 Welcome to our wonderful space down here, 2044 Franklin. East Bay for everyone is the resident of this place. We're a pro housing emergency organization here in East Bay, which includes everything from the East Bay, Berkeley, Alameda, Oakland, Juana Creek, all the way up to Pittsburgh, Enrichment and all that. We're grassroots funded, we don't have a whole lot of money. If you want to help out pay for this event that we threw, because stages cost money to rent. We have a donation box up there. And everything here has been pretty much donated through grassroots volunteers. So, welcome. Cool. So this is Catherine at Tech Equity, and we're going to start the panel. Hello, everyone. I am Catherine Bracey, the founder and executive director of the Tech Equity Collaborative. We are co-hosting this event with East Bay for everyone. Thank you, Toria, and East Bay for everyone for hosting us. Just a couple of announcements. For those of you who don't know who we are, we are a new organization that is organizing and activating the tech community and tech workers to advocate for a policy that will make the tech economy work for everyone. And this year housing is our big priority area. At the front we have copies of our housing platform, and on the back of that platform you can see the four issue areas that we are advocating for this year. So please pick one of those up. If you work in tech, please join us. And then just a couple of notes we have. This is the first event that we're throwing this year. It's also the first in our candidate forum series. We'll be doing more of these throughout the year, but we also have another event coming up on February 8th in San Francisco. It's a documentary screening, you can find information on our website. We're also co-hosting an event called Beloved Open 2018. There are postcards up at the front. This is an opportunity for people in Oakland to come together and sort of celebrate our differences. And it will be featuring a concert by a fantastic recrito among others. So it would be really great if you could join us. For this it's a benefit to fund some anti-displacement work that's happening in East Bay. So a couple of event announcements before we hand it over to our fantastic moderator. We do have a code of conduct at all of our events, copies of which are at the front. The basics are essentially this is a safe space for learning and we want to make sure that everyone has the opportunity to learn while they're here. So please just keep that in mind. We are going... We are at both... You guys are at C3? C4. Oh, okay, well they can do what they want. We are at C3. So we are non-partisan and this event is not meant to be an endorsement of any of the candidates. We're really committed to giving all of the candidates equal time. So I want to make sure that is clear up front. There are nine candidates running for the seat. So it is going to be a logistical challenge to make sure that we can get all of the candidates saying what they need to say in a lot of time. So having said that, we're only going to focus on four of the questions that we have pre-selected and all of our candidates have seen in advance. But they've also all answered the full eight question questionnaire which should have been emailed. You should have all gotten that in your email if you registered for the event. If you did not pre-register and you want a copy of that questionnaire, please make sure we have your email address at the front. And if you want to ask a question, the way this is going to work is Conor, our moderator, who I will introduce in a second, is going to ask each of the panelists a question in 90 seconds to answer and then we'll have a little bit of a period of where Conor will moderate a Q&A. The way we're going to do this is there are index cards and where is Ernest? Ernest is going to pass out the index cards and you will write your questions down, you'll collect them and give them to Conor and we'll use his discretion on what actually gets asked. That will just make this a little bit more easy and democratic and faster. Okay, so with that I'm going to introduce Conor Doherty who is a New York Times economic reporter who covers housing and the West Coast and we are really honored to have him here doing Yeoman's work, making sure that all of my candidates can get their ideas on the table and you guys can come away feeling like you have a better sense of who's running to represent you. So with that we will hand it over to Conor. I'm used to having a byline, not used to having a microphone so if I seem sort of nervous I don't do a whole lot of public speaking. My parents are a 51 year residence of San Francisco and I live in the candidates district so even though I work for the New York Times I'm very local and everyone should subscribe to the New York Times as well. So anyway, I guess people walk up for Eric at least that's who you are because there's not a deal. And what's your position on the housing crisis? Pretty much how did we get here and how, you know, broadly speaking, how do you think we got here and how do you think you can help lead us out? Let's start with you but we're going to start in a different place for a different question. Good evening. I'm Andy Katz. I'm a city planner by training as well as an attorney and a lifelong resident of the Bay Area. And I'm running for the assembly because I think we need to provide an urban environment that's more livable for our residents, that's affordable for all of us and what I've done to be a productive part but also not build housing for decades. I was appointed to the Zoning Adjustments Board and led a new era for Berkeley where we got 2,500 new units of housing, including 20% of that affordable housing. I'm proud of that record and I think I'm the only candidate here that can really talk about that much housing being developed under that kind of leadership. So what I'm committed to is affordability, livability, ensuring that we have walkable neighborhoods, good quality transit and that's why I went on to get a Masters in City planning and helped expand public transit services for all of us in the community. And I'm also running to protect workers' rights, advance universal access to health care and protect our environment. Hey everyone. My name is Owen Poindexter. I've been helping to push progressive causes and elect progressives for about 10 years now. And I'm in this race because I believe that progressives need to go further and be bolder in advancing our causes and in living our values. And that starts in California with the universal basic income. Now the housing crisis, we've had a huge influx of wealth into an area that was already heavily tilted in favor of developers and property owners. And the legal system has only gotten more skewed in that direction since then. So we need to protect renters. We need a rapid increase in housing in all levels of income. And we need to adjust how we represent people to better, excuse me, we need judicial protections for everyone in this state to help them stand up to landlords and to developers. And if we do those things, we can start to see a California that welcomes everyone and where everyone can live off the tremendous prosperity that we all share here. Hi, thanks. Thank you to the organizations hosting this and sponsoring this. We appreciate that. It's a great turnout. My name is Dan Call. I'm currently an Oakland City Council member in my second term. And I have over 30 years of experience working on as an organizer, as an activist, as a public interest and environmental advocate on a range of policy issues. And that includes about 10 years actually working in Sacramento, living here, commuting to Sacramento on legislation, drafting legislation, negotiating amendments, doing the entire legislative process. I want to take that experience I have in Sacramento, as well as my experience as a two-term city council member and bring that back to Sacramento as an assembly member to fight for the issues that we care about most in our housing issues. Obviously we have a clear supply and demand problem. A lot of demand, not enough supply. But the complexities to solve those problems is much more difficult to figure out, although we have a lot of opportunity to do so. Here are some things that I've done already as a city council member. The first legislation I passed in ordinance was to require 25% of our so-called boomerang funds, the former funds that we get from the redevelopment being dissolved for affordable housing. I've been the leader on affordable housing issues as a city council member. I've been a leader on rent and protection issues as a city council member. I authored the tenant protection ordinance in 2014 and I will be a leader on housing issues, whether it's affordable housing, affordable housing for all, or rent and protections. Once I get to Sacramento, I appreciate your support. Thank you so much. Buffy Wicks, I'm born and raised here in California and I'm running, coming into the area, tech jobs and these are good, high-paying salaries. That's a good thing, right? We want high-paying salaries. We've worked hard to address that. We passed first to the state, by right, affordable housing. I spent the last 25 to 30 years working with and for the people of this district on a variety of different issues. I started out my career after graduating from planning school, working to create housing and to address homelessness and that's where I started my career and I've remained committed to making sure that we try to address the inequities that underlie our housing crisis and other crises in this district. What's the cause of housing? I mean, you know, I think all of the other speakers spoke to this to some extent. You know, we have a history of housing policy that excludes poor people from wealthy neighborhoods. By having a single home, having exclusionary zoning that keeps the density out of our neighborhoods, we're strangle-holding and we can't create more housing. So we have to address inclusionary housing. We have to make sure that we address our zoning laws. We have to look at the places where they're creating more jobs in this area that are creating jobs, which is great, but they're not creating the housing to house those jobs. So we have to make sure that every neighborhood does their fair share in creating the housing for our communities and it's only through doing that. We have to couple jobs with housing to solve this problem. Well, good evening, everyone. Thank you for coming out on a rainy day. My name is Yolanda Beckles. I'm a council member in the City of Richmond. Last seven years I've been a council member fighting for tenant rights, fighting for renters. We are where we are because quite frankly, we don't have enough will. We don't have enough elected officials who are corporate free, who are taking no money from developers, who are taking no money from oil companies, who are