Action Alert to support affordable housing and anti-displacement funds at the Board of Supervisors budget meeting
On May 16th and 18th, MEHC sent Action Alerts to encourage public comment at the 2026 Marin County budget hearings. You can view it below:
We want to make a case for being as generous as possible for all 3 P’s of affordable housing – production, preservation and protection. Affordable housing is listed as a community priority on slide 8 of the presentation, and the trust fund is on slide 31. Slide deck. You can send an email using our template, and speak at the meeting. Talking points below:
- Thank you for recognizing our housing crisis by naming solutions for homelessness and affordable housing as a top priority. In the last community survey, these were the #2 issues residents want our County government to work on. I am speaking today to encourage the Board of Supervisors to do as much as possible to meet these needs.
- I applaud the additional $5,000,000 being added to the affordable housing fund, bringing the total to $16,000,000. Even so, this is nowhere near enough capital for the pipeline of projects we have and we need.
- The availability of local funding is critical in order for affordable housing to get built. Most funding sources assign a preference for projects with some local funding.There are hundreds affordable units in the pipeline, and West Marin alone needs 1,000 affordable units according to the West Marin Housing Solutions report. Further, we need funding for preservation. The County cannot fully fund this on its own, but every little bit the county can provide will help.
- In addition to dollars, we need staff resources to create policies to ensure we are able to leverage these funds as efficiently as possible.
- I am deeply concerned about the proposed Federal budget which would severely cut Section 8 vouchers. As it is, we have 160 residents and additional Homeward Bound residents on emergency vouchers, which the County will have to backfill. There are over 2,000 renters reliant on these vouchers, and the loss of vouchers will also jeopardize the badly needed renovation of Golden Gate Village. Marin cannot backfill all these vouchers. However, we must start planning now on how we will prevent massive displacement and homelessness if these vouchers are significantly cut.
- We are already experiencing large evictions due to the red-tagging of the Martinelli Ranch and Romer Court, as well as the closure of the Ranch housing in West Marin. I ask that the County both start planning for these possible outcomes, and allocate as much to homelessness prevention as doable.