Northern California Grantmakers is pleased to support Assembly Bill 1487 – San Francisco Bay Area Regional Housing Finance Act. The bill will strengthen our region with more affordable homes and protections for longtime residents to ensure all Bay Area residents, no matter their color or income, have a safe, stable, affordable place to call home. We applaud the leadership to date on this effort and urge you to sign this important piece of legislation into law.
September 18, 2019
RE: Support for Assembly Bill 1487 – San Francisco Bay Area Regional Housing Finance Act
Dear Governor Newsom:
Northern California Grantmakers is pleased to support Assembly Bill 1487 – San Francisco Bay Area Regional Housing Finance Act. The bill will strengthen our region with more affordable homes and protections for longtime residents to ensure all Bay Area residents, no matter their color or income, have a safe, stable, affordable place to call home. We applaud the leadership to date on this effort and urge you to sign this important piece of legislation into law.
Northern California Grantmakers is a regional association of more than 190 philanthropic organizations and individuals whose combined grantmaking exceeds $3 billion annually. Just over a third of California’s grantmaking foundations are located in the Bay Area, and more than half of the state’s total giving comes from Bay Area philanthropic institutions. NCG brings philanthropy together to build healthy, thriving and just communities in Northern California. We work collaboratively with government, business, and nonprofits to address the complex social issues in our diverse and dramatically changing region.
We are pleased to join the diverse group of stakeholders who have voiced their support for AB 1487 including our members the San Francisco Foundation, Silicon Valley Community Foundation, and Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. We urge you to sign AB 1487 for the following reasons.
AB 1487: A Regional Approach for Our Regional Challenges
Bay Area families are struggling to make ends meet. Rents are outpacing wages, and more and more families find themselves severely housing cost burdened, meaning they spend more than half of their monthly income on housing. This forces them to make difficult and dangerous decisions between staying in their homes and other necessities like food, childcare, and healthcare.
Underlying these month-to-month challenges for families are local and regional deficiencies. As a whole, the Bay Area is challenged by the lack of coordination across jurisdictions, inadequate funding and capacity to produce and preserve affordable homes, and the inconsistent execution of tenant protection strategies.
AB 1487 promotes the sustainability, diversity, and vibrancy of the region. Low-income communities of color are particularly vulnerable to the rising costs of housing and many families and communities have already been displaced from their homes. By allowing revenue to be raised to support the protection, preservation and production of affordable housing, AB 1487 will help combat homelessness caused by evictions, displacement, and gentrification, and ultimately help maintain the diversity in the Bay Area.
A number of Northern California foundations, including the San Francisco Foundation, Silicon Valley Community Foundation, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, have been actively engaged in supporting solutions to the region’s housing crisis. For example, in 2018, the Packard Foundation awarded over $2 million in grants to local organizations to catalyze creative solutions to the Bay Area’s affordable housing crisis. The San Francisco Foundation, Silicon Valley Community Foundation, and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative have been instrumental in supporting multi-sector coalition CASA – The Committee to House the Bay Area and its development of a comprehensive set of policy recommendations.
AB 1487 Strengthens Our Region, Creates Affordable Housing, and Protects Residents
As the Bay Area searches for solutions to the housing and homelessness crisis, one issue is clear: local jurisdictions cannot overcome this challenge on their own. The Bay Area’s housing market is regional, and AB 1487 offers the regional approach we need by creating cross-county tools and funding to offer relief to families seeking to stay here. Primarily, this bill will empower the Bay Area to raise new revenue for affordable housing by enabling the voters to consider a regionwide ballot measure for the protection of tenants, production of new affordable housing and preservation of existing affordable housing. It will also create the regional ability to deploy technical assistance that can complement local capacity and generate data to inform local housing policies and programs.
For these reasons, we urge you to sign AB 1487 and make housing security and affordability a reality for all Bay Area residents. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact Cecilia Chen, Public Policy Director, at cchen@ncg.org or (415) 872-1016.
Thank you for your support and leadership.
Sincerely,
CC:
The Honorable David Chiu, Member of the State Assembly The Honorable Kevin Mullin, Member of the State Assembly The Honorable Buffy Wicks, Member of the State Assembly The Honorable Scott Wiener, Member of the State Senate
Jason Elliott, Chief Deputy Cabinet Secretary, Office of Governor Gavin Newsom Mark Tollefson, Deputy Cabinet Secretary, Office of Governor Gavin Newsom
Kathleen Kelly Janus, Senior Advisor for Social Innovation, Office of Governor Gavin Newsom JR Starrett, Director of Advocacy and Community Engagement, Non-Profit Housing Association of Northern California