Encouraging Community Support for Affordable Housing: Lessons Learned in Pleasanton

BCLI Wednesday Night Panel Series
Encouraging Community Support for Affordable Housing: Lessons Learned in Pleasanton
October 27, 2010

Community-member attitudes about affordable housing developments can block projects that are intended to help stabilize communities. Disagreements about affordable housing development can also create divisions within communities, increase project time to completion, and even persuade developers that affordable housing projects are not feasible for communities where there is opposition. Community housing goals and needs go unmet, leaving low-income people with few housing choices and likely displacement from the communities in which they live and work.

In this panel, we share strategies for building local support for affordable housing in Bay Area communities. In particular, panelists discuss their work as affordable housing advocates in response to the city of Pleasanton's housing cap. Working with Public Advocates and local community allies, Urban Habitat challenged Pleasanton's policies and practices of excluding housing for low-income families, eventually reaching a settlement in which the city reaffirmed its commitment to nourish lively, diverse neighborhoods, while doing its share to address the Bay Area's affordable housing crisis.

Click on the links below to view the speakers' bios, hear the podcast of their presentation, and download handouts.

Speakers

* Becky Dennis, Organizer, Citizens for a Caring Community and Former Pleasanton City Councilmember
* Connie Galambos Malloy, Director of Programs, Urban Habitat
* Richard Marcantonio, Managing Attorney, Public Advocates
* Michael Rawson, Co-Director, Public Interest Law Project
* Terrell Watt, Owner, Terrell Watt Planning Consultant