Work with us
What we are asking, and of whom
We are small and this is early. The work needs people who hold office, build, lend, operate, research and advocate.
Three people, a small number of donors, a working group of San Diego County electeds convening this fall, one proposal published with its numbers shown, and one bill being drafted. That is the whole organization. Below is what we are asking of each kind of reader.
If you live here and want to help as a resident, start at For residents.
Local electeds
Read the tests, and if they are wrong for your city, say where. Then bring your city's numbers to one working session: what was approved, what got built, and what it cost. The San Diego County working group is the first of these sessions; your city or county can host the next one.
Affordable housing operators and community development organizations
You know what stacking ten funding sources per project costs in time and in homes. Tell us what your projects need, and what in any proposal, ours included, would hurt the communities you serve. Help design the layer a regional bank cannot reach on its own: the deepest incomes, supportive homes, and the neighborhoods the market skips.
Builders and trades
Tell us what certainty is worth. If a plan-conforming approval arrived in 60 days, what would the rules have to say for you to trust it, and what would you build that you cannot build today? Those two answers shape the third test.
Lenders and realtors
The current policy produces almost no for-sale pipeline. Tell us what an ownership pipeline needs to pencil: what a covenanted home has to look like for you to underwrite it, and what would make a shared-appreciation second easy to explain to a buyer.
Economists and researchers
Check the arithmetic. The Act's figures are published with their sources, and the first review that finds where they fail improves the next revision more than any endorsement would. Help define the opportunity index: the second test is unmeasured today, and its method should be set by people who measure things for a living.
Housing advocates
You have carried the argument that California needs more homes. Tell us where the tests are wrong: which outcomes they under-count, which they over-count, and what a rule that holds would have to say.
Write to us
Start the conversation
An objection to a test, a flaw in the Act's arithmetic, a working session your city would host, or the thing your projects need that no proposal has offered. Say which hat you wear and we will route it to the right conversation.
Thanks. We reply within a week.