Housing Leadership Council of San Mateo County

PROGRAM: HOUSING EDUCATION HLC hosts two significant annual educational events: Housing LeadershipDay and Affordable Housing Month.Housing Leadership Day (HLD) is an annual education event held in thefall. In fall of 2023, we met at CZI's community space with sixworkshops facilitated by HLC leaders, where attendees learned about thecomplex dimensions of producing, preserving, and protecting affordablehomes. Over 200 attendees came together to learn about the regional housing bond, teacher housing, and hear from lyrical opposition. the keynote speaker was Tomiquia Moss, All Home Executive Director and current Business, Consumer Services and Housing Agency Secretary for the State of California.

PROGRAM: KEY ACHIEVEMENTS AND OUTCOMES Endorsement Committee: HLC endorsed 398 homes July through December 2023. 100% were approved by their respective jurisdictions. Out of the approved homes, 48 or 12% are affordable. In the same time frame, HLC has closely tracked and advocated for 1,625 previously endorsed homes, of which 404, or 33% are affordable.Public Land for Public Good: Public land continues to be a critical strategy for affordable housing on the peninsula due to high land and construction costs. Of the 2,700 affordable homes HLC has endorsed over the last three years, over half, or about 1,400, are on public land. School districts throughout the peninsula are in various stages of planning for more homes, and cities are committing to publicly owned sites in their housing elements. strategies to improve access to public land will continue to be a priority for HLC.HOUSING ELEMENT: HLC continues to work with communities on their housing plans by providing specific, actionable feedback to jurisdictions as they finalize updates to their housing elements. The state department of Housing and Community Development continues to reference HLCs letters and conversations in every review letter they send to cities. Our housing element work changed policies at the root cause of the housing crisis. As a result of advocacy by HLC and our coalition partners, cities across San Mateo County have committed to implement over 100 new meaningful policies to promote affordable homes and protect tenants. Across the County, cities are dedicating over 20 acres of public land for affordable homes; rezoning for tens of thousands of new homes; and implementing a range of new tenant protections. In order to help jurisdictions follow through on their policy commitments, and to support our local partners as they set priorities for housing element advocacy, HLC created a policy tracking guide that lists deadlines and deliverables for every high-impact policy described in housing elements throughout San Mateo County. The tracker enables us to proactively enforce the law and set the media narrative, such as when HCD decertified Portola Valley for missing a rezoning deadlinewhich led to coverage first by the Almanac News, then the Mercury News and SF Chronicle, stories that all quote HLC staff and have inspired other cities to remain in compliance by keeping up with their policy deadlines. The housing element update process also enabled countywide coalition building through the County Housing Element campaign, a collaborative effort led by HLC, Housing Choices, Greenbelt Alliance, and United Way Bay Area. The campaign made us accountable to organizations at every level of the County, incorporated and unincorporated, big cities, small cities, and everything in between. Our County Housing Element campaign allowed HLC to focus on some of San Mateo Countys highest need, most underserved groups, which made our coalition broadly appealing. As described in a May 2024 campaign retrospective report, our coalition grew from nothing to 15 organizations between November 2022 and July 2023. Participants include unincorporated County community groups North Fair Oaks Community Alliance and Puente de la Costa Sur; local city-based groups Pacifica Housing for All, Menlo Together, and One San Mateo; regional groups like Peninsula for Everyone and All Home; non-housing groups such as Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition and Build Up San Mateo County; and groups serving the disabled and homeless, including the Center for Independence of Individuals with Disabilities and Housing Choices. As a result of our advocacy, the County's housing element now includes concrete plans for farmworker housing, policies specifically incentivizing housing for the intellectually and developmentally disabled community, and major rezones in transit-oriented areas. The County Campaign also provided a space to organize around other County-level issues, including just cause for eviction tenant protections, Measure K sales tax funding allocations, and improved regulations of homeless encampments. Without the opportunity created by the County housing element, no Countywide coalition would have been in place to bring a housing justice lens to these issues.