taking no money from those folks who are here to displace, particularly communities of color. So that's why in Richmond for the last seven years, I have authored or co-authored eight different items around housing. Authored the item to ban the box for housing. So we have folks coming back from incarceration. They aren't able to get a place to live because of that question on the box. I have authored several bills to include secondary units in Richmond. So we have to tighten up our laws and we have to have elected officials who are standing here for you. So starting in 1995, we have Costa Hawkins. And so in order for us to change that and to have the housing that we need, we have to repeal Costa Hawkins, not just fix it, not just reform it. We have to repeal it. So that's where I stand and that's what I would do and I'll continue to fight for renters throughout the Bay Area. My name is Rochelle Pardue Okimoto. I am the mayor pro tem for the city of El Cerrito. I'm running for assembly because I want to help my community. I have been a nurse for the past 17 years and in the hospital I've seen a lot of things and right now at Alta Bates Hospital we're about to lose housing. We're about to lose housing for our patients. But the entire hospital closed down. We won't have housing for our patients and that would be a shame. But to go on to the greater housing issue, there are many reasons why we've gotten into this situation. Starting with federal funding. Federal funding over the last 10 years has decreased by about half. We've gone from about 750 million in grants to about 350 million over a 10 year period and that all used to go to housing. We used to have a redevelopment agency that really helped in little cities like El Cerrito to provide housing. That was also taken away. At the same time we've seen a tech boom. So we've had more people coming here with all these great jobs but then not enough housing as a result. So we need to build more housing. We need transit oriented development. We need accessory development in our homes and we need general inclusionary policies so that all people can afford to live in our neighborhoods. Thank you. I'm Cheryl Settith. I'm an activist. I'm a mommy. I'm a community organizer and disabilities and veterans activists. I am a justice buddhira. I'm a warrior for justice. Let me explain to you that you may not have heard. This housing crisis that we're in, it started long ago and it started during the Clinton administration when anybody and everybody was allowed to get a housing, was allowed to get funding. Anybody and everybody was permitted to get housing loans and it disproportionately affected people of color. People of marginalized communities, black and brown people were approved for loans that they could not afford and whether their credit was good or not and their credit at the same level as their white counterparts and then when they couldn't afford it they were displaced out of their homes. This started when the HUD administration under the Obama administration was giving cities the permission to give people homes but then they turned them over to the cities and the city decided they wanted to get out of being landlords and then to cities like Richmond who sold them to private investors and then those investors decided to get out of it they sold them and then they lost those homes and now we no longer have units. The solution is we need these low, moderate and market-grade houses and then we can begin to give people homes but we cannot continue to move along these paths and pretend that this is an organic matter. It's not organic, it's man-made. Thank you. Those are for you two questions. I'm just going to leave them and then write your one sentence question or whatever so that we can really deal with it. Oh yeah, sorry. If you have one, wave it in there. That's what I was supposed to say. So why don't we start on the end this time with Cheryl. You guys are all running for state-wide office. There's been a lot of bills lately some just proposed others passed last year that have the where the state is basically trying to step in and kind of guide or propose whatever your view on that is localities to build more housing. So our question for you guys running for state-wide office is what role does the state even play in local housing policy and how do you see that shaping up in office? Cheryl. We have housing because I want to protect the way that my particular neighborhood looks or I want to protect the way that my neighborhood has a feel. So you can build them on your neighborhood or you can build it in your area but I want my neighborhood to have this particular look and feel and see that sometimes you have to regulate to make sure that we don't have so many houseless individuals in areas that are basically affected by people that look like me or people who are in impoverished conditions and say it's fine for them This question is yes and my intuition on answering this question is no as a city council member or I should say mayor pro tem now of a small city and we believe in small cities in local control but unfortunately what's happening right now is that leaving it up you know city by city and kind of district by district we're not seeing the kind of housing that we need to supply for the entire good of the entire state so therefore in this scenario because we're in a housing crisis I do believe that the state should step in at this point and go into zoning in areas that are transit rich or near transit if we can increase the housing density in these areas where you're near transit where you're not going to be adding to pollution by urban sprawl those are the kind of developments that are necessary at this time and the housing prices of everybody and that includes homeowners such as myself it's all going up it's because of a lack of supply so I'm very much in favor of building housing and in particular building affordable housing so that everyone has a chance to thrive here so the state's role not to do with regulating zoning so in Richmond we have we're creative we are currently exploring land use we are currently looking at how we can have tiny houses but recognizing that state policies of course supersede municipal policies and so in Richmond although we were the first state first city to pass rent control in 30 years our hands are tied our hands are tied once again because of Costa Hawkins laws and that's why it has to be repealed but other land use land use regulations comes from the state and when you elect someone like me who's been a champion for tenants and renters for the last 7 years we can get the kinds of policies that will enable us to have more affordable housing to get creative with how we house our homeless population with how we whether or not we can build tiny houses whether or not we can build second dwelling units all of these are at the state level and we can get that changed by once again electing individuals like myself who are champions for renters and working with the community members that are on the ground every single day like ACE Alliance for California like we have to thank you so the question was whether or not the state has a role in zoning and I think the answer absolutely has to be yes there needs to be partnership between local particularly progressive local cities and municipalities that are interested in helping to increase housing stock to increase affordability to provide bonuses for building 100% affordable units we need to make sure that there's opportunities for local people and for local interest and nonprofits to be able to increase the housing stock in particularly affordability but also through some other creative matters but it's up to the states to really guide our policy and without the state making these localities responsible and accountable for their fair share we'll end up with a continuing discrimination throughout the state with some places building more housing and with some places continuing to serve the very few and wealthy the question on the questionnaire asked about some places in Marin but we don't have to look to Marin we have places in our own district where it's very difficult to increase density but what I honestly believe is that if we really want to solve this problem some of us are going to have to be a little uncomfortable and allow for creating low-income and affordable units in our areas and inclusionary housing so that all of our housing needs are met now if there was a food shortage and someone's found to be hoarding food, hoarding rice, hoarding bread there would be incredible penalties now what these communities are doing and have been doing for decades is hoarding land and land is the number one resource it is the first basis of wealth these are good neighbors they talk about Republicans and the one percent and the hoarding wealth and you don't know that but they're ignoring their own grip upon the land so absolutely the state has to step in and provide leadership and take over that situation because this resource hoarding is injuring people you see the homelessness and they're projecting in 35 years African-Americans are going to have a median net worth of $0 that means owning nothing that's not acceptable my proposals call for some very aggressive state leadership over these communities including a carbon tax on single family home zones to fund affordable housing including a cap and trade mechanism to make the lafayettes of the world contribute and pay or integrate so yes thank you the answer is yes the state I think has a role in helping to figure out our zoning issues and if you look at our zoning issues the exclusionary zoning that exists today has its roots in racist redlining and you can see it in the neighborhood all across this district and so I think this question really strikes the heart of SB 827 Scott Wienersville which I support in concept I know we're still trying to figure out what it will look like but what it does basically is say that around transit oriented areas we need to have more buildings more homes so I think this is one example of what the state can do to make sure that we're able to build both low income and the middle income housing that we need so that our communities that are disproportionately impacted on this low income communities are able to move into these neighborhoods have access to these good schools be along transportation corridors and achieve the American dream that we all should be able to have thank you it's never 0% it's never 100% of course the state has some role when it comes to local zoning so I think it's really important to have a carrot and stick approaches to incentivize or in some cases give a stick penalize those jurisdictions that are not doing what they should be doing in terms of zoning which leads to more housing or in some cases not more housing who here understands when I say the term rena or rena numbers who here knows what I'm talking