Explore the 2024 Conference

• 8:30AM: Registration opens
• 8:30-9:15AM: Morning refreshments
• 9:15-10:30AM: Workshop Session I
• 10:30AM-12:30PM: Keynote Plenary
• 12:30-1:30PM: Lunch
• 1:30-2:45PM: Workshop Session II
• 2:45-3:15PM: Afternoon stretch break
• 3:15-4:30PM: Workshop Session III
• 4:30-5:30PM: Networking Reception

Learn more about our keynote session here.

Get excited for the conference, plan which workshops you’d like to attend, or share with your colleagues who might benefit from the line-up. Please note that the workshop slate and titles are subject to change as we finalize details..

Renovations on the Rise: How to Prepare For Your Upcoming Rehabilitation Project

In 2023, developers saw a significant increase in rehabilitation projects awarded 4% tax credits and bonds, presenting a new opportunity to renovate and recapitalize existing portfolio properties.

This session will explore renovations and resyndications from start to finish, focusing on efficient portfolio evaluation, effective approaches to guide a project from feasibility assessment to closing, equitable tenant engagement, and case studies demonstrating lessons learned and how limited resources can be utilized for maximum impact. We will explore creative financing strategies employed by developers and examine asset management practices to ensure long-term project success and sustainability. Additionally, the panel will discuss the current funding environment for renovation projects, highlighting key TCAC/CDLAC regulation changes. Join our team of expert panelists to discuss everything rehab!

Utility Allowances: Challenges and Opportunities for Electrifying Affordable Housing

Switching to heat pumps in affordable housing benefits both the climate and residents’ health. However, upfront capital costs and utility allowances can present financial barriers. Learn how more accurate utility allowances can facilitate heat pump installations, and discover how you can set more accurate utility allowances at your property. This workshop will highlight a case study of a heat pump installation at an affordable senior housing property in a formerly redlined community.

How Small-Site Developments Offer Big Solutions

This workshop will explore the post-SB4 landscape and address the specific benefits and challenges of small-site developments on faith-based land. Learn about the unique issues involved in working with faith-based organizations, particularly in relation to legislative advantages and funding disadvantages. Hear about innovative approaches that are more cost-effective and efficient in getting housing built. We will also examine how to support this newly tapped resource of building on congregational land, with an emphasis on the efficacy of small-site projects.

Federal Policy in a Presidential Election Year: What’s Needed in the Bay Area to Advance Housing and Racial Justice

DC-based housing policy experts will recap 2024 to date and examine prospects for 2025, including how the presidential election may affect housing. Topics discussed will include final FY 2024 and proposed FY 2025 HUD funding levels, homelessness funding, LIHTC legislation, implementing the Inflation Reduction Act’s green housing provisions, Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing, the global minimum tax, and other key federal regulatory issues, as well as SF Bay Area priorities. Attendees will have the opportunity to pose their own questions and discuss advocacy priorities and opportunities for the SF Bay Area.

Proposition 1: Homekey+ State-Level Insights and Next Steps

Proposition 1, adopted by voters in March 2024, aims to tackle homelessness by building treatment facilities and permanent supportive housing for people with mental health and addiction challenges. Its goal is to refocus and expand the state’s mental health and addiction treatment capacity and transition people out of encampments into stable housing. A component of Prop 1, the Behavioral Health Infrastructure Bond Act, authorized a $6.39 billion bond to develop behavioral health treatment residential care settings and permanent supportive housing. Of this bond, $2 billion will be allocated to build permanent supportive housing for veterans and non-veterans facing homelessness with behavioral health challenges, through the Homekey+ program. HCD plans to issue a Homekey+ NOFA in late 2024 and begin accepting applications in early 2025. This panel will provide HCD updates on the roll-out of these capital dollars, as well as offer perspectives from developers and local public agencies.

Investing and Lending in Affordable Housing: Sustaining Your Development Pipeline

Effective community lending and investing are crucial drivers of affordable housing production and community development. This panel will examine the current landscape of strained state resources, persistent high costs, challenges with Permanent Supportive Housing, new CRA requirements, renewed focus on rehabs, and the potential impacts of the upcoming Presidential election. The discussion will also address market trends, investor appetite and pricing, and strategies to effectively position your housing developments to maximize investment impact and maintain a sustainable development pipeline.

