By Holden Weisman
Director of Policy & Advocacy, Habitat Greater San Francisco
Fall is here, Sacramento is quieting down (for now) after a very busy legislative session, and the weather here in our three coastal counties of the San Francisco Bay Area continues to be unpredictable… but we’re certainly still hard at work for you at Habitat for Humanity Greater San Francisco (Habitat GSF). For this inaugural post of our advocacy blog, I’ve got updates on our advocacy, some tricks and treats as we look back on recent activities, and a look ahead to prepare for what’s hiding just around the corner. Hopefully, by the end of this update advocacy will be a little less scary and you’ll feel more up-to-date, well-informed and empowered to join us in our community of advocates.
New Advocacy Plan for FY 2026
You can’t get ahead in advocacy without a plan in place to drive you toward your goals. After careful strategic planning, we now have our own Advocacy Plan to guide us. This being our first official year with our new advocacy staff, we’re concentrating our efforts on our most immediate needs.
1. Homeownership Is Always Part of the Solution – We’re building our team of policymaker champions including members of the legislature and county supervisors from across our service area who are ready to help us remind their colleagues that affordable housing means rental AND homeownership opportunities. Our champions will ensure that anytime a bill comes before them to fund affordable housing, dedicated funding for affordable homeownership production must be included.
2. Restore and Expand Public Funds for Affordable Homeownership – Alongside our champions and partner organizations, we’re working to restore dedicated funding for the production and preservation of 100% affordable homes for ownership. Of course, we won’t stop there. We’re going to find new sources to expand these funds at the state and local levels and make sure affordable homeownership is attached to any housing funding effort.
3. Identify Policy Concepts for Future Leadership Opportunities – Right now, we’re well positioned to keep up with current policy issues, but that’s not where we want to stay. We’ll be working this year to take the lead on new policy concepts we develop so we can start to be outfront of the issues even before they arise. These concepts will be the innovative ideas that we craft into legislation based on research and a deeper understanding of our ability to build the homes we need for our future homeowners. With these in hand and our champions lined up, we’ll be ready to take the lead on the biggest policy challenges ahead.
Simple as 1, 2, 3, right? Don’t worry. Our plan has all sorts of tactics and strategies that will lead us through the process and get us and our fellow advocates onboard for these campaigns. In the meantime, we will keep the drumbeat going to remind everyone that affordable homeownership is always part of the solution!
Pounding the Pavement
I’m wearing the soles of my shoes thin taking the lead on getting our priority messages out, supporting our partners, and traveling around our service area and around the state to make our voices heard. It’s been a particular pleasure to represent Habitat GSF in a couple of significant ways worth highlighting this past month.
Early in October, I ventured down to Long Beach along with several other California Habitat affiliates to help represent northern service areas in the Habit California booth at the annual League of California Cities Conference and Expo. It was a great chance to meet representatives of cities both big and small from across the state, all of whom were excited to learn more about what Habitat can do in their communities. I truly appreciated sharing our work and offering city leaders recommendations for exactly what they can do to support their local Habitat affiliate, especially in terms of funding opportunities. It was also a genuine pleasure to put faces to names with my Habitat colleagues from Southern California. Events like these are priceless ways to build our connections with each other and our wider network of engaged civic leaders.
Thinking of our local officials, I’ve also been busy trotting up and down our service area to raise the profile of Habitat Greater San Francisco among our state and local policymakers. Some significant activities in recent weeks.
- I met with California Senate leadership to hear firsthand how CalHome funding was ultimately clawed back in this year’s state budget negotiations and to make a direct appeal for future CalHome funding both through the budget and any other legislative means.
- In San Francisco, I’ve been keeping a busy schedule of meetings with members of the Board of Supervisors to reinforce the need to build more 100% permanently affordable homes for ownership with Habitat and to work with us to find innovative ways to fund these kinds of projects. I also spoke before the Board’s Land Use and Transportation Committee and the San Francisco Planning Commission to offer comments in support of the proposed Family Zoning Plan emphasizing the need to prioritize affordable homeownership and to provide adequate funding to get it built.
- Meetings with Supervisors and partner organizations in Marin and San Mateo Counties are generating broad support for our work generally, growing interest in our projects in these areas, and helping us to spread the word among their communities about our home repair services.
I now have quite a long list of Habitat GSF champions-in-the-making from down the peninsula to up across the bridge, and I look forward to earning these partnerships.
Trick or Treat
Lastly, since October is wrapping up, I want to leave you with a trick and a treat.
First, your trick…
What could possibly be scarier than realizing state budget season is already quickly coming up?! We have a big fight to prepare for what is expected to be a crowded field of budget requests. For us, CalHome is priority number one, and we must make sure it gets restored.
But here’s a treat to ease your worries.
We’re getting our own campaign work started early in a big way. Habitat California will lead a statewide advocacy rally in Sacramento on November 17 to show the Governor and our legislative leaders that affordable homeownership matters and that we need CalHome to help produce and preserve it across California. Join Habitat GSF, other affiliates, homeowners, and partners on the Capitol Steps to help us kick off this campaign together!
If you’d like to connect on any of our recent or upcoming advocacy work, please contact me, Holden Weisman, Director of Policy and Advocacy at hweisman@habitatgsf.org.