California’s housing crisis is not new, but in the past few years it has reached a state of emergency. The problem is evident to Californians at all income levels, but people living in poverty and communities of color suffer the most.

We seek to ensure that ALL Californians have access to healthy, sustainable and affordable housing in neighborhoods of their choosing, and we advocate for strong, clear, and enforceable anti-displacement protections. All of our work seeks to address California’s housing crisis and its disproportionate effects on the most vulnerable Californians and unhoused individuals. We work to…

Protect tenants from eviction and landlord abuse, and ensure access to housing by…

• Working to ensure fair rents, requiring good cause for eviction, increasing procedural protections for tenants facing eviction, and eliminating incentives for investor speculation
• Combating discrimination in housing
• Creating ways for unhoused individuals to access the support and resources they need to obtain and maintain housing
• Working to end unfair policies that lead to the criminalization of unhoused individuals

Preserve the existing housing stock by…

• Preventing older subsidized units from being converted to market-rate units
• Calling for state subsidies to allow affordable housing operators to reduce rents while maintaining high quality housing
• Strengthening laws that ensure rental units and neighborhoods are healthy and habitable

Promote equitable planning and development by…

• Eliminating local discretion to deny affordable housing projects
• Leveraging private development to promote the creation of units for very low and extremely low-income individuals and families
• Securing funding for deeply affordable housing
• Creating more opportunities for community ownership and control of land and housing; ensuring public land is used for public good
• Dismantling structural racism in land use and planning

QUICK LINK: Advocate Resources – Housing