Funder Webinar: Intersections for Justice: Social Housing Primer

In the fall of 2024, Common Counsel Foundation’s Fund for an Inclusive California co-hosted a Funder Learning Session on social housing with Housing NOW! California, the Alliance for Housing Justice, and the California Green New Deal Coalition. 

In this session, we took a multidimensional look at how social housing offers an innovative and intersectional approach to address the overlapping economic, climate, and housing challenges facing communities of color and low-income Californians. The benefits of social housing includes:

• Permanent Affordability: Allows for generational security and family legacy; 
• Resident Agency: Puts governance and decision-making in residents; and
• Connected Community: Goes beyond the home to include community assets, like grocery stores, parks, and more.

Featured speakers

• Daniel Aldana-Cohen, UC Berkeley & Climate & Community Institute
• Alfonso Directo, Jr., ACT-LA
• Liz Ryan Murray, Director of Strategic Campaigns, Public Advocates
• Margarita, resident, Beverly Vermont Community Land Trust
• Diana Amparo Jiménez, Weingart Foundation

Hosted and Moderated by

• Rev. Rae Huang, Housing NOW! California
• Jazmin Segura, Common Counsel Foundation, Housing Justice Initiative

Watch the recording here, access with password socialhousing*123, and click the globe icon to choose your preferred language.

Resources highlighted during our session include:

• Video explainer on social housing in English and Spanish. This short video offers a concise overview of the topic and can serve as a supplementary guide to what we discussed.
• Building Our Future: Grassroots Reflections on Social Housing, which provides case studies and insights into innovative efforts happening nationwide.
• Deeper dive on principles, public housing’s role, financing and more from the Alliance for Housing Justice national coalition.
• What is SB 555? Last year, California state leaders approved a first-of-its-kind study on social housing when they passed the “Stable Affordable Housing Act of 2023”, or SB 555 (Wahab).
• Green Social Housing at Scale, How a Federal Green Social Housing Development Authority Can Build, Repair, and Finance Homes for All, a report by Climate + Community Institute.

To learn more about innovative and community-driven housing solutions, please reach out to Jazmin Segura at [email protected].