about okay about almost a half for those who don't local jurisdiction as to how much new housing they're going to need to build over the next X number of years to meet the demand for new jobs and population both at different income levels market rate and so on down to low or very low we need to look at those rena numbers on a sub regional level I don't care if Atherton or Kensington builds more housing I care that the mid peninsula or northern Alameda County or West Contra County as sub regions I care that they build more housing if one community wants to work with another community and work together to make sure it's built somewhere in those sub regions great let's get the housing built and stop worrying about every little jurisdiction and worry about the sub regional areas where it really matters to have more housing we also need to expand and strengthen our sustainable community strategy which is a state of law and local implementation we need to work hard to do that as well and get that housing built yes the state absolutely has to have a role in local zoning and what we're seeing essentially is housing discrimination before we even have a tenant so the state has to get in there it would be nice if we could just rely on local zoning but what we've seen is that this is just a mechanism for areas that are tend to be older and whiter and richer to stay that way unfortunately we've got to get in there and change that and so I agree with Dan we could use a care and stick approach but it has to be a pretty strong stick we need to create penalties and fees on these regions that are not doing their job in terms of supplying enough housing based on the arena numbers we could probably do some adjustments to arena as well but if these penalties need to be enough so that one these counties raise things twice before blocking more development and two no matter which path you take whether it's more development or the fees you're part of the solution and so those funds could go into an affordable housing fund and we could use that to fund housing and to fund mass transit and to start to move towards something that is the kind of level of development that we need to see so thank you I also agree that the state plays an important role in ensuring that as a state that our regions are being able to support the demand for housing not just market rate but also affordable housing but we also have to be thinking about the way cities are going to implement these goals and these targets I strongly support the arena alignment the regional housing needs allocation alignment program that senate bill 375 got started it hasn't actually been implemented yet because it's set forward this eight year timeline and the sustainable community strategy has got adopted we're due for that implementation within just a few years we're getting very close to that point but SB 375 left a couple details out I agree with council member count that sub regional trading may be an appropriate solution in certain places but the big oversight I think is that it didn't really look at smart places to build it gave a bit too much discretion to regional councils and governments to kind of suppress the real problem we do need better production of housing in strategic places we need a better match of housing where the income levels are most needed where we need low income housing it needs to match where we're having a deficiency in that specific income category of housing we need to be looking where the jobs are and requiring more housing where those jobs are and to have a jobs housing match where we have these places I also think we need state programs that do a better job of facilitating compliance so that we don't have to deal with this in court principle everybody here likes what they, maybe not everybody but many of the questions people say that in principle they like what they hear you guys are all for more affordable housing you guys all think we need to build more housing and you know there's some nitty gritty about how we get it done so I got a bunch of questions here about the same thing which is I pretty much like what I hear but how are you going to make this happen in the assembly and can you be as specific as possible please so I'm going to start in the middle this time I'm going to start with Ben and then why don't we go pass it to the right and then go to Judy you give it to Judy thank you so you know the way you move large systems and I do this professionally and I've done it on the council the way you move large systems is creating circles of buy-in the easy way to say it is shared prosperity so for example one of my plans because a big part of my agenda is to create ownership ownership of property we've had three centuries of land giveaways to the majority population now I think it's time for an equitable transfer of land back to the other people so one way to do that is by amending the condominium map act this is kind of wonky but trust me amending the acts you can do retail investment in the early stage and sell those units early now what that does it lowers the cost of capital for developers it achieves a streamlined process to make building easier so at the same time that low income persons get to get property developers get to make more money and at the same time of course that the builders get to work so you have three tiers of people including the realtors all in sharing in this prosperity that increases our housing supply and increases the equity of our people so that's essentially what we've done on council in creating mechanisms for labor to partner with developers to achieve housing production is creating a sense for total buy-in and again share prosperity really share thank you so I think as I mentioned I think the housing package went a long way the one that was passed recently in the fall I think there's some interesting legislation being considered now that I think helps to get to some of these questions like 827 and some of the other stuff that Scott Wiener is doing I think the other big question around this is funding and how do we fund a lot of these affordable housing projects we need a lot of resources for that so I think we need to pass the 4 billion dollar housing bond that's going to be on the ballot this year I think we should look to create some kind of a California public infrastructure bank that's devoted to funding affordable housing units I think we should be incentivizing more housing transit oriented walkable housing tied to transportation funds as a way to bring that piece into the equation and really do everything we can to also streamline and also make sure that we are holding our local municipalities accountable to reach their goals there's a lot of the stuff that the state can do the governor Brown signed 15 bills I supported 14 and it was okay with the 15th bill that's a good start we have a lot more to do I testified on one of those bills helped negotiate some amendments on that same bill SB 540 and the league of cities credits my testimony of testimony of two other people to getting that bill out of a particular committee so I have experience working on housing issues not just locally and regionally but at the state level as well both recently and years and years and years ago but there's more we need to do and we have to, we can talk about whether it's more funding and we have the bond measure on the November ballot let's all vote for that by the way I'm proud to have the support of state senator Jim Bell who is the author of SB 3 the state affordable housing bond measure there's a lot more we have to do but the little things aren't going to be enough even though we should do those as well we need to bring back redevelopment I am going to author a law and work with my colleagues to bring back redevelopment it needs to be reformed from when it was the past 40 years before it was taken away there were abuses and problems with it and let's bring it back in a way that reforms it in an appropriate manner with good oversight and jurisdiction and transparency but it has to come back those other things that the legislature has done years ago that kind of what they call redevelopment light and enhanced infrastructure districts those are all fine those are not nearly enough if we're serious about this bringing back redevelopment is one of the solutions we have to be honest about that so we have some heavy political lifts that we need to keep working on and some less heavy lifts so one of the heavy lifts that we're getting pretty close on is repealing cost of Hawkins we had a vote recently on that that didn't quite work out because we had a couple of Democrats abstain but we're getting close on that one the momentum is there and we need to make that happen because step one here is protecting the people who are currently in their homes and then we've got some some not so heavy lifts like that four billion dollar bond and yeah we need to just juice funding right now because this is a crisis right now and while we work on those big lifts like reforming Prop 13 like repealing cost of Hawkins we do need to just inject some cash into the situation perhaps creating a public matching fund for affordable housing in lending that the state would put money on top of approved lenders and so affordable housing development instead of having to go to 10 different lenders all of a sudden you don't have to go to as many and things can start moving along we should also look into creating the universal right to representation for anyone facing eviction New York did this and they've seen many fewer evictions and many fewer evictions filed because landlords know that they have the power on their side when it comes to legal representation and most renters don't really know what they're doing once they get to court so by combination of these heavy lifts and not so heavy lifts we can make a lot of progress many of these ideas are very important and I think the legislature needs to work together to be able to replace some of the tools with redevelopment, particularly the land banking function when we have urban blight around the state we need to be able to allow cities to have that tool to hold financing and be able to invest by correcting those abuses from the past we also need, like I said, to be able to look at the affordable housing splits within the regional housing needs allocations and clarify that those are state mandates too not just the overall numbers but also the affordable housing splits and it's easier for local governments to raise money or be able to leverage requirements through inclusionary zoning through a business license tax affecting landlords through other local revenues that are easier to raise than the state legislature because it requires a two thirds vote for new revenue from the state legislature so I think emphasizing the arena affordable housing splits and enforcing those better is one way to help improve this I strongly