Housing
Our goal: Make housing affordable for everyone.
SPUR’s Five-Year Priorities:
• Reduce the cost of building housing to make it more affordable for everyone.
• Provide low- and middle-income residents with homes they can afford, and prevent displacement.
• Use housing as a tool for closing the racial wealth gap and leverage public investment to support wealth creation for low-income households.
SPUR Report
Housing the Region
Imagine a Bay Area where our greatest challenge, the scarcity and expense of housing, has been solved. This may sound like an impossible dream, but it isn’t. Within the next 50 years, we can live in an affordable region. But only if we make significant changes, starting right now. SPUR's series Housing the Region defines the Bay Area's housing crisis and put forth concrete steps to build a better, more affordable region.
SPUR Report
A Civic Vision for Growth
The Bay Area is a place of incredible possibility, but it faces threats from some of the highest housing costs in the country, growing income inequality, long commutes between jobs and affordable homes, and increasing danger from climate change. If we continue with business as usual, the region can expect these challenges to continue to escalate. But what if the people of the Bay Area chose a different future?
SPUR Report
What It Will Really Take to Create an Affordable Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area’s lack of housing and limited affordability have significant ramifications for the people who currently live here, the people who once lived here but have been forced to move elsewhere and the people who used to be housed but now live on the street. These housing pressures are remaking the region’s diversity, culture, economy and environment.
SPUR Report
Model Places
Over the next 50 years, the San Francisco Bay Area is expected to gain as many as 4 million people and 2 million jobs. In a region where a crushing housing shortage is already threatening quality of life, how can we welcome new residents and jobs without paving over green spaces or pushing out long-time community members?
SPUR Report
Room for More
Our housing agenda for San José lays out 20 concrete steps the city can take to address the chronic housing shortage, ranging from fixing its planning process to finding more funding for affordable housing.
SPUR Report
8 Ways to Make San Francisco More Affordable
San Francisco is in the midst of an affordability crisis. Reversing the situation will require far-reaching changes to the city’s housing policies. But there are many things we can do at the local level to make San Francisco more affordable for the people who live here.
SPUR Report
A Housing Strategy for San Francisco
San Francisco’s unique culture is threatened by the high cost of housing. Unless we do something, the city will lose its artists, its progressive politics, its immigrants and its young people. This second edition of our Housing Strategy for San Francisco updates the policy reports that define SPUR's housing agenda.
Updates and Events
Housing for the Sum of Us
News / This year’s Ideas + Action symposium explored the topic of housing policy beyond “zero sum” thinking , where some prosper at the expense of others. Keynote speaker Heather McGhee led an investigation into common conceptions of zero sum thinking, such as “policies that support renters harm homeowners” and “affordable housing leads to declining property values.” Our daylong conversation explored the role that racism plays in these debates and the shifts needed to create something different.
Housing the Middle
Research A new SPUR research paper digs into the housing market’s failure to meet the needs of middle-income households. Using a national survey and three case studies of middle-income housing production programs, the paper reveals that the need for middle-income housing is growing, and it's felt nationwide — not just in expensive coastal cities. California can look to innovative programs across the country as models for how to address the state’s housing challenges
Regional Coalition urges MTC to uphold compliance requirements for its own Transit-Oriented Communities Policy
Advocacy Letter On October 25th, MTC Commissioners discussed and voted on proposed amendments that will eliminate the need for jurisdictions to comply with the Transit-Oriented Communities Policy in order to receive transit extension funding. A coalition of regional policy and advocacy organizations urged the Commission to not arbitrarily lower thresholds for policy compliance due to some Bay Area cities resisting compliance. These actions will weaken incentives to comply with the policy and undermine its purpose of helping the region achieve its goals for the climate and equity under Plan Bay Area.
Governor Newsom Signs SPUR-Sponsored Bills Into Law
News / The close of the 2023 state legislative year brought a number of big wins for SPUR. Governor Newsom signed nine pieces of SPUR-sponsored legislation that will, among other things, prevent the misuse of environmental review processes to stop or delay new housing, pilot speed safety cameras on streets with high crash rates, and speed up timelines for connecting all-electric buildings and EV charging stations to the power grid.
Regional Coalition urges MTC-ABAG Planning Committee to retain TOC Compliance Requirements
Advocacy Letter On October 13th, MTC staff presented to the MTC-ABAG Planning Committee proposed actions to amend funding conditioning for transit rail extension projects from complying with the TOC Policy. Our coalition expressed concern with the proposed amendments that would delay or lower thresholds for compliance - weakening the policy in the process and undermining its purpose of helping the region achieve its goals under Plan Bay Area. We are particularly concerned that the proposed changes could significantly undermine the climate and equity goals of the policy.
Making Detroit Home: Addressing the Challenges of Housing Stability and Habitability
News / In the wake of the Great Recession, Detroit went bankrupt and home foreclosures skyrocketed. Philanthropic dollars have come to the rescue, but the city must now reckon with the factors that keep many Detroiters from thriving: a high property tax rate and punitive tax foreclosure system, lack of access to equitable mortgage lending, and institutional racism.