Housing Leadership Council Of San Mateo County

Programs: Program: funding for affordable housingaccomplishments: hlc worked diligently last year to increase funding from local sources to affordable housing. With the dismal projection on a decrease in housing funding coming in at the federal level, hlc worked to ensure that local policymakers knew that the future and reliability of federal funding was bleak, thereby stressing the importance of using locally-funded dollars to ensure that affordable housing continues to be a priority in san mateo county. Through this program work hlc supported the passage of measure k, which is an extension on a previously-approved half cent sales tax, with the promise that a portion of those dollars would be set aside to fund housing-related proposals. Thanks to the work of hlc and our partners, measure k passed with an overwhelming majority of votes in san mateo county. Later in the year when the san mateo county board of supervisors were deciding how to allocate the measure k dollars, hlc successfully campaigned to allocate $25 million dollars to affordable housing. We did outreach at public events, parties, festivals, and at parks to have people take a photo supporting the funding allocation to housing and presented them in a collage at the bos meeting. This campaign led to the board increasing it's investment in affordable housing by $13 million.

program: public land for public goodaccomplishments: hlc's public land for public good program has a goal to try and have cities use it's unused or underused parcels that they own for the development of housing, particularly affordable housing. The main idea is that with the unprecedented housing shortage, the most beneficial public good that jurisdictions can provide is housing at various income levels. This year, hlc worked with our partners to do in-depth analyses of data from the metropolitan transportation commission (mtc) on where the best parcels of buildable public land were located. We also researched the main decision-makers and people that are crucial to approving policies such as this. This research yielded results that caused hlc and the coalition that we built to develop a campaign to organize supporters to advocate that caltrain set aside a set percentage of their land and dedicate it to affordable housing.

program: housing educationaccomplishments: in october 2015, hlc hosted its annual housing leadership day, which convened over 245 elected officials, developers, and community advocates to discuss policies around the housing crisis and potential solutions for preventing displacement. The theme of the conference was towards shared prosperity: affordable homes as the key to reducing poverty inequality, and displacement in our county. Sessions held included workshops educating attendees on the utilization of public land for public good, water resources for sustainable growth, innovative approaches to stabilizing communities in the midst of the housing crisis, a state legislative update from sacramento, and an introductory housing 101 workshop. Hlc also hosted several events during affordable housing week in may 2016. Events included 1) an open-house and kick-off reception attended by over 30 of our members and sponsors, 2) a housing resource fair, attended by over 60 community members looking for affordable housing resources, and 3) a housing policy luncheon, which was attended by over 100 community members, nonprofit professionals, and elected officials.