agree with protecting our renters more we need to have statewide protections and enhance protections against unfair evictions we need to repeal cost to Hawkins so that people who are living where they are are not getting displaced I think it's critical that we increase the supply of housing increase the supply of affordable housing and protect our renters both through the legal process as well as by providing strength and protections it's very creative how we're doing that so, you know, first of all we need to protect our renters so we have to repeal cost to Hawkins and we have to make sure that we're putting protections in place so that we're helping people stay in their housing but that's just a start you know, I was recently I'm on the school board in Berkeley and so we're looking at workforce housing and so we've been looking with different nonprofit housing developers to work with in different ways to possibly finance this and there are so many barriers for an organization that already has the land so there's a lot of things that we need to do to help smooth the process we have to, first of all, deepen our tax credits there's right now a lot of affordable housing is paid for through tax credits but it's still limited we need to provide incentives to financial institutions to help finance affordable housing and housing I agree that we all have to stand behind the affordable housing bond that's going to come up it's a great start but I think we all know that it's not going to create enough housing to meet the needs for the 3.5 million people who need to have housing so we're going to have to come up with a multiple we have to come up with a multiple strategy a multi-strategy plan one of the things that I'm very excited about is looking at the Resilience Cities project that's currently coming tying that together with the housing strategy so that we're not only building more housing it's sustainable and affordable so how do we do it at the state level we have to repeal cost of Hawkins we have to repeal the Ellis Act which allows folks to be kicked out of their homes then we have to get creative we have to get creative and regulate and tax Airbnb those folks are making lots of money and we also have to keep the creativity going and even we have commercial landlords who oftentimes on purpose accidentally keep their buildings empty so how about we tax those right so we have to get creative but in our creativity we really have to make sure that those of us who are already struggling who are already paying our fair share of taxes aren't the ones who are going to solve the problem it's not going to get solved on our backs but it has to get solved on the backs of multi-billion dollar companies who aren't paying their fair share of taxes like a lot of the bills that were passed this year I think that the legislature has done a very good job in stuff that we need to do more of streamlining to make it easier to build that will increase the supply and definitely help but we need more bonds one bond that will be coming around at the end of the year could raise four billion dollars which will definitely help but I think we need a continued effort in funding so we need to have more bonds but ultimately I know the city of El Cerrito has been greatly affected by the repeal of redevelopment agencies so if we can bring forward again the redevelopment agency we can start to build again a lot of people have asked us in El Cerrito like why is San Pablo Avenue look the way that it does and most people don't realize that for a small city when they took away the redevelopment agency it really took away so much of our revenue and it stifled a lot of small communities and that stifled the building of housing in so many different communities in addition of course I agree with everyone else we need to repeal cost of Hawkins in order for a small city like my own to really do a good job of right control we need that behind us thank you so let me be clear if you're not seated at the table you cannot establish the priorities or the agenda so it doesn't matter if any of this occurs as long as you have people at that state capitol who are more beholden to the developers than they are to this community none of that matters so until you get people who have the will and the desire to build housing for the low the moderate income people none of this makes a difference so what we need to establish is that first so once we get there then we can start talking about building low income moderate income and then maybe some market rate housing for the people who matter in this community but we have to start first by making sure we have people who have the political will and the fortitude to make sure that we are representing the people of these communities we can talk all day long about our plans we can talk about repeal all day long but until you start there none of the rest of this matters okay so we got people their questions have a little to do with them now so we want to can we just do this one really fast everyone just like give a quick answer just like 10, 20 seconds you don't even have to look at that thing this time you don't have to fill up the time what sticks would you use if cities failed to meet their housing needs everyone wants to know about the sticks here different versions of this question why don't we start with Buffy and then this way if states aren't meeting their housing needs how would you punish them for not building enough housing if cities aren't meeting their housing needs yeah sorry well I do think we need to have further sticks I think this is some of the legislation being considered right now in Sacramento that's looking to do I think one piece of the equation could be transportation funding which would I think also serve as incentivizing a way for communities to build their housing perfect I see you didn't have to turn that on but yes, transportation funding that's a good one so if you don't build enough housing if you don't build enough housing you get less transportation funding you're penalized in some way is that a fair interpretation what's your stick yeah no comment how hard would you hit the stick how hard would you do we do need to have sticks and there is already a spot bill out there to discuss transportation funding as your penalty I have to be honest with you there is zero chance that bill is going to pass I mean the idea that cities and counties and the people who represent them the legislators who are going to be voting on that are going to allow their communities to put at risk the transportation funding it's just not going to happen it may be a good idea I'm open to that personally and I might vote for it I can say right now that zero chance it's going to pass so we need to find other sticks I don't know what those are but I'm happy to look at the sustainable community strategy which is SP375 and how that's implemented and there are some ways to strengthen that law which would then create sticks as well so that's what I'm going to look at sustainable community strategy SP375 and the sticks that we can put into that law to improve it short version money slightly longer version perhaps state money that is a portion to cities and counties could be modulated based on how canyons and cities are meeting their housing goals or not based on how many units they're falling short by let's find some new money and say that if you don't have enough housing production and affordable housing production your city won't have access to this new money I'd be happy to take existing money but I think we have political obstacles there on fixing SP375 and strengthening it what we can look at is to say so cities within a few years that are not complying with their regional housing needs they're going to get sued but are judges really going to implement the law are judges really going to issue an injunction that says cities you need to rewrite your zoning ordinance to comply with the law so the legislature can do more to explain yes this is really what we meant here are some findings here are some remedies that actually get us from point A to point B because this is a big task that the legislature has asked the judiciary to do the legislature can add some more breadcrumbs to lead the branches of government to make this result happen better so you basically make it easier for people to win the lawsuits against cities so that the judges don't have what do you mean by that in a red action against a city so any private party has a private right of action with attorney fee shifting it's a very powerful law what happened in the SP375 deal but what's unclear is what does the record of evidence look like what are the guideposts for is this a housing unit is this amount of land is this kind of zoning adequate do we just have to rezone and then our hands are off what does it really mean to be compliant with the regional housing and its allocations I think the legislature can add some meat on the bones and make it more clear for the judges implementing this law what does it really mean I think the housing and community development department can write some regulations to make it more clear what does this really mean and the legislature can help that that's up to Ben Ben how are we going to hit cities well certainly that's a series of larger regional these are like larger bodies that would arbitre funds and bonding funds debt funds equity funds all manner of funds for affordable housing and so they would be the ones who would arbitre the carbon tax allocations or the cap and trade and so forth so again so your loft gets to the world the ones that don't build they get fined unless they build they get fined so you know I think I actually think that we need care and stick programs that provide both incentives and penalties so I know the question is about the stick but I think I'm much I'm kind of more of an incentive gal so I'm a yes person so I will say that but I do think that SB35 had a good strategy as far as the stick I think if you want to call it that that we all have to live up to our requirements or our commitments to build the housing both market rate and affordable and if we don't that we can streamline the process so I think that that was an effective stick and I think we can continue we can see how that works and look at some other options finds and rewards and so enrichment redevelopment for everyone's art so enrichment what we do before we even accept a contract from a developer they have to agree to a certain percentage of affordable housing otherwise they don't get the contract then you also have to we have end-do fees as well and so if a developer decides we don't want any affordable housing well then they're going to pay a hefty fine for that and with the money that we get from that fine we then are now able to build more affordable housing and I think that that should be the case as well at state level cities such as El Cerrito if