2023 Impact Report

Building a Bright &
Equitable Future

for Everyone

2023 Legislative Wins:
A Turning Point For Housing Solutions

2023 was a year for the record books, as a turning point for affordable housing solutions in the state of California. NPH passed our entire slate of priority bills (seven!), which will work to move our region and state forward in advancing stable, affordable, and equitable homes for all our community members, no matter their race or income. We couldn't be prouder of the progress we secured this year - with and for our community members, and in deep partnership with our members, partners, allies, and multi-sector supporters. Read our full legislative wrap-up and check out a few key highlights below:

SB 4: Keeping the Faith for Housing Solutions!

NPH worked alongside our members and partners to pass SB 4 (Wiener), which simplifies the process for faith organizations and nonprofit colleges to take action to house their neighbors who struggle with homelessness. The bill unlocks over 171,000 potentially developable acres statewide (nearly five times the size of the city of Oakland!) for streamlined affordable housing projects.

The bill was passed alongside several recent streamlining efforts that all work to remove unnecessary requirements getting in the way of building more affordable homes. These are barriers like restrictive zoning policies and extensive reviews that increase the time, money, and people-power it takes to get an affordable housing project off the ground. These streamlining efforts are a key piece to affordable housing advocates' strategy to address California's housing shortage. Read more in our article via Medium.

SB 423: Structural Reform to Meet Housing Needs

SB 423 (Wiener) is one way that NPH has worked to pass meaningful structural reforms to support communities in meeting their housing needs. This bill extends the sunset date for SB 35 from 2026 to 2036. Since its passage in 2017, SB 35 (Wiener) has provided streamlined, ministerial approval of projects in cities that have not built sufficient housing, as determined by the state, and has led to increased affordable housing production. The Terner Center for Housing Innovation at UC Berkeley has reported that through the end of 2021, over 18,000 units have been proposed under SB 35, with 13,000 or nearly three-fourths being affordable to those in the very low- or low-income categories.

AB 480: Public Lands for Public Good

AB 480 (Ting) is the first significant update to AB 1486 (Ting) which passed in 2019, and represents NPH's ongoing leadership around the Surplus Land Act (SLA). NPH led state efforts to pass AB 1486 and continues to seek ways to strengthen this critical law. AB 1486 strengthened the SLA and required that localities allow affordable housing developers to make a first offer on their surplus land.

AB 480 successfully fends off efforts to strip the existing act of the provisions that make it meaningful and impactful, allowing the SLA to remain a vital tool that addresses affordable housing developers' needs for available land in the Bay Area's scarce land market. AB 480 updates the SLA to have easier compliance for local jurisdictions and an exemption for large sites – like the Bay Area's Concord Naval Weapons Station – allowing for a path forward for less complicated development on major pieces of remaining land with a guarantee for a minimum level of affordable housing in the resulting development.

NPH Working Groups in Action:
Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH) as the Solution to Homelessness

NPH's Permanent Supportive Housing Working Groups collaborated with the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at UC Berkeley to produce: Permanent Supportive Housing as a Solution to Homelessness: The Critical Role of Long-Term Operating Subsidies, an in-depth report that shows that the success of PSH in the Bay Area depends on ongoing and long-term operations funding and shares a set of actionable recommendations. The report uses extensive data from NPH members to finally paint a complete picture of the cost of providing PSH, a high priority for the state and proven strategy in combating homelessness. It focuses on the importance of supporting PSH developers with adequate resources – a crucial example of how funding yields results in what have been difficult budget cycles for the last few years.

Laying the Groundwork for Breakthrough Campaigns

In 2023, NPH created and co-led coalitions and campaign teams for a dual campaign strategy for the November 2024 elections, taking bold steps towards system change and winning major resources for affordable housing. We worked to build broad-based coalitions, conduct research and outreach, fundraise, and grow political support and strategy to win. Our work, if successful, will deliver major resources that allow us to make immediate investments in our communities as well as set the stage for our next big victories.

