Council of Community Housing Organizations

In 2022, CCHO experienced a complete staffing change. Co-directors Peter Cohen and Fernando Mart phased out of their staffing roles and served part time as consultants. The Board of Directors conducted the hiring process for CCHOs new Executive Director John Avalos who started in March 2022. Charlie Sciammas, CCHOs new Policy Director began in July 2022, and Li Lovett, CCHOs Communications Director began in December 2022.During CCHOs Annual Celebration, we honored Peter Cohen and Fernando Marts 12 years of service.Aligning Housing Justice and Tenant Rights Organizations into a Common VoiceBudget AdvocacyIn 2022, CCHO has been working alongside housing justice organizations in San Francisco, and the Bay Area to influence affordable housing policy at the local, regional, and state level. Much of this work takes place in San Francisco where CCHO members and staff have served on the Housing Stability Oversight Board to identify affordable housing priorities for preservation and tenant protection and recommend the allocation of funding housing preservation, tenant rights, and emergency maintenance in the Citys budget process.Housing Preservation and Tenant RightsLast year, the Mayors Office of Housing and Community Development (MOHCD) updated its housing preservation guidelines. In a parallel process CCHO convened our housing organizations in to identify how the proposed rule changes would affect our organizations and advocate for changes that would strengthen our housing preservation work. We provided comments to the MOHCD to influence the final guidelines. We worked with tenant groups to advocate for consistent guidelines to support tenants in housing preservation efforts. In 2022, CCHO co-lead with Urban Habitat and Enterprise the Peninsula South Bay Housing Preservation Lab (PSBHPL) With our partners we oversaw a small grant program to build the capacity of small grassroots housing preservation organizations to develop business plans and conduct tenant outreach for housing preservation work on the peninsula.With the PSBHPL, CCHO weighed in on regional affordable housing planning happening at the Bay Area Housing Finance Authority to support funding for capacity development community housing organizations to do preservation work on the peninsula in preparation for a regional housing bond that will likely be on the November 2024 ballot. The PSBHPL also developed a common letter for to share with the CA Department of Housing and Community Development as it began to develop guidelines for the Foreclosure Intervention Housing Preservation Program (FIHPP). Housing ElementIn the last few months of 2022, CCHO was engaged in process to prepare and finalize San Franciscos Housing Element. CCHO was focused on advocating for resources from all levels of government that would ensure that would allow San Francisco and other local jurisdictions to meet our below market rate housing development goals. CCHO staff made and official presentation at the San Francisco Board of Supervisors on November 15, calling for the establishment of major new sources of funding for affordable housing development. As a result of our advocacy, the City of San Francisco has created an Affordable Housing Working Group and committed to support a local affordable housing general obligation bond for the March 2024 ballot and a regional bond for the November 2024 ballot.