the state were to come to us and say hey if you don't get your housing in order we're going to change the zoning of where we think that you should build and most cities want to keep their local control so that would definitely be a stick however El Cerrito are also doing the best that we can we're doing very good with affordable housing with low income affordable housing but we're having a hard time with that what's called the missing middle so the people in between it's hard to as they say pencil out well for a development that's more moderate so I would also be encouraging the state to provide some sort of incentives or help to get us with that I think our standards I'm having a hard time with this question because everybody up here is using the word affordable and so first of all we need to define the word affordable because what's affordable at $50,000 is not the same thing as what's affordable at a million and a half and so low income is not the same thing in El Cerrito as it is in North Richmond D.B. Oakland as it is in Kensington or North Berkeley or North Oakland so let's just be real and say that the state needs to define affordable once and for all and needs to define low income once and for all and middle income because what we've discovered especially in Oakland is that the definition of affordable is 67% whereas the average person who's trying to come into that Section 8 housing is only making 67% of that at $46,000 and so when we go into that and you're having these developers come and build at that so-called low income level people aren't even able to move into those units so when you're talking about trying to find people or trying to get this carrot or stick or whatever you're already falling behind and so you're trying to find them but what are you finding them for because you've already put them behind the curve because if the people who they're building for are already 67% of the low the amount that you're building for you're already putting them at a disadvantage so first of all you need to define what that means affordable, low income, moderate income and market rate speaks for itself but we lost we gained over 90,000 so low income hold on just a minute we gained over 90,000 low income jobs in this area I mean low households in this area we lost over 200,000 units of low income housing in order to make that up it has to be mandated that these developers do it and if they don't do it then they shouldn't be allowed to build in these areas so we need to give them a percentage and we need to say you have no choice but to build in this area and in order to do it this is what has to be done thank you so ok we're going to we're going to move on to another question so one of the things we always forget is that this community has an amazing run of great fortune the biggest most valuable companies in the world tons of jobs the unemployment rate around here is like 3% or something and you know there's a lot of communities in the United States that don't have any jobs the housing is really cheap there because nobody wants it and we kind of forget that sometimes our problem, our crisis in this part of the country is that everything is going too well and too many people think it's too awesome to be here so the question is how do we tackle housing displacement while still accommodating growth while still giving people a chance to go from being the son or daughter of a service person to maybe an executive son because the company happens to be just down the street these are opportunities that people have here in this region that aren't available to people in a whole lot of other cities so I guess the question I think we're asking is how do we keep that growth and all those opportunities here and keep providing more opportunities for the next generations while still kind of protecting against displacement so this is a really good question and are we timing? I'll just keep talking so you know there's two questions in this one of them is how do we prevent displacement and how do we keep people going on housing but then how do we also make sure that there's a robust development that there's robust development going on and that we're encouraging people to come in and continue to build because in my opinion we need to continue to build we need more market rate housing we need more affordable housing we need more low income housing we have to increase our stock and so it's true I mean it's also a little deceptive to say that things are so good here obviously what leads to the displacement so one of the things that we have to make sure to do is that the companies that are benefiting so much from the that this is such an awesome place to live that we live in one of the best places in the country is to make sure that they are participatory and invested in making sure that we're building more housing so I really think that one of the things that we have to help legislate at the state level and we have to help encourage here at the local level is that that collaboration one of the things that I hear here is we need the people who are going to build the housing it is really difficult to build housing it's hard to make it pencil out so we have to make sure that we are holding those developers accountable but we're also incentivizing their being able to build the housing so that we have places for people to live Jevon and so I don't know I'm trying to laugh it up a bit here but I'm not being disrespectful so I'm going to take my slow way Jevon there's no need to reinvent the wheel necessarily I live in I'm from Richmond I've been a city council member in Richmond for the past seven years and the housing displacement that you're seeing happening in the Bay Area is the reason why we're seeing traffic is starting to look like L.A. because people can no longer afford where they work and so they're having to move farther and farther away and now we're having these ridiculous traffic nightmares and so in Richmond we have some beautiful wonderful people who were born raised there or some of them went off to college and want to come back to Richmond but they've done the work and as some of you may know Richmond has turned around Richmond is a beautiful city now because of innovative policies and those policies didn't come necessarily from me or any of the other progressive council members they came from listening to the community the community who were saying we helped make turn this city around we don't want to have to move and so it was because of that problem that we as a city council we implemented rent control and then the apartment association then they came in and got petitions and repealed it and so it went to the voters but the reason we were able to do that the reason we were able to do that is because we realized that rents are out of control and really that's the problem you tackle it by having state water rate control repealing cause of Hawkins and the L.A. okay so and I just want to kind of focus on I guess I kind of as re-answer these questions to kind of just think about I don't know how you I guess your relationship to growth you know is it a good thing do we want to keep helping companies expand here as long some people in this community here will say we just need to grow more slowly and if that's your position please just come out and say that because I feel like people here have a it's a difficult question how we deal with again this abundance of good fortune I'm still for growth I just think that we need to accommodate the growth so and one of the things I think that I feel like has been lacking a little bit from this discussion is we do have some new housing going in but we're also seeing such a huge increase of homeless people and so what I would like to see more of also built immediately is emergency housing sort of shelter something for people to get into now and I know that maybe that might not be the perfect permanent solution for every single person but at least you know when I was driving over here and I saw homeless people I just thought wow what an awful night to be out on the street you know I spent a very brief time as a child homeless you know living out of a car so I know what it's like to really rough it so I do more in our cities and I think that we're doing what we can in our little town of El Cerrito we're building housing for our seniors we're going to start inclusionary zoning we're working on that right now so that our new developments will have more affordable better term housing and it will go by some of it will go by what percentage you have of my time said what percentage you have as income so we're working on it but more needs to be done I just think we need to be more intentional with what we do I believe that we need to move away from the typical section 8 type of environments and more to an inclusive community in community type of environments where we're building communities that are centered around transit where transit is needed right now transit centers are built around people who can afford cars to get to the transit centers for instance in Richmond and El Cerrito and Berkeley the transit centers are in places where people have to either walk long distances or drive to them rather than like in the Midwest where I grew up or back east you build apartment buildings and around the actual transit centers which I know is the intent of the new bills that are being passed but in those transit centers it should be where you have maybe a 10, 20, 70 split with low moderate and market housing and along with that you have true grocery stores and dentists and amenities for those families and everyone else so that you have a community within a community and your focused intentional growth so that people are able to walk to and have all of the amenities there within walking distance so you're managing that community within that community Thank you. Let me say for the record that I come from a long line of people that represent growth and opportunity so I don't want to check growth at all I want to shape it and share it the reason I decided to run for this office here that's why I took the plunge is because one of my constituents came to see me after a long time it turns out she had been displaced from Berkeley through an owner move in and now she was living out in Antioch and she came to see me because I'd gotten her a job a couple years before in the city but it turns out that now because she's living out there her commute is so brutal that she got fired because she was late too many times so when we talk about how do we incorporate people into growth you have to address that story, that situation you have to what I call the three P's you have to produce in this case three and a half millions of housing but you also have to protect people that live where you make the housing and the housing has to be near the opportunity can't pay a three hour bus ride you all make it so for shared prosperity