August 2021 Newsletter
A message from Generation Housing Executive Director
Together We Can Advance Housing Solutions

We have cause to celebrate! Casa Roseland is moving forward, 3575 Mendocino on the old Journey’s End site is breaking ground soon, Cotati passed its Cottage Housing ordinance, and SB 9 and SB 10, state bills designed to increase housing options in areas currently zoned for single family homes only, passed the Assembly and are inching closer to the Governor’s desk (read more below!). We are so grateful to all of you who signed petitions in favor of the state bills, wrote letters to Santa Rosa City Council (154 of you!), and made comments to the Cotati City Council.

Our Youth Promotores de Vivienda program, a partnership with Latino Service Providers, that teaches young people leadership skills, about housing, governmental engagement, and housing advocacy is underway. So grateful to LSP for leading this outstanding program and excited for these 10 young people to become great pro-housing ambassadors. 
At Generation Housing, we finally went 3D! We had our first in-person House Party (see pictures included), at Bayer Farm in Roseland, and are looking forward to meeting safely outside on the third Thursday of each month as long as weather permits. And we’re getting out to farmer’s markets and other community events to meet people, talk housing, and engage them in our work.

Making sure we have enough housing to meet the needs of all of the people who live or work here, to keep young people here, to meet our local workforce needs, to make sure we have great teachers in our classrooms and enough health care workers in our hospitals, we all need to work together. You can be part of the solution! Get involved by joining as a member here, joining the Gen H Action Team here, through which you can take small actions that have a big impact, or signing up to volunteer here. 

-Jen Klose | Executive Director
Sign up for ACTION ALERTS!
Letter to Santa Rosa City Council:
Generation Housing wrote to a letter to Santa Rosa City Council to encourage them to continue to make “Housing & Affordable Housing Development” and “Homelessness” top priorities and to give staff direction to be bold in their policy and practice solutions. This letter was sent in just in time for the Council's goal setting session and included detailed recommendations and solutions.

"The housing deficit is significant, and while the City is making progress in accelerating production, production must ramp up much more significantly to meet the demand for units and reduce housing costs. We encourage you also to recognize that housing, particularly affordable housing, is a thread that runs through most of your priorities..."
#WeAreGenH Campaign
Adinah

Adinah spent many years struggling to secure affordable housing in Sonoma County. A Bay Area native, she and her son moved to Santa Rosa in 2015 for work. Her search for a long-term lease that they could afford turned out to be tougher than expected, which resulted in renting overly-priced apartments or group house-shares in Santa Rosa and Petaluma. Adinah and her son even experienced homelessness for six weeks when they had to abruptly leave due to an issue with a property manager. 


Help Generation Housing ensure housing availability for people like Adinah by joining #WeAreGenH now!
We are teachers, first responders, farm workers. We are grocers, we are artists.
Together, each of you, all of us, and all residents of Sonoma County. We Are Gen H, and we all need affordable places to live. 

The “We Are Gen H” pro-housing campaign lifts up the experiences of workers, artists, and students in the community and organizes community members to take action and show support for more construction of more types of housing in Sonoma County. 

Policy & Advocacy Update
In this month’s update, we’ll share updates with you regarding CA Senate Bill 10 (SB 10) and CA Senate Bill 9 (SB 9). 
California Advances Zoning Measures That Promote Housing Affordability 

Last week, the CA Assembly voted to pass CA Senate Bill 10 (SB 10) and CA Senate Bill 9 (SB 9). These two bills promote affordability and inclusivity in housing for Sonoma County and California as a whole. SB 9 – HOME Act, would legalize duplexes, a middle-income housing type, by allowing homeowners in most areas around the state to divide their property into two lots and allowing two homes to be built on each of those two lots. Support SB 10 – Missing Middle Housing Near Jobs and Transit: makes it easier for cities to voluntarily zone for smaller, lower-cost housing developments of up to 10 units near jobs and transit to address California’s housing crisis
Casa Roseland Wins!
And the celebration continues!
Thank you to the Santa Rosa City Council for denying a neighbor's appeal to the Casa Roseland affordable housing development's earlier approval, removing the last barrier developer MidPen Housing faces to breaking ground on this great project.
Check Out Our Major Housing Projects Tracker
Generation Housing advocates for housing projects across Sonoma County that help increase the supply, diversity, and affordability of housing. In this tool, Generation Housing helps track and update local residents about proposed housing projects to engage a broader audience about the local housing happenings. Gen H-endorsed projects, which have gone through our project review process and align with our guiding principles, are noted as such.

