Gen H Monthly News and Updates | Sept 2020 |
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A message from Generation Housing Executive Director, Jen Klose |
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I am awed by our firefighters and other emergency responders who have used each fire as an opportunity to improve their responses and who then repeatedly spring into action to protect our community, working in brutal conditions, foregoing days off. I am filled with so much gratitude seeing the fire engines in bright red, yellow, and green, driving in from all parts of our state, making up a team of mismatched uniforms but with one common goal. I am inspired by our responders not in uniform ⎯ school staff, public and nonprofit social safety net service providers, and our health care workers ⎯ whose already challenging jobs grow in scope, intensity, and urgency each time the flames flare up. And I am impressed with each of us, continuing to put one foot in front of the other, and stepping up to help friends, family, and neighbors, as we are hit with crisis upon crisis.
But the repetitive fires (and a flood, and smoke days, and power outages), capped by a pandemic, are no doubt taking a toll on our physical health, our mental health, our individual and community’s economic stability, our kids’ education, our environment, and our housing scarcity and affordability challenges. Both as individuals and as a community, we have a choice ⎯ whether to just keep our heads up and endure or work to build true resiliency.
Building community resiliency in our recovery from the multitude of recent disasters is multi-faceted, but more affordable housing is a critical part of that effort. At Gen H, we work intentionally with a vision of a vibrant community where everyone has a place to call home and the courage to dig into tough and complicated issues. We work to convene, collaborate, and align around housing solutions (one key partner is the Renewable Enterprise District who is featured in this newsletter). In these ways, we are committed to helping build our community’s resilience.
I am personally working on shifting from an endurance mindset to building my individual resilience (I even started meditating!). It’s challenging! But the easy part for me is the finding purpose component; I am so grateful to have the opportunity to help build community resilience through Gen H’s work.
Our Gen H hearts go out to those who have lost their homes in this, or any of the recent wildfires. And our Gen H hearts are with all whose lives have been disrupted by or have experienced trauma due to the relentless disasters our community has faced ⎯ which is all of us. Please take good care of yourselves and each other.
Jen
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Renewable Enterprise District (RED) |
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Generation Housing and numerous community partners have come together to advocate for the use of the PG&E wildfire settlement funds to invest in housing. One of the two items asks that we invest in spurring housing production by funding the Renewable Enterprise District (RED). In this article, we answer the two most important questions, “What is the RED Fund and why does it deserve to receive funding from the PG&E settlement?”
The RED was formed as a partnership between the City of Santa Rosa and County of Sonoma in the aftermath of the 2017 wildfires as a response to the State’s call to action to address our housing challenge. At its core, the RED was established to help address our urgent need for more housing by accelerating the production of more affordable and middle income, infill housing near transit.
Read more about The RED here.
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We are Gen H! Become a member today! |
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Member Spotlight: Cory Maguire |
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Cory Maguire joined Terra Firma Global Partners in 2012 as a Senior Sales Associate and has since advanced her position to Associate Partner. Her practice in Sonoma County, since 1994, includes a diverse portfolio of Country properties, Land and Residential Homes. Cory's knowledge and abilities are wide ranged. She dedicates an insightful, focused and advanced skill set to each project with commitment and time-honored values.
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Upcoming Events
The Future of Housing Candidate Forum Series
Candidates will have an opportunity to share their views, ideas, and proposals on a range of housing issues ranging from housing production, zoning, land-use, homelessness, COVID-19 recovery efforts, racial justice, and much more.
In Conversation with Richard Rothstein | Nov. 12 6:00 PM
Generation Housing and Los Cien are proud to present, as part of the Housing Equity Series: “The Color of the Law”, A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by author & speaker Richard Rothstein.
In THE COLOR OF LAW, Richard Rothstein argues with exacting precision and fascinating insight how segregation in America—the incessant kind that continues to dog our major cities and has contributed to so much recent social strife—is the byproduct of explicit government policies at the local, state, and federal level.
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In this month’s update, we’ll share with you news from Sacramento related to housing production legislation and some of the efforts locally to support mixed-use and multifamily housing in the downtown Santa Rosa core area.
State Legislation
2020 was supposed to be the year of “housing production”, but by the end of the legislative session, nearly all of the high-profile housing bills had died. Generation Housing supported several bills, including the Senate Housing Production Package, which was led in part by Senator Mike McGuire. The proposals held significant promise in helping enable a policy environment that could foster greater housing production.
One of the bills that made it near the end, SB 1120 (Weiner), would have allowed duplexes in single-family-only neighborhoods. According to an analysis from UC Berkeley, if only 5% of eligible single-family-homes were converted under the proposal, nearly 600,000 new units could be created at a time when we desperately need a variety of housing. The Senate Housing Production Package also included legislation designed to make it easier to convert large commercial property into housing and allow developers to build more densely if they included more “moderate” income units, among other items.
Read the rest of our advocacy update here
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Sonoma County Housing News Digest
In case you missed some of the key news items of the last few weeks on local housing, Generation Housing has procured a bevy of news articles from around Sonoma County.
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“Sonoma County planning officials could purge more than 400 inactive vacation rental permits from the county’s rolls, offering some breathing room for new rental operators as the Board of Supervisors is poised Tuesday to extend by nearly two years a temporary cap on existing short-term rentals.”
“How a small housing unit — built on a single family lot with an existing home — might be an answer to housing in the North Bay will be explored in a webinar Wednesday by the Napa Sonoma ADU Center.The event will take a virtual look into how to gain permits and build accessory dwelling units with financial support by the Napa Valley Community Foundation with backing from Community Foundation Sonoma County. The event takes place from 6 to 7:30 p.m.”
Caritas Village housing project in Santa Rosa secures $1 million from county vintners | Press Democrat
“A $1 million gift by the Sonoma County Vintners Foundation is the latest sign of progress for the roughly $120 million Caritas Village, a combination housing and homeless shelter project slated for the northwest corner of downtown Santa Rosa.”
“John Stewart, an affordable housing pioneer whose company became California’s largest manager of low-income housing units, died Sept. 5 of liver cancer. He was 86. A gregarious, larger-than-life man whose firm built more than 6,400 apartments and managed more than 33,000, Stewart played a central role in building or restoring some of San Francisco’s most noteworthy low-income public housing, including North Beach Place and Hunters View, often cobbling together complex financing to make the deals happen.”
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