Why MEHC is interested in a Marin housing coalition


A Housing Coalition could help Marin become known for the right reasons, not the wrong ones…We have all heard by now that Marin has the oldest population and is one of the most segregated counties in California. These unflattering distinctions can be largely attributed to historical policies that blocked new homes and kept people of color from homeownership and wealth building. We do not have enough homes for our residents. Young families are leaving in droves, older adults are entering homelessness at an alarming rate, and our communities of color continue to struggle with overcrowding and habitability.


As a community, we have examined the “why” ad nauseum but what about the solutions?  Here at MEHC, we focus on solutions each month, piece-by-piece, whether it is tenant protections (see MEHC’s June Perspective), ambitious housing elements and those that fall short (see MEHC’s May Perspective), or obscure obstacles like parking mandates (see MEHC’s August Perspective) that might be getting in the way of rectifying our past wrongs. MEHC certainly is not the only organization focusing on housing in Marin. All over Marin on any given night there is a planning commission meeting debating a new project, a door-knocking campaign to organize tenants, or a city council facing public criticism for their failure to address encampments.  

What if we could combine various housing solutions, and the expertise of the many individuals and organizations working on those solutions, into one comprehensive policy framework – or in other words – a Housing Coalition? Could Marin become known for all the right reasons instead of the wrong ones? 

Working together to preserve, protect and produce housing  
Community Action Marin, North Marin Community Services, Legal Aid of Marin, Canal Alliance, and Dominican University think we can. “Building Bridges for Housing Solutions,” a free event at Dominican University on September 14th, will focus on exploring creative and collaborative solutions to address housing preservation, protection, and production in Marin County. What is different about this housing event is that we hope to change the narrative around housing by bringing together historically siloed, and even at times antagonistic, stakeholders and organizations to discuss what is possible when it comes to making housing more accessible and affordable, and how we can realize this goal by working together. 

These community-based organizations did not discover something new in the benefits of a coalition, but recent successes, and the resulting relationships, have coalesced in perhaps the most promising opportunity to address Marin’s housing crisis. And it all started with vaccinations.

Covid threat in the Canal  
By April 2020, Omar Carrera, Chief Executive Officer at the Canal Community Alliance, could see it coming – Covid was a life-threatening menace, and he knew residents in the Canal would be hit hard, and it was. At one, the Canal neighborhood produced 80% of Marin’s positive Covid tests. This neighborhood was already struggling before the pandemic, with the highest number of low-income renters, the most overcrowded homes, and the majority of essential workers (see Urban Institute report >>).  Carrera resolved to disrupt the expected outcome for the Canal residents – and he did it. Ultimately, this corner of San Rafael became the most heavily vaccinated neighborhood in Marin County. 

Collaborating to create a safety net for the whole family  


When the health emergency was declared and lock-down put in place, Canal residents found themselves suddenly without income, without savings, and faced with the unimaginable decision of whether to go to their essential job while sick or potentially bringing Covid home to their families because of an inability to quarantine. Community-based organizations (CBOs) – Canal Alliance, Legal Aid, Community Action Marin, and North Marin Community Services – were bombarded with pleas for help. Working out of their respective specialties, the partners quickly recognized that the client families’ problems were multifaceted. By creating a collaboration of service providers, each with its own specific expertise, they worked together to create a safety net for the “whole family.” From food to childcare, housing preservation, staying healthy, and everything in-between, these organizations made it their mission to bring holistic services to the communities that needed them the most and they did it together.    

Stable housing a critical determinant of health outcomes  
These organizations also realized that stable housing was a determinant of healthy outcomes. Policy changes were necessary to address the systemic issues that allowed the pandemic to hit the Canal and other low-income families so hard and would make recovery even harder. But just like the siloed services provided before the pandemic, so too was policy advocacy. The CBOs brought their collective concerns and voices to the elected officials representing the Canal and the Canal Policy Working Group was born (CPWG).  Meeting every other week throughout the pandemic, the CBOs, Supervisor Rodoni, Mayor Collins, Councilmember Llorens-Gulati, and city and county staff worked together to create policy and system changes to address urgent needs – eviction moratoria, rental assistance, mobile testing sites and vaccines, outreach, and education – and also laid the groundwork for longer-term solutions to address the inequities that the pandemic took so much advantage of. Mr. Carrera believes that the lessons learned from the CPWG can be applied to the three p’s of housing: production, preservation, and protection. 

Successful models for housing coalitions exist in the Bay Area  
Again, finding success in holistic services and coalition building is nothing new, but in Marin, the concept has yet to be applied to housing. Thankfully, Marin has other ABAG Counties to learn from.  San Francisco, Alameda, San Mateo, and Santa Clara all boast strong countywide housing collaboratives. San Mateo’s Housing Leadership Council (HLC) was established in 2001 to “build a network of people who support the development of new housing, to build community support for housing, and to advocate for policies that address the root causes of the housing shortage.” HLC’s most recent successes include a campaign to defeat a NIMBY ballot measure in Menlo Park that would have prevented the development of badly needed workforce housing.
 
Could an integrated approach, one that aims to address a wide range of housing-related issues, such as how to support getting from homelessness to home ownership or streamlining the production of everything from ADUs to multi-family housing, work in Marin? What’s the potential that a county-wide coalition of agencies can solve our housing crisis? We don’t know but we do know that what we are all doing now is just not enough.

Join us for a thought-provoking and action-oriented FREE event, Building Bridges for Housing Solutions, on September 14th at Dominican University to hear about the possibilities from MEHC’s president and moderator, Jenny Silva, and panelists representing a wide array of housing expertise: Alex Schafran, Author, housing, planning & urban development; Somaya Abdelgany, Preservation Program Coordinator, Bay Area Housing Authority; Leah Simon-Weisberg, Legal Director, ACCE Institute; Kim Pipkin, Executive Director, Black Developers Forum; Ricardo Huerta Niño, Senior Initiative Officer, Great Communities Collaborative, San Francisco Foundation. 

PRESS, RESOURCES, and REFERENCES
Report: Marin among Bay Area leaders in pandemic exodus (mercurynews.com) 

Applied Survey Research (Marin HHS) 

Report:  A framework for equitable recovery–How partners worked together to address inequities with service delivery in Marin

Where to Prioritize Emergency Rental Assistance to Keep Renters in Their Homes

 Marin’s vaccine efforts: 

https://www.marinij.com/2019/06/10/marin-school-vaccination-rates-rise-to-all-time-high/

https://www.governing.com/now/how-one-county-convinced-nearly-all-its-residents-to-get-vaccinatedhttps://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/11/us/marin-county-vaccines.html

MEHC’s Perspective newsletter is a mostly-monthly publication with important housing related information pertinent to Marin County residents. Please share! 



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