Nine Actions Participants Can Support

Affordable housing policy can be complicated, but effective advocacy begins with clear and specific requests. Rather than simply asking elected officials to “do more,” we are asking participants to support nine practical actions at the local, state, and federal levels. No one is expected to pursue all nine. Participants can choose the actions they find most important and advance them by contacting elected representatives, submitting public comments, attending public meetings, writing letters to the editor, or joining with others in sustained advocacy.

Local Actions

1. Ask for an affordable-housing pipeline dashboard.
Ask South Bay cities to publish a clear, regularly updated dashboard showing proposed affordable-housing projects, their locations, the number and type of units, the income levels they would serve, their approval status, funding gaps, obstacles, and expected completion dates. This would give residents the information they need to track progress and hold local officials accountable.

2. Ask the city to identify three to five public or underused sites for housing.
Ask local officials to evaluate city-owned land, public parking lots, aging shopping centers, commercial corridors, and other underused properties that might support affordable or mixed-income housing. Identifying realistic sites would move the discussion from general expressions of support to specific development opportunities.

3. Ask for an inclusionary-housing feasibility study.
Ask the city to study whether new residential developments could be required or encouraged to include affordable homes. The study should determine what percentage, incentives, or alternative fees would produce affordable housing without making otherwise viable projects financially infeasible.

State Actions

4. Support increased and dependable state funding for affordable housing.
Ask state legislators to provide sustained funding for affordable-housing construction, preservation, supportive housing, senior housing, workforce housing, and homes for very-low-income households. Local governments cannot meet the greatest housing needs through zoning changes alone; substantial public subsidy is also necessary.

5. Support meaningful Housing Element enforcement and implementation.
Ask the state to ensure that cities do more than adopt housing plans on paper. Cities should retain reasonable flexibility in how they meet their housing obligations, but the state should intervene when local policies, site selections, or approval practices make the promised housing unlikely to be built.

6. Support the use of public land, housing preservation, and anti-displacement measures.
Ask state representatives to support funding and policies that make public land available for affordable housing, preserve existing lower-cost and deed-restricted homes, and protect tenants from displacement. Housing policy should help produce new homes while also preventing the loss of existing affordable housing and established communities.

Federal Actions

7. Expand Housing Choice Vouchers and rental assistance.
Ask Congress to provide rental assistance to more eligible low-income households. Construction subsidies alone cannot make housing affordable to many extremely low- and very-low-income residents. Vouchers and other forms of rental assistance can help people remain housed, access privately owned apartments, and avoid homelessness.

8. Expand and improve the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit.
Ask Congress to strengthen the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit and related financing programs. The tax credit is one of the principal tools used to finance deed-restricted affordable housing, and expanding it would allow nonprofit and mission-driven developers to build and preserve more homes.

9. Fund housing-related infrastructure, public housing, and supportive housing.
Ask the federal government to invest in infrastructure, transit, public-housing repairs, supportive housing, and homelessness services. Communities will be better able to accommodate additional housing when roads, utilities, transportation, public facilities, and supportive services receive adequate funding.