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Action in Sacramento

EBHO Mobilizes 80 Residents and over 70 Members and Advocates at Sacramento Rally to Protect Affordable Housing

Click here for a photo slideshow, and see the media coverage below!

On Tuesday, February 15th, EBHO mobilized 80 affordable housing residents and over 70 members and advocates to go to Sacramento with hundreds more from around the Bay Area and the state to say: “Protect Funds for Affordable Housing! Reform, Don’t Eliminate Redevelopment! Don’t Increase Homelessness in California!”

Over 600 people cheered, chanted, and spoke out against the Governor’s proposed budget cuts. The proposal to eliminate Redevelopment would evaporate the second largest source of funding for affordable housing in California, leaving countless lower-income Californians with no where to turn, and exacerbating the housing and homelessness crisis.

Seniors, immigrants, families, and people with special needs from Newark, Fremont, Oakland, and Walnut Creek joined EBHO members and advocates on buses to the State Capitol for the rally. Afterwards, we packed a hearing of state legislators.

On behalf of EBHO’s Board and staff, we want to thank all of the residents and EBHO members who mobilized with very short notice for this critical effort. The East Bay affordable housing community was well represented! Thanks go to:

  • Satellite Housing for their major resident turn-out!
  • Non-Profit Housing Association of Northern California for organizing the buses and rally
  • EBHO members and residents who turned out in full force.
  • All our partners in the Bay Area and statewide for taking action.
Rev. Phil Lawson, EBHO’s Interfaith Program Director, helped lead off the rally with a rousing invocation and words from an African-American gospel song: “I don’t feel no way tired. Come too far from where I started from. Nobody told me the road would be easy. I don’t believe God brought me this far just to leave me.”

Deborah Carney with her daughter Aliyah, EBALDC residents in Oakland, spoke next saying, “Affordable housing helped me to sustain myself and not become a victim of homelessness.” Kattye Giles, RCD resident in Berkeley and Board member, wrapped up the rally with inspirational words about how affordable housing gave her hope and stability at just the right time.


Media coverage:


Affordable Housing Rally - Photo Gallery
Sacramento Bee, February 15, 2011

Brown Urged to save Redevelopment Agencies

Natalie Sentz C. Johnson, ABC News 10


Affordable Housing Advocates Rally In The Capitol

By California Capitol Network

February 15, 2011

You can add affordable housing advocates to the list of people upset by Governor Brown’s budget proposal to eliminate redevelopment agencies.

They rallied at the Capitol Tuesday before an afternoon hearing on how redevelopment funds help support housing projects for low- and middle-income residents.

Dianne Spaulding is with a Bay Area-based non-profit that represents affordable housing developers. She says redevelopment agencies should be reformed and cut – but not eliminated.

"Don’t dismantle a system that’s in place before you have a really good idea of what you’re gonna replace it with," Spaulding said.

The governor believes the roughly $5 billion a year in property taxes that go to redevelopment agencies could be better used elsewhere.

About one-fifth of that money – $1 billion a year – currently goes towards affordable housing.