intended.
They encouraged telling stories about housing that inspire hope and move people to act to improve the affordable housing landscape.
They urged holding elected officials accountable but also providing them political support.
Those messages were delivered at the fourth annual North Bay Housing Solutions Summit organized by Generation Housing, a Sonoma County-based housing advocacy group. The event, held at the Petaluma Sheraton, was also presented by The Press Democrat.
Sonoma County is in the midst of “an affordability crisis, a scarcity crisis, a there’s not enough options crisis, and we are suffering the impacts of those,” said Generation Housing Executive Director Jen Klose, as she kicked off the daylong summit.
The event also marked the organization’s release of the State of Housing in Sonoma County 2024.
A progressive model
Established in 2020, Generation Housing has long held up Minneapolis as a city making strides toward tackling its own housing crisis — and has advocated for many housing policies the Midwestern city has pursued through its own 2040 strategic plan.
Those policies were highlighted Friday in a panel featuring Minneapolis elected officials and housing activists, whom Jennifer Palmer, Napa County’s Director of Housing and Homeless Services introduced by noting that the city’s housing production increased 12% between 2017 and 2022, while rents grew only 1%.
That drew a round of enthusiastic applause and even a whistle or two from the audience of about 200 people, a mix of government officials and staff, business and community leaders, social justice advocates, and representatives of social service agencies.
In contrast, in the rest of Minnesota, housing production rose 4% and rents climbed by 14%.
Strategies the 2040 plan advances include getting rid of off-street parking minimums for new developments; lowering the minimum lot size required of new housing; and eliminating exclusionary zoning regulations that allow only single-family housing in certain areas, an approach intended to create more multifamily housing.
The plan attracted public and political backlash, said Jeremiah Ellison, a Minneapolis City Council member, and “in that fight, we found that you couldn’t have a comfortable conversation about this kind of progressive growth, this kind of progressive policy. You’re going to have to lean in and have a lot of uncomfortable conversations about why it was important to pass policy like this.”
To be progressive in housing policy requires data that shows “what gets us from point A to point B right now,” said Ellison. “But the second thing you got to have, and this can be hard for elected officials, is a little bit of moral fortitude. And the reason I say that is because everybody loves the high level solution and everybody hates the specifics.”
Tram Hoang, senior associate with PolicyLink, a national nonprofit focused on racial and economic equity issues and active in Minneapolis, said there are typical undercurrents to address when governments and the public consider many housing project proposals.
“Race and class, I feel like that’s a big part of the risk assessment that everyone inherently does in the back of their mind,” Hoang said. “I think everyone knows that the way that we assess risk in this country is really based on race and then more so on class — just because people of color are more likely to be lower income. So I think that we really have to be honest about how we assess risk, because risk is what leads into that fear narrative.”
‘Political cover’
Palmer asked what worked to spearhead the Minneapolis effort.
Giving the public something to focus on while also advancing other strategies, said Andrea Riehl, state policy task force lead for Neighbors for More Neighbors, a Minneapolis housing advocacy group.
“Eliminating exclusionary zoning across the city was sort of a chew toy that got people to pay attention, while we very quietly removed parking minimums and allowed other types of housing to be sort of more available,” Riehl said.
It is critical that people who are suffering from a lack of housing are included as leaders in the campaign for more housing, said keynote speaker Michael Tubbs, former Stockton mayor and now special adviser to Gov. Gavin Newsom for economic mobility and opportunity.
“We’re less willing to take a risk because it’s not personal. I think the antidote to that is to make sure we have folks who are actually proximate helping to lead this conversation … folks who are actually experiencing the burden … as true partners who are co-designing and helping push and exerting influence and energy,” Tubbs said.
He urged elected officials to lead on the issue and not leave all the work to groups like Generation Housing (which to advance its goals, is forming a 501(c) (4), a separate nonprofit structure that is allowed to spend money on political campaigns and lobbying).
“We can’t expect the advocacy groups to do all the work of leadership,” Tubbs said. “Like, why are you there for? I think part of it is you using your platform, using your microphone, using your bully pulpit to have conversations and begin to educate the public about what needs to happen.”
At the same time, he said, “We have to give our elected officials cover to have courage.”
Tubbs’ speech was “inspiring,” Healdsburg City Council member Chris Herrod said Saturday, as he campaigned in support of Measure O, a Nov. 5 ballot initiative intended to boost housing supply by exempting multifamily projects from growth limits in certain parts of the city.
“Courage is something we need in Healdsburg because as we work on Measure O, we’re encountering a lot of misinformation and a lot of allegiance to housing goals or housing policy that served us 25 years ago, but are not serving us now,” Herrod said.
Hunter Scott, coordinated entry director with HomeFirst, a homelessness services agency with offices in Petaluma, said the call to support political officeholders — publicly and behind the scenes as well — resonated with him.
“This idea of needing to provide cover to our elected officials, both in terms of showing up and supporting these measures, as well as providing positive stories and data to support why we need more affordable housing measures,“ Scott said. ”That gave me a lot of inspiration to do what I can, both as a resident and also working at HomeFirst.“
You can reach Staff Writer Jeremy Hay at 707-387-2960 or jeremy.hay@pressdemocrat.com. On X (Twitter) @jeremyhay