to occur we must have the ability to protect communities and let them be connected physically and proximity to opportunity that we should encourage because that's how we get out of poverty that's how we turn our state around that's how we fund our incredible fiscal needs that we're going to be facing in the next few years thank you thank you so I think we need to walk and chew gum at the same time and what that means is I think we need to be able to build more housing, low and middle income housing I think there's a lot we've talked about that streamlining the approval process working on some of our zoning issues but I also think we need to do everything we can to guard against displacement so I think there's three things specifically that I made when I say that I do think we need to fix for cost to Hawkins and the fix that I think could work would be something to the effect of a rolling date 1995 is very arbitrary if we looked at something maybe like a 20 year rolling date I think that would enable local municipalities to implement more rate stabilization measures well at the same time making sure that we're not halting new production of housing that we need to be able to accommodate for the growth conner that you mentioned secondly I think we need to put money in people's pockets that are renters the rent tax credit increase I think is one way to do this 3 out of 4 Californians are about $700 away of slipping into poverty if there's some sort of emergency expense putting real money into people's pockets I think would be helpful looking at maybe like a 10 fold increase of the renter tax credit and the third thing would be a legal defense fund set up for renters who are facing unfair evictions there's been some pilot programs done in this regard and it really levels the playing field for renters who are facing unfair evictions and I learned through doing unscrupulous activities so those are some of the specific ideas that I bring to the table there's an elementary school in my district a couple years ago, two years ago where a teacher, a new teacher, everybody left her she was great, did a great job she couldn't find anywhere to live anywhere in or near Oakland after a number of months we lost her she went to East Contra Costa or Solano County or something like that and she's working in the school district there because housing was too expensive that's not an example that's happened over and over again so there's a lot we have to do I absolutely support the repeal of Costa Hawkins if that doesn't succeed I've already drafted months ago a substantial reform bill for Costa Hawkins but the community, the tennis community around the state wants to go with a full repeal I support that effort, I'll be voting for that I've signed that ballot measure let's get it on the ballot and make it happen if that fails, we'll come back with reform measure as a strong compromise I've already drafted that bill there's a lot more we have to do it's at the economy, there's protecting the people who live here already mostly renters who need most protections and there's building new housing on tenant protections I'm proud of my record in Oakland being one of the leaders to create new tenant protections in Oakland and we can take some of those statewide but there's more we have to do and we need to be very strategic about what we can do at a statewide level to give local jurisdictions more and more building new housing we need housing at all levels of government at all income levels but we also need to make sure the housing some of it is family size housing it can't just be studios and one bedrooms we need twos and three bedrooms in our new housing units so we have housing available for all people so they can live closer to where they work thank you I like how you framed that question because it should be good news that all this money, all this wealth and I've heard there's an idea called Basic Income that might help with that but it's not their topic but it's not good news right now because so many people are suffering due to soaring rent increases and everything we're talking about displacement at the same time I feel like it's a false dichotomy to say that should we lean toward growth or more toward protecting renters because in the long run we can absolutely do both there's no reason why we can't have all the growth that we need to accommodate everyone coming here who wants to live here and who already is here while at the same time making sure we have very strong rent or protections and so if we have to do one in the short term I think we need to protect people who are currently in their homes we need strong rent or protections we need to repeal cost of Hawkins and we need to help fight against evictions but like everyone here is saying we all want growth and also the idea of slow growth I think is maybe seductive but is just going to lead to exacerbating what we're experiencing right now and not enough housing so we need market rate, affordable low income and also no income housing to make sure everyone can stay here I think it's about a strategic approach to growth looking at our sub-regional centers and looking at how do we make sure that people aren't commuting hours and hours to get to work within the outer corners of the Bay Area into the central cities but to look at sub-regional centers and how are we making sure that we have enough jobs that match the skills and the talents of people in each of our sub-regions we should be having more job opportunities in our sub-regions like in downtown Oakland it's important because the Transbay Tube is nearly at capacity and it drops in downtown San Francisco before we build the new Transbay Tube which I think is a good idea it's a good investment to have more infrastructure in transit and mass transit especially but if we don't have the capacity to actually get people to where they need to go then we're going to have a much bigger problem so I think we need to look at our sub-regions and plan very strategically to have matches of commercial job opportunities as well as a residential on top of that we need to look at the workforce and think it's not just about providing subsidized housing for affordable and diverse incomes it's not just about protecting tenants to avoid displacement we need to have minimum wage laws that keep up with being able to allow workers to afford the rent to afford basic needs so we need to provide minimum wage restrictions we need to have living wage incentives and have a combination of strategies that's one. Okay cool, so this is a very educated audience here how many people here are curious about SB827 can you raise your hand? So by far the most popular question so everybody here already knows this but for those who don't already know this SB827 is this bill that would make it very very difficult for cities to block housing near transit stops and I'm sure that some people think I'm trying to read the room you guys think some people think that if this were to happen in a place like a rinda where there's a giant parking lot around them they would think that's great again, maybe not everyone and then people get a little worried about it when they think about it in like downtown Oakland or something like that so is that is that a fair summary of how a lot of people feel about it? No it's complicated but anyway well Ben keeps playing the Lafayette of the Wall and I don't want to pick on Mem anymore but anyway so I guess I want to ask this question this way what's your position on SB827 I know you've already answered this if the answer is just I support it great just say that and maybe quick why if the answer is I don't support it no that be why you know a quick one if you support amending it oh maybe can you kind of be specific about how that would be yes if or you know so we will start we started with Buffy last time start with Buffy I'm going either or down I'm happy to start I was working my way out from the center oh you said you did I'm sorry I supported it with some amendments however this was one of those bills that prior to this I wanted to make sure I understood clearly and so I made some notes around it and I think that you know we know that it takes into account the need for denser building in communities but it also has to take into account environmental issues so that we build around public transportation and so I bring it back to Richmond because I think that having concrete examples is how it works we have to build where people someone mentioned it earlier we have to build where people can get to the transportation easily and that's what we did in Richmond most of our development we believe in infill development we don't want to build on the shoreline we want to build where folks can easily so what kind of amendments would you want specifically to that's what I'm saying if the amendment includes more strict environmental more strict environmental policies so that we don't have so that we can decrease the amount of greenhouse gases that we're already expanding into the x-ray Cheryl I'm sorry I know I have it here so I support it and we are doing a lot with transit oriented development in El Cerrito and one of the things that I thought of when I read this was I meet with a couple of other elected ladies from around the Bay Area that are newer to their councils as well and we've been talking about housing at our little lunches that we have together and it was really interesting because we're so proud of how much development we're doing in El Cerrito and all the plans that we have and yet in other communities they have just maybe one apartment building that they're trying to get near a bark station and there's these protests that we're trying to drive from what it seems like the majority of the people there so in communities like that I see it as both a classist and a racist thing and it seems just crazy to me because we're talking we're talking about teachers here we're talking about nurses we're talking about day care providers just wanting to live in the communities that they serve and I think that this is one of those scenarios where you take away local control and you have the state intervene because there are just communities that are not doing their fair share I support it with the caveat that it specifically is 30, 40, 30 so the 30% low-no income 40% moderate and I go with that mix because the people who are most in need of accessing transportation are the people the elderly people with significant disabilities single family students people who need that access to transit need to be able to walk out of their door and go and use that transit services we can look at MacArthur Bart station we can look at the Fruitvale station if you look at MacArthur Bart the transit the private building that's being built there it's sponsored by the Williams and that is a perfect example of a public-private project that is along the lines of what we're talking about so