ACA 1: A Major Step Toward Transformation at the Ballot Box

NPH and our statewide coalition, Californians for Affordable Housing Now, successfully supported ACA 1 (Aguiar-Curry), a bill to place a state constitutional amendment on the ballot to lower the voter threshold for local housing and infrastructure bonds. In 2023, it passed the legislature with a ⅔ supermajority vote, demonstrating strong support and setting the stage for a clean up of this legislation. This process will ensure that the measure that ultimately goes before statewide voters is strong, effective and empowers communities to meet their housing and infrastructure needs. Winning this measure would be a landmark change, unlocking billions in much-needed investments in communities throughout California and empowering local voters to decide how best to address the housing and homelessness needs in their own communities.

Regional Bond Measure

This $10-$20 billion 9-county Bay Area bond measure will deliver a historic influx of resources for affordable housing and homelessness solutions through the Bay Area Housing Finance Authority (BAHFA), advancing solutions to make housing in the Bay Area more affordable, more stable, and more equitable for all community members. Building support for this measure will also build our coalition's long-term strength and capacity to advance racial and economic equity in the region.

Bay Area Housing Internship Program (BAHIP):
Diversifying Our Field, Nurturing New Leaders!

NPH is committed to doing our part in diversifying the affordable housing industry and our Bay Area Housing Internship Program (BAHIP) is one such effort. BAHIP is a one-year, paid internship program designed to recruit and train low-income students of color at Bay Area colleges and universities to become housing development professionals. The goal of BAHIP is to advance leaders of color in our industry, remove common barriers to opportunity, and support a robust pipeline of professional and diverse leaders to strengthen our industry.

In 2023 we graduated our 5th BAHIP cohort, composed of eight interns with over half of them continuing employment at their host agency or entering into a related field. To date, BAHIP has graduated 44 interns, with over 85% of graduates continuing in equity-focused and community-driven work. Several program alumni have advanced in their careers to serve as supervisors and mentors to the current and upcoming cohort!

Supporting Our Members' Diversity and Inclusion Goals

Through extensive collaboration between the Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion (DEI) Working Groups of NPH and the Southern California Association of Non Profit Housing (SCANPH),we jointly released: Strength in Diversity: Inclusive Hiring Practices for the Affordable Housing Industry, A Toolkit for Promoting Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. The report highlights tangible hiring and retention best practices to create equitable working conditions for organizations of varying sizes. The strategies and practices presented in the report are designed to create an inclusive pipeline of diverse talent that will meet diversity and inclusion goals for our member organizations who are eager to make a difference and exert their hiring power within our mission-driven industry. A complimentary training was provided at the release of the report to support organizations' use of the report as they set out on or deepen their DEI journeys. 211 people attended this event, spanning attendees from across California.

Anti-Racist Champions of Change (ARCC)
Completes Its First Year!

In 2022 NPH launched ARCC, a program that challenges us to re-examine how to share power in ways that foster authentic leadership across positions and throughout an organization. ARCC offers a one-year immersive experience for Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) managers and their executive-level leaders working in nonprofit affordable housing development who are committed to dismantling oppressive power dynamics in the affordable housing field. In September 2023, ARCC completed its first-ever program year, which brought together teams of BIPOC managers and executives from MidPen Housing and Mercy Housing to explore leadership development and organizational transformation towards an equitable affordable housing industry. Through a series of sessions that included skill development, honest dialogue, personal reflection, and imaginative thinking, we worked together to create a future of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging across our field. Now, participants can bring back to their organizations tools and frameworks to help them toward their paths of equity.

The Largest Affordable Housing Conference in the Bay Area

In 2023, NPH's annual Affordable Housing Conference brought together over 1,000 affordable housing practitioners for networking, learning, and knowledge sharing. The conference is NPH's major touch-point for our members and partners, strengthening our movement and providing a space to expand and deepen the work of affordable housing practitioners. This event is also a critical opportunity for the Bay Area's affordable housing industry to get on the same page and strategize together for our collective work ahead.

Our conference keynote address, Bringing Hope Home: Building a Joyful, Courageous Movement for Housing and Racial Justice, featured powerful leaders from adjacent movements, including: Alicia Garza, (Principal at Black Futures Lab, Author of The Purpose of Power and Co-founder of The Black Lives Matter Global Network); Leah Thomas (Founder of Intersectional Environmentalist & Author of The Intersectional Environmentalist: How to Dismantle Systems of Oppression to Protect People + Planet); and the moderator Chione Lucina Muñoz Flegal (Executive Director of Housing California). This keynote outlined the ways we can counter prevalent attitudes of defeatism toward change and transformation and instead work together to build a housing justice movement filled with joy, hope, and courage!