AB 2873 (Supplier Diversity): First Year Compliance and Beyond

Learn from local developers who have implemented supplier diversity plans and get insights on how to comply with AB 2873, which promotes supplier diversity in the affordable housing industry. AB 2873 mandates that developers who receive TCAC credits share data on supplier demographics and provide incentives for inclusive procurement practices. You will also receive information about where to find diverse vendors and how to connect with underrepresented vendors through the certification systems specified in the TCAC Supplier Diversity Guidelines.

Cost Containment & Managing Design Escalation

The cost of building affordable housing in California continues to escalate with no end in sight. How and when are developers, general contractors, and architects working together to decrease project costs? How do they balance high-quality design with labor costs, interest rates, and material challenges? This candid, solution-oriented conversation is designed to elicit feedback and generate more ideas to strengthen our industry while maintaining our mission—creating affordable housing opportunities for all.

From Policy to Project Development: What’s Happening Now with Affordable Housing on Public Land

For the past ten years, policy advocates, affordable housing developers, and public agencies have collaborated to develop strategies for leveraging publicly owned lands for affordable housing development. The significant amendments to the Surplus Lands Act in 2019 established a statewide requirement for public agencies to offer excess land for housing development, while other public entities have identified affordable housing on public land as a strategy to help meet additional goals.
This session will explore the current progress of these policies, identify financing barriers and solutions, and showcase how developers are advancing the ambitious policy and community goals that kick-started the ‘public land for public good’ movement in the Bay Area.

Building Sustainable Homekey Communities – Approaching Year 5

California’s Homekey program accelerated the pace of supportive housing production across the state by providing local governmental agencies with funds to purchase and rehabilitate housing—such as hotels, motels, vacant apartment buildings, and other properties—to convert these structures into both interim and permanent housing for people experiencing homelessness. Since the program’s launch in 2020, jurisdictions have quickly mobilized to purchase sites and meet aggressive state deadlines for construction completion. As the first batch of Homekey awardees marks the fifth anniversary of their funding, they continue to grapple with securing financing to sustain property operations beyond the initial few years. In this workshop, attendees will receive a summary of financial tools being used across the state and take a deeper dive into what San Mateo County and its development partners are doing to build financially sustainable Homekey communities.

What Drives Voters to Take Action in Support of Affordable Housing Solutions?

Join our panel of campaign, narrative, and research experts for an interactive presentation and workshop-oriented dialogue on how to influence voters to take concrete actions in support of affordable housing and housing justice. We’ll review key highlights from 2024 campaign-tested and field-implemented messages and tactics, surveying case studies and new research learnings and applications. Join us to discuss how to apply these learnings in service of your own campaigns, project approvals, and engagement programs underway now and ahead.

The News from Sacramento: Budget, Bond, Bill, and Regulation Updates

It may feel like it’s 1,000 miles away, but what happens in Sacramento has a direct impact on our ability to build affordable housing, decrease homelessness, and determine which developments get selected for funding. This panel will bring Sacramento to you, providing information on available funding in 2025, prospects for future funding, new legislation that will impact your work, and upcoming regulation changes from TCAC and CDLAC. Bring your questions and your own bill ideas.

Streamlining Access for Supportive Housing

As communities across California scale up the production of site-based permanent supportive housing, new strategies are needed to streamline entry into housing programs. Participants will learn about Santa Clara County’s innovative partnership, which utilizes interim housing, vouchers, a universal application and approval process, and enhanced coordinated entry referral management through pre-screening. Using a design thinking model, participants will also explore how to develop local innovative solutions that lead to increased housing placements and improved outcomes for both practitioners and residents.

Equity in Housing: Learning from Vienna’s Social Housing Model

This panel discussion aims to raise awareness of the importance of social housing as a viable solution to housing insecurity and homelessness in California, and to ignite a movement toward the widespread adoption of innovative social housing concepts. Our panelists will explore strategies for advocacy, policy reform, and community mobilization to promote the implementation of social housing initiatives in California, drawing inspiration from the successful Vienna social housing system.
By fostering collaboration and sharing innovative ideas, we seek to catalyze a movement that advocates for housing as a fundamental human right and works towards creating more equitable and inclusive communities.

Housing Now: The Importance of Interim Housing and Racial Justice

Affordable permanent housing always takes too long to produce. A ‘Housing First’ approach is needed when residents live in crowded, unsafe, and/or substandard conditions. Additionally, the traditional approach to affordable housing development structurally underserves Latines, particularly undocumented workers. Undocumented workers are a key tax-paying constituency vital to California’s communities and economy. This workshop presents a case study of a resolved encampment at a West Marin Ranch, where a local organization developed emergency interim housing, preventing resident displacement and buying time to develop permanent housing.