you support it if there are hard caps on the amount of affordable housing hard floors for the amount of affordable housing that's even developed a recommendation is what I'm going to call it so it goes to Ben now I think but what I'm saying is that's the kind of thing we need to make sure because those communities those marginalized communities are typically left out of the mix when you're looking at that type of building thank you you made my jury women so I'm a huge proponent of transit-oriented development I think that it is really oh yes I support this legislation I think it needs some amendments and I think there are amendments that the authors are thinking about I think we need to make sure to include protections against displacement we need to include affordability guidelines I think that there is a great opportunity here to use this as kind of visionary vehicle to help create the kind of transit-oriented developments that we want to see I think there is so much opportunity to have not just housing but also kind of community hubs around transportation around barred stations or other transit transit hubs I live near the Ashby barred station and it's been really difficult to get a good project going at Ashby and I live right there I would welcome high density thriving community center at the Ashby barred station but there is a lot of opposition that stops that so I think that there is a way that we can through this bill and through other measures to really build transit-oriented developments that incorporate our core values around what we want our cities to look like in the future all right Ben here, yes or no or maybe well I would support if there was a space heater here yes you know I support it I think it's very, I like it's moxing I think it's aggressive I think it's creative however the caveats that I would need to support it would be around displacement issues so a right of return relocation assistance or an income strata for tenants in the new buildings because you see what it looks like from our point of view you raise the heights over places where all the tenants live in the state and immediately creates a goal of rush where they live and owners are incentivized to kick them out and build right so we want to make sure that again we have production and I think the balance here is lacking in the current version when you protection so when you come down from the 30,000 foot view down to the rooftop down into the living rooms you see that person that's senior citizen you see that person in the wheelchair you wonder where they're going to go right so I support it with those two caveats right of return, relocation assistance and possibly an income strata defined by the state thank you so I already spoke out on this bill we'll see how it goes through the process where the sort of amendments take us but in concept I support anything that really promotes transit oriented housing I think that this bill is great at striking at the issue on exclusionary zoning which is something I think that we need to address I would like to see some displacement measures put into this but I think it's a bold measure by Scott Wiener he's endorsed my candidacy I love to work with him in Sacramento as well as David Chu who's also endorsed my candidacy but I do think on balance it's a really exciting bill it's really setting a bold vision of what I think we need to do here in California and I look forward to the debate SBA 27 is going to be amended at least 10 times it's probably a total of 50 amendments or more you're a yes I know or maybe I'm kidding well I'm just trying to get everybody he's a journalist he's doing what he's supposed to do thank you my guess is I will end up supporting it if the amendments that happen for the next few months up until August are positive and I guess they're going to go in the right direction I will probably end up supporting it right now which at this point in January is probably what most people's positions are somewhere opposed to it I've been a strong component active component of transit oriented development I'm the one who shepherded through the McArthur Tower that's going to be built at McArthur Bart Station thank you I'm very excited about that that's an important, that whole village is important there's affordable housing included in that this bill needs to have an affordability, required affordability component it needs to have some level of design review still in place we don't want a bunch of fugly buildings alright we want more density but a sense of place and good looking buildings in the community are important you can have good looking buildings and a sense of place and more density we absolutely need that and we have to make sure that we know what a definition of a transit hub really is we have to make sure we're careful about the definition essentially this bill could be like density bonus on steroids in a good way and that could be a very good thing because we need more density especially on our key transit hubs and I'm going to support that effort overall same page as everyone else I do support the bill, I do think it needs a couple of amendments around affordability and protecting people from displacement and also we should add in there maybe not in this bill but in general, we do need ongoing improvements of our transit system I haven't ridden the new Bart cars yet I've heard good things but it shouldn't be like once a decade it's like whoa we've got new cars there's five of them and you get to ride them if you're really lucky this should be something where we get a new station or faster cars or something that doesn't feel like we have a system from the 1960s which we do so we need as we increase density we need to make sure that we can handle that density but I do like this proposal I do like that it's bold and radical in some ways because that's what we're going to need to actually solve the housing crisis a lot of what we talk about is making things less bad and kind of chipping away at a problem that we should have dealt with many years ago and not really getting there this is something where it looks toward a future where we could actually start to solve this crisis but it does need those amendments yes I would support the bill if it had a good series of amendments that I think are needed to ensure that we avoid displacement and equity issues that we ensure protection of the environment I'm thinking about the inter-transit terminal and the city of Hercules which is right on the shoreline and I'm also thinking about places like the Fremont Bart Station near Newme where it's a completely industrial area when you're thinking about is it a sense of place is it a place where people can live and actually walk around neighborhood serving services so I think if we can integrate those ideas integrated into SB 375 and ensure that that we're able to facilitate local governments building sustainable communities then yes we should be having that vision of transit rich supportive housing all over our state so we need stronger tools at the state level to be requiring this kind of thing I was a strong proponent in downtown Berkeley to develop thousands more units in the downtown Berkeley area with our new downtown area plan some of those buildings are 16 stories tall and I think that the scale of each Bart Station area each transit area is going to be a little bit different depending on the character of that area but I'm proud to live and work in the downtown Berkeley area where we have that kind of transit rich environment so a lot of questions here everyone feels like you guys agree on everything and and so the and everyone feels like there's nine of them and so I keep getting so the question I keep getting versions of is this what distinguishes you from the other people on the stage basically what distinguishes you from everyone else on the stage on housing I guess we start with Rochelle this time why should you be different from the other nine people that agree with you on everything according to the cards well I agree it's kind of difficult I have heard a lot of agreement up here and if you read our questionnaires I think they were probably also very similar you know for housing for me I think we all bring our personal stories like I shared with you earlier I had a lack of housing I've lived in an inadequate housing and then I've been very fortunate as an adult to have you know gone through our educational system received Cal grants from the state so that I could stand here before you today and I worry about housing I worry about housing because I'm a mother I have two sons and I wonder what the future is going to be like for them will they even be able to stay here in the Bay Area will they be able to ever buy a home or even at this point rent an apartment I have a friend here with me today whose daughter is in her mid 20's and her and all of her friends are working three jobs and they can't even afford to get their own apartment they're sharing apartments and that's if they can find it so I think that what makes us different is probably what we're going to bring to the table our own life experiences in regards to housing our experience my experience of being with the El Cerrito City Council and trying to bring housing to our city trying to do our part we're working on it and it's a very serious topic so I feel like it's kind of a downer a little bit of a forum everyone's out there looks kind of bleak I feel like we're answering the same questions over and over again but for the next forum where we have more topics but I think the time like I said I think we're all going to bring our own stories to the table and I hope that that resonates with you we're a challenge of how to do the best we can I know you look very comfortable she's been shared I've been shared that's where the campaign contribution can give me some advice it makes me different it makes me different than this there was a saying that I heard that says we can all anyone can pretend to care and pretend to show up housing from the grassroots level and let me explain what that means I participate in Fisher Justice Coalition the East Oakland Collective I just saw her come in here somewhere and in every single city in this district which I consider one community and working on housing at the same point because I see the lack of housing not just as a social issue it's a civil rights issue it's a racial justice issue and I look at it from that lens every single time we're dealing with it and for me it's not a campaign issue it's not a political issue it's what we need to do every single day I have three children my son, my oldest son is an MBA student my younger son is a civil engineering student who's dealing with urban planning and my daughter is getting ready to graduate high school I'm a mother who cares about this community and that's what we have to bring to the table that human aspect this has nothing to do with