Celebrating Our Movement with Leadership Awards

Every year NPH recognizes inspiring leaders in our field who have worked to strengthen our affordable housing movement and have advanced our work forward with innovation, collaboration, and inclusiveness. In 2023, we held our 27th Annual NPH Affordable Housing Leadership Awards, honoring three stand-out, inspirational Bay Area affordable housing professionals who represent some of NPH's core organizational members: Barbara Gualco (Mercy Housing), Regina Williams (SV@Home), and Geeta Rao (Enterprise Community Partners).

By providing a space for housers to honor their peers, we're building camaraderie and joy within our industry while also inspiring and activating our members to keep going in our collective work, advancing our vision of affordable, safe, and stable homes for all.

View awardee videos to get inspired!

Regional Public Information Campaign: Begins with Home

In 2023 NPH's Shift the Bay launched our regional public information campaign, Begins with Home, a narrative campaign designed to build the public support and the political will we need to win affordable housing solutions at scale. The campaign seeks to accomplish this by disrupting dominant, harmful narratives of defeatism and cynicism that block public support and collective action for the transformative change we need to ensure that everyone has safe, stable, and affordable homes. While aligning with near-term regional and statewide campaign opportunities in 2024, Begins with Home is designed to support the long-term success of NPH's members by preparing Bay Area residents to be more receptive to and supportive of meaningful affordable housing solutions.

Begins with Home is led by NPH, co-led by All Home, and executed with 12 campaign partners working on all areas of housing justice in all corners of the Bay Area. The culmination of many years of coalition-capacity building, public sentiment research, and local campaigning, Begins with Home was publicly launched at our annual conference to over 1,000 attendees. (View launch video.)

Aligning our Coalition's Messages

Shift the Bay continues to partner with its table members to produce resources that support our members in promoting a 4Ps framework for housing justice: Protection, Preservation, Production, and homelessness Prevention. In 2023, this work included the production of two new resources: the How Renter Protections Keep Families in Their Home storybook and the How to Talk About Homelessness message guide. The production of these two resources is one way that we're applying narrative strategy to tangible solutions, moving our work from strategy to application. They provide our members with the tools they need to navigate our shifting political and public landscapes and the language to build more public support for affordable housing solutions.

Working alongside ACCE, Monument Impact, and North Bay Organizing Project (NBOP), the storybook was produced to help advocates, decision-makers, and the media better communicate what it means to have a home and what's at stake for our communities if we don't prioritize safe, stable and affordable homes for everyone. In partnership with All Home, NPH produced the message guide to help our members better understand and communicate the systemic drivers that push people into homelessness, respond to common misperceptions, and build support for proven solutions. Several hundred of our partners have received the guide and been trained on its use.

Affordable Housing Month Explores New Spaces:
Libraries and TikTok!

Each year with our members and Bay Area Affordable Housing Partners (BAAHP), NPH co-leads Affordable Housing Month (AHM), our month to uplift, amplify and celebrate the affordable housing community. (BAAHP includes Council of Community Housing Organizations, East Bay Housing Organizations, Generation Housing, Housing Leadership Council of San Mateo County, and SV@Home.)

In 2023, we expanded the reach of our AHM public campaign through two new approaches: a local library partnership and TikTok! Our library partnership reached the greater Bay Area community through 8 library systems and 101 library branches, sharing our curated booklist and AHM's 2023 theme, “The Bay Area is our neighborhood.” The theme was weaved through a social media toolkit and graphics to support our members' communications work and amplify this shared messaging for May. A new TikTok account, @AffordableBurbs, was created and delivered our AHM messaging to roughly 300,000 people during May, racking up over 700,000 views across 11 videos. (This series was a collaborative effort between NPH and Shift the Bay's Affordable Housing in the Suburbs Subcommittee.)

The library partnership and TikTok account support our goal to move beyond our traditional audiences and expose our AHM messaging to youth, Gen Z, Millenials, and families to garner wide support for affordable housing solutions. We will continue to translate our polled and tested narrative tactics to broader audiences, creating resonant messages on relevant platforms and exploring arts and cultural partnerships to bring a human touch to our efforts to change minds and win hearts.