All Home

Yesterday, the BAHFA board voted unanimously to pull the Regional Measure 4 off the November ballot. For the last three years, we’ve been working with our partners to put a regional affordable housing bond measure like this on the ballot, and this is a significant and frustrating setback. Let’s be clear about what happened here. The same anti-government, anti-housing extremists who have been blocking progress in California for decades unleashed a barrage of well-timed lawsuits and got lucky. As a result, over the last week, we and other campaign leaders made the difficult but necessary recommendation to the BAHFA board to pull RM 4 off the ballot. As disappointing as this is for us advocates, we know that it is truly devastating for the hundreds of thousands of people in our region who are struggling just to get by and stay here. But make no mistake: we’re staying in this fight, and we must win it. Structural change and a lot more funding are still necessary to make the Bay Area a place where all families thrive. Proposition 5 is still on the November ballot, which would deliver structural change to enable voters to approve affordable housing and infrastructure bonds that most Californians consistently support. Passing it would be a huge help to all our efforts, and that will now have more of our attention and resources in the next 83 days. Legal and fundraising challenges have complicated both Proposition 5 and RM 4 enough that if both measures continued to be on the November ballot, both campaigns are unlikely to succeed. We may only have one shot at something like RM 4, and our communities can’t afford for us to fail. So we believe it’s better to regroup, learn what we can from this, build our movement, and come back stronger to win big next time.

Join our team! We're hiring for two full time positions. ✅ Director Administration - oversee HR functions, manage facility operations, supervise office services, and ensure the overall efficiency of org operations. ✅ Research Analyst - support implementation of our core policy initiatives and work with local governments on systems planning and coordination within the homelessness response systems. Learn more, apply yourself, or spread the word. https://lnkd.in/gEDmG6g

Recently, Governor Gavin Newsom and other politicians have made calls to remove encampments without providing safe, stable places for people to go. This only distracts public attention from the real solutions supported by experts and evidence: more affordable homes, preventing homelessness before it happens, and quality interim (non-congregate) housing options. "To reduce homelessness in the Bay Area, we must focus on compassionate and proven solutions that work. Moving people along, separating them from their belongings, potentially charging them with a crime or issuing a fine, only makes it harder for them to get housed. A home is what solves homelessness—punishing people for not having a home makes the problem worse.” Read our full joint response with Bay Area Community Services and United Way Bay Area https://lnkd.in/g4tAswUv

Join our team! We're hiring a Director of Administration to help foster a positive work environment, maintain effective operational procedures, and ensure that the physical and administrative infrastructure supports our mission. Spread the word or apply yourself! https://lnkd.in/gEDmG6g

All Home Community Advisory Councilmember, Anthony Carrasco wrote in a The Sacramento Bee letter to the editor, "Punishment is not an evidence-based solution to homelessness. The Supreme Court may have enabled municipalities to remain trapped in a pointless and pathetic process of punishing the poor, however, the fight for housing justice continues wherever people of conscience find the courage to love their unhoused neighbors." Read the full letter: https://lnkd.in/gqQpMyZx

#SCOTUS' decision on #JohnsonVGrantsPass allows local governments to punish people for sleeping outside when they have nowhere else to go, even though experts agree that criminalizing homelessness only makes it harder to solve. Luckily, the rest of this week’s news has the Bay Area poised to double down on proven solutions to homelessness. ✔ On Tuesday, we released our Regional Action Plan that serves as a roadmap to making homelessness rare, brief and one-time. ✔ On Wednesday, MTC voted to put a $20 billion affordable housing bond measure on the November ballot of all Bay Area counties. ✔ On Thursday, the Legislature voted to put structural change to enable housing solutions on the ballot statewide through ACA 10. Despite the disappointing ruling made earlier today, we cannot afford to let it distract us from the proven solutions right in front of us. Let’s come together and choose a better future for the Bay Area, where everyone in our region can stay here and thrive. https://lnkd.in/gz9ZDqKP

It’s just a question of priorities.

BIG NEWS: The Bay Area Housing Finance Authority (BAHFA) have unanimously voted to approve sending a $20B affordable housing bond to the voters on the November 2024 ballot! Just yesterday, we released a new Regional Action Plan that shows exactly what it will take to dramatically reduce homelessness across the Bay, and this new bond measure will be a huge down payment to achieve that goal. For anyone feeling frustrated about the high cost of housing, about the human tragedy playing out on our streets—this is our chance to turn things around. Learn more about how you can support the regional bond here: https://lnkd.in/g2wHb-Az

"We know pretty well what prevents and ends homelessness...The best way to get those dollars that we need to make these solutions work is to look at a regional level and get all the communities together rowing in the same direction." Our new Regional Action Plan shows what it will take to dramatically reduce homelessness in the Bay Area. Read more about it in KQED https://lnkd.in/gHTEE3X5

🚨NEW: We just released our updated Regional Action Plan, a roadmap to make homelessness in the Bay Area rare, brief, and one-time for those who experience it. The new plan shows what it will take to dramatically reduce homelessness in the Bay Area—and that doing so is absolutely possible. At the core is the need for every part of our region to have stronger planning and coordination while expanding 3 solutions all at the same time: targeted homelessness prevention, permanent housing, and interim housing. We also have new helpful tools! ✅The interactive Solutions Dashboard allows anyone to see the necessary mix of prevention, interim housing, and permanent housing it will take, and the associated costs, to reduce unsheltered homelessness by 25%, 50%, or 75%. ✅The Support Card is a tool to help guide and evaluate local governments’ efforts to make their homelessness response systems more effective. Check it out! https://lnkd.in/grSVJZV8