Abundant Affordable Housing for Every Oaklander
Oakland is in the midst of a housing crisis, with too many people feeling the squeeze of high rents with limited housing available. At the same time, families interested in buying their first home struggle to put down roots here because they’re competing with corporate buyers and an extremely limited supply. I’ve heard from many of you how difficult it feels to balance the cost of housing, transportation, food, and daycare.
I have a plan to bring affordable, abundant housing choices to everyone who wants to call Oakland home by coordinating efforts across a broad range of partners to speed up construction and implement protections for current, at-risk tenants and homeowners.
How we get it done:
- Keep Oaklanders in their home and from becoming homeless by implementing shallow subsidy programs and protecting at-risk housing units.
- Create a public lands policy that harnesses Oakland’s vacant land, maximizes public benefits and streamlines permitting processes to build more affordable homes faster.
- Coordinate with Oakland Housing Authority and BART to build affordable housing on their vacant properties near jobs and transit hubs.
- Develop stronger, more transparent community benefits programs and construction mitigation requirements for housing and commercial development that supports historic and culturally significant corridors.
- Streamline building permits and fill staff vacancies to increase housing production. If you’re a homeowner and wish to create more living space for your family, that process should be easy and simple.
What does this look like?
My vision for housing in Oakland is one that strives to eliminate homelessness, increases rental availability and affordability, creates opportunities for investmenting in our city, and supports our multi-generational family households. Oakland City Council has a direct impact over how much housing we build and more importantly, where we build housing. Oakland is in a unique position to address the housing crisis because we have so much land available near transit that is either owned by the city or owned by mission-aligned organizations like churches and nonprofits. It’s time we had an effective strategy for unlocking this opportunity to get the affordable homes we need today.
As a longtime housing advocate with firsthand experience as a land use planner, I know the details of what it takes to get housing built in cities like ours. Additionally, having supported BART’s affordable housing strategy as a planning consultant, I am uniquely positioned to support transit-oriented development throughout District 3 – particularly around the West Oakland BART Station. Serving on both the Housing Action Coalition’s Regulatory Review Committee and Green Belt Alliance’s Climate Smart Development Review Committee I am expertly aware of nuanced policies and strategies that bring our nonprofit developers, for-profit developers, affordable housing advocates and environmental advocates into alignment. Let’s make Oakland a leader in addressing the Bay Area and California’s housing crisis!