Select the local jurisdiction to see the latest housing projects being proposed and scan across several variables that cover affordability levels, zoning, tenure, and other entitlement and project details.
Be part of the SOLUTION!
Sign up to volunteer at community events to meet people, talk housing, and engage them in our work.
Read our latest report if you haven't done so already!
How Much Housing Do We Need? Sonoma County’s Housing Shortfall and Future Needs

Sonoma County’s housing affordability has been a barrier for thousands of local households who have struggled to make rent or purchase a home over the last two decades. Despite homebuilding peaking in the middle of the 1980’s with nearly 6,000 homes annually, homebuilding rates in the last twenty years have plummeted as median rents and home prices skyrocketed, and fewer homes were affordable to fewer households. This report answers two questions: 1) how much housing did we need but didn’t build in the last 20 years, and 2) how much housing do we still need to meet future growth?
Become a member today!
District 2 Supervisor David Rabbitt gets it...
His quote from the Board of Supervisors 7/27/2021 Meeting Re Covid-19 Response Point in Time Feedback Report:

"Some of the issues that keep creeping up within the disasters are issues that are out there all the time: Housing....We have a housing crisis but we just kind of keep on lingering along doing the same things over and over in much of the community and much of the Bay Area and so we need to kind of band together to figure out paths forward that aren't necessarily about aid for housing but really providing housing for future generations so that we can leave this place a better place for our kids and grandkids."
Upcoming Events:
Sonoma County Housing News Digest

In case you missed some of the key news items of the last few weeks on local housing, Generation Housing has procured a bevy of news articles from around Sonoma County.
Bay Area cities and counties falling dramatically short of affordable housing goals | Local News Matters
“The Bay Area’s regional planning agency is in the midst of setting housing goals for the better part of the next ten years while data shows cities and counties continue to fall dramatically short when it comes to building affordable housing. Every eight years, the Association of Bay Area Governments is required by state law to determine exactly how much new housing every local jurisdiction must plan for.”

Is it sustainable for Sonoma County to build new homes during an ongoing water crisis? | The Press Democrat
Yes! We have enough water for housing! “Laura Feinstein, an environmental policy expert at Bay Area think tank SPUR, stressed the need for denser housing, such as apartments and townhomes, which tend to have shared yards and use much less water than single-family homes.”

California’s housing crisis: How much difference will a zoning bill make? | Cal Matters
“In a statement after the vote, Atkins thanked Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon in particular. ‘This bill is about opening the door for more families to pursue their version of the California Dream — whether that means building a home for an elderly parent to live in, creating a new source of income, buying that first house, or being welcomed into a new neighborhood. It’s about giving parents the chance to pass on wealth to their children and giving neighbors the chance to make our communities more inclusive,’ she said.” 

Why Bay Area needs to eliminate single-family zoning | Mercury News
“Single-family zoning means it is illegal to build multi-family units like apartments buildings, duplexes, triplexes or fourplexes — units that would provide an affordable, safe, stable environment for families who might not be able to afford a detached home…”

New Study Finds that Providing People Experiencing Homelessness with Housing has Positive Impacts on Health, Crime, and Employment | National Low Income Housing Coalition
“...housing assistance programs for the homeless can indeed reduce future homelessness, in addition to improving other socioeconomic outcomes that contribute to improved likelihood of successful rehabilitation and reintegration to society.”
Demystifying Housing Policy:
Five Housing Terms Everyone Should Know

Housing affects all of us, yet the terminology used to discuss housing can be fraught with insider lingo and it can be difficult to fully grasp. So we’ve compiled a brief list of some of the most common terms used in the housing policy world to help everyone better understand and engage in the housing conversation.

AFFORDABILITY GAP
The difference between the home price a household can afford and the current market price of a typical home for that household size. A deficit or shortage in affordable housing for a region is the difference between the number of affordable homes available and the number of homes needed to house all of that region’s low-income residents

MIXED-USE DEVELOPMENT
A building or group of buildings that combines multiple revenue producing uses in an
integrated and coherent plan. As an example, a mixed-use development might include retail
space on the ground floor, offices on the middle floor, condominiums on the top floors and a
garage on the lower level. 

LOW INCOME PERSON OR HOUSEHOLD
As widely defined by governmental and nonprofit organizations, person or household with
gross household income below 60% Area Median Income, often including receptionists,
preschool teachers and security guards, or 80% Area Median Income, often including
construction workers, firefighters, and teachers in the Bay Area (depending on program
eligibility requirements) adjusted for household size. 

INCLUSIONARY ZONING
A requirement that developers of new housing include a certain percentage of below marketrate homes. Inclusionary Zoning is a local law and each city that passes this law decides how
many units must be affordable, and what price is considered affordable. Often developers
can pay the city an “in-lieu fee” instead of including affordable units, which allows the city to
use the money to build new affordable homes. In California, there is a legal challenge to
Inclusionary Zoning’s application to rental housing, which is now being debated at the
California State Supreme Court. 

TRANSIT-ORIENTED DEVELOPMENT (TOD)
Development of housing and mixed-use development close to public transit such as BART,
frequent bus lines, etc. TOD is usually within 1/4 to 1/2 mile of a transit station or major bus line
and Plan Bay Area encouraged TOD. 

HOUSING ELEMENT
A required element of all California city general plans, housing elements identify and analyze housing needs and include goals, objectives, policies and programs for providing a city’s fair share of affordable housing needs. Although state law mandates that jurisdictions rezone enough land to meet their regional housing needs allocation and each jurisdiction is required to have an approved housing element, jurisdictions retain local land use control and Housing Elements are only plans for housing. Advocates then push for implementation of these plans and work tirelessly to get these cities and counties to produce the homes their communities desperately need.

Visit our website to learn more housing terms at our Publications and Resources page and check out our Housing Glossary.
Generation Housing | generationhousing.org