politics this has to do with how we rear this community and that's what I'm best at thank you so what distinguishes me from all the rest because we all pretty much believe in the same thing housing is a human right we all believe we need more affordable housing but what distinguishes me from the other candidate I'm the only one who brought rent control to her city I'm the only one who worked hard we had a program called Richmond Cares and we were going to help underwater homeowners during the housing crisis we established that program to help underwater homeowners where we actually were the first city to ever use imminent domain so instead of for developers we were actually using imminent domain to save people from losing their homes so that's what distinguishes me what also distinguishes me is because I take no money from corporations I take no money from developers I'm able to best represent the people and I work closely with community-oriented organizations every single day the Alliance of California and to our community environment so Ace, they have endorsed my candidacy, that's what distinguishes me I'm endorsed by so many community-oriented organizations I know you can trust me to continue to work on your behalf in Sacramento so there's several things that distinguish me first of all I have deep experience I have my, I got my planning degree with a focus on housing and have been working on housing issues on and on for the last 25 years but I first got out of law school I worked at the Colish on Homelessness and was on the board of the community housing partnership where I helped develop homelessness and helped develop housing more recently I've been working like I said for teacher housing in Berkeley so I have experience I'm a lifetime learner I am here to listen to everybody to bring people together I have deep experience with collaboration that's the third thing I'm very good I'm skilled at bringing people together at the table and coming up with innovative creative solutions to make a difference and you know a part of that has to do with my maturity I've been doing this work for a long time and I think that's the best way to come up with the most progressive solutions are when you really bring people together and find out where their points of commonality are and they work from that place I also, and this doesn't make me unique I think a lot of people up here have this but I have a lot of heart so I think you have to do this work really with a deep commitment and love for the people in our community and do it really with the caring for helping people to you know get the housing the jobs and the community that they need and the fifth thing that I have that nobody else has here is my mother in the audience so I want you to give my mom a little applause because I've got my eight year old mom here El Serino resident, thank you very much Mom's yes, yes, you know my life was really nice I had a good time I'm an environmental lawyer, traveled a good time until my life was turned upside down when a developer bought my mother's apartment building where she and her friends were all retired senior citizens retired school teachers and immediately turned the heat off and turned the water off and subjected these seniors to hellacious treatment and many of them left and as I sewed out senior housing from my mother I discovered there was none there was a 15 year wait list or something it was absurd and at that minute I decided to seek for the first time to City Council in order to fix that and since then it's been a constant battle to create housing that's why I'm in office is for housing and the irony is not lost to me that my grandfather was the first black realtor that moved many of the African Americans into the East Bay that his daughter was subjected to horrific treatment so now in City Council I've worked hard to write more than 30 pioneering laws many of them around housing so I mean my slogan is everyone in the East Bay deserves a home that's on my posters it's like a tattoo on my life so what you have here with me is a deep conviction coupled with hardcore skills thank you so I grew up in a trailer I actually grew up in a trailer park and when I was little I remember being embarrassed about inviting friends over I always wanted to go to their house and I had this dream my whole life of having a wooden house which seems kind of like a weird dream for some people because most of you probably grew up in a wooden house but to me that was such a luxury and so I know what the feeling is like and I know my parents struggle for many years of how are we going to be able to afford the basic standard of living so I get where a lot of you come from and I know what that experience is like I think what I bring to the table is the public policy front how do we figure out how we can both build the homes that we need to build the low and kind of middle and kind of missing middle upper market all of the housing that we need while also guarding against displacement for vulnerable communities and how do we create practical public policy solutions to address both of those things and walk into your home at the same time I also think my approach I've helped pass bold progressive public policy I worked for President Obama to create the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau I've done a lot of big things I want to take that experience to Sacramento I want to work with people like Gavin Newsom and Scott Wiener and David Chew and a lot of the great folks that have endorsed my candidacy to pass these public policies to help people and I want to work with grassroots activists because I know that is the only way that we make change in this country is with the grassroots and that's why I'm doing house parties all across this district and if you want me to come to your living room you can have me in your living room so please come see me I've not only talked the talk I've walked the walk I'm not discounting all the work that people have done all the things that they're advocating for 20 years ago, a little over 20 years ago I was subject to an odor movement eviction so I know what it feels like to be kind of kicked out of what was your home at the time ever since then even before then, but certainly ever since then I've been working on policy issues policy matters dealing with renters' rights I'm also a member, I've been a leader on affordable housing issues I told you about the first law I passed to get 25% of our former redevelopment funds back guaranteed into affordable housing I offered the 2014 tenant protection ordinance in Oakland I've been a leader on a range of tenant protections I got more money hundreds of thousands of dollars into a fund in Oakland to find legal assistance for low income tenants who are at risk of being displaced so I've worked on these issues for a long time but I also know that being a state legislator it's not about fancy schmancy press releases or glitz and glory it's about a lot of good hard, often behind the scenes tedious work on a lot of complex policy matters and my record both before being a council member and now as a council member shows that that's something I'm very good at and I want to take those skills the experience I have on housing issues bring that to Sacramento work on the policy details which is what it takes and get some real big policies passed for the entire East Bay and the entire state of California Thank you. So for me I am deeply focused on root causes now we sort of talk up here like we're going to be elected emperor and we can just kind of do what we want once we're in there but the reality is that there are political forces that would prevent quite a lot of what we're talking about up here failure to repeal cost to hawk and recently is a perfect example of that so one thing that gets very little play in these debates is campaign finance reform that was the first issue that I worked on as an activist and that is behind every single other issue so much of what we do is blocked essentially by money and politics poverty is another root cause issue and this is something I'm very focused on right now and I think we should deal with directly through a basic income when we do that then we are going to start to open up how things work a bit more and the good ideas can actually get through and people can actually pursue opportunities that they want people can actually stay in their homes so we need to be focused on not just the symptoms because a lot of what we talk about is symptoms we need to go further and further down until we find the root causes and that's what I'm very good at The housing crisis is what brought me into activism it's from the experience of living in a super crowded housing that brought me to lead protests at UC Berkeley to build more student housing to get involved in the Berkeley community to make sure that no tenant would suffer from unlivable conditions like lack of heat or dangerous exposure to fire hazards or other health and safety violations to make sure that Berkeley was facing and confronting the challenges of regional housing shortage by building more housing by strengthening its affordable housing policies and that's what I did as a member of the Zoning Adjustments Board for five years after that I've served for 12 years in local government on the East Bay Mud Board of Directors in regional government and so that kind of experience having dedicated my early career to housing activism earned a city planning masters degree where I got expertise in housing and transportation issues I've worked as a project manager for an affordable housing developer so that kind of experience is I think what it's going to take to be able to write these laws get into the details in Sacramento and be able to accomplish the goals of more housing protecting our renters and ensuring a livable future for California that's what I will be doing in Sacramento and I look forward to putting my expertise to that good work can everybody think round of applause for you as well and maybe I don't know if you guys are too cool to stick around to the answers to any lingering questions but if you are please do, there's still food and drink and then Tori has one final announcement here yeah it's cool to second you we're a scrappy non-profit we don't have money, this used to be a bank building and banks mean the thing that they are they walked away with the boiler away from them so one last thing is the East Bay Young Democrats that are having their ballot box back there for nominations tonight if you're an East Bay Young Democrats member and you want to vote on a nomination they have asked me to tell you to John put in the box back there so thanks for coming to our panel thanks for hanging out here and enjoying the cold and the candidates and the housing politics and look out for more stuff from us in the future thanks it's a good event that you guys put on a shimmering appetite so cold