Local organization staff will share lessons learned, while panelists—including the Director of Marin County CDA, the California USDA Director, local advocates, and researchers—will provide context on rural homelessness, specific barriers experienced by Latines in attaining affordable housing, and offer clear policy and actionable takeaways applicable to various contexts. This workshop will be informative for audience members interested in addressing homelessness, developing rural housing, and promoting racial justice.

Housing as Healthcare: The Intersection between Proposition 1 and PSH

In March 2024, California voters passed Proposition 1 to develop a range of behavioral health treatment facilities, residential care settings, and supportive housing to provide appropriate care for individuals experiencing mental health and substance use disorders. Counties need to demonstrate how they are maximizing funding by leveraging partnerships. Nonprofit affordable housing developers are uniquely qualified to assist in this effort. This workshop will highlight how nonprofit developers have utilized previous rounds of funding from the California Department of Social Services and explore connections between traditional affordable housing financing and the Department of Healthcare Services, including expanding BHCIP providers into PSH developments. The workshop will also emphasize opportunities for informing implementation.

One Stop Shop Solutions: Streamlining Affordable Housing Finance

Cobbling together state resources for affordable rental housing from separate state agencies adds significant time and up to $45,000 in costs per unit. Come hear ideas and share your input on how California could design a more efficient funding system that allows developers to obtain all necessary state resources at one time through a single process. You’ll also get the latest updates on state efforts to implement AB 519, which establishes an Affordable Housing Finance Workgroup to further develop recommendations on this topic.

Safe and Affordable Communities is on the Ballot as Prop 5: Update and Next Steps

Voters across the state will have a historic opportunity to create new tools for safe and affordable communities by voting Yes on Prop 5. Our panelists will discuss what they are doing in the areas of non-profit leadership, community engagement, philanthropy, and on the campaign trail to make sure Prop 5 passes and seeds the future for Bay Area affordable housing and critical public infrastructure.

How to Do Powerful Video Storytelling with Your Residents

Personal stories affect us deeply—they change hearts and minds and can catalyze positive change. In an age of attention that prioritizes short-form video content, video storytelling can help get our message in front of a wider audience. However, translating real people’s experiences into quick, compelling videos is intense and delicate work.

Through the Begins with Home initiative, All Home and NPH led a Housing Justice Storytelling Initiative in which housing advocates and storytellers attended workshops and partnered with professional videographers to create short videos. Join us as we watch a few of these videos and hear from staff and storytellers from participating organizations about what they learned during this process. You’ll gain insights into narrative strategy and ethical storytelling through the lens of video creation, and learn how video can help you achieve your organizational goals.

Reimagining Preservation Funding: Innovative Partnerships and Sources for Acquisition/Rehabilitation Finance

Affordable housing preservation (acquisition/rehabilitation) is a key anti-displacement strategy with a proven track record of preventing the displacement of renter families, particularly families of color. However, the lack of dedicated and appropriate funding and financing tools for preservation limits the ability of nonprofit housing organizations to carry out this deeply needed and highly challenging work. This workshop will cover emerging partnerships and funding streams designed to help solve the preservation finance puzzle. These include a new partnership between the City of Oakland and the Housing Accelerator Fund, new rehabilitation finance opportunities from CDFIs via the federal Greenhouse Gas Reduction Act, as well as pilot programs currently being offered and permanent financing that may be available through BAHFA in the coming years.

Homes for Those Who Harvest: Housing San Mateo County’s Farmworkers

In the wake of the 2023 shooting of farmworkers in Half Moon Bay, the Silicon Valley Community Foundation commissioned a report, Homes for Those Who Harvest: Housing San Mateo County’s Farmworkers, to better understand the needs of farmworkers and explore potential solutions in San Mateo County. The region’s longstanding housing shortage, which underlies the unacceptable conditions revealed in January 2023, affects all farmworkers and other low-income workers in San Mateo County. Addressing the shortage of affordable housing for farmworkers—who are largely low-income immigrants of color—is not only an equity and moral issue but also an economic imperative for our community. Unfortunately, this is no simple challenge. Two of the key actions identified in the report are: (1) expanding funding for low-income housing, especially targeted to farmworkers, and (2) providing additional economic and social supports to meet farmworker needs. Join us for a dynamic conversation with some of the key people working on farmworker housing issues in San Mateo County today.