Opinion: Social housing can solve Bay Area’s affordable housing crisis

Rent in the Bay Area is still too high for most working-class people. The affordable-housing crisis has gotten so bad that the Milpitas Unified School District recently asked parents to rent rooms in their homes to teachers struggling to afford a place to live. In the East Bay, the Antioch City Council recently approved rent stabilization protections for tenants against landlords who attempted to raise rents by $500 a month or more.

As a poverty, housing and urban policy expert and an assistant professor at San Jose State University who is rent-burdened (paying more than 30% of one’s annual income on housing costs) despite living in faculty housing on campus, I know that the viable solution to address the affordable housing crisis in the Bay Area and across the state of California is social housing.

Last year, the average monthly fair market rent for a one-bedroom apartment in the Bay Area was nearly $2,200. In San Francisco, San Mateo and Santa Clara counties, the average monthly rent is nearly $3,000, in which case any household making under $79,000 annually would be rent-burdened. Social housing would offer relief by providing rental housing at below market rents to those with financial need.

Here is how social housing should work:

First, housing is treated as a public good rather than a private commodity. This means that the public or nonprofit sector assumes responsibility for production and maintenance to ensure permanent affordability for everyone.

Second, social equity promotes equal status among residents regardless of background or socio-economic status. While anyone can live in social housing, the principle of social equity mitigates undue privilege or influence of one group over another, such as high-income over low-income tenants.

Lastly, democratic resident control collectively gives social housing tenants meaningful influence over the decisions that shape community life. It values their feedback and participation and takes policy recommendations seriously.

Social housing is also good economic policy. According to Data for Progress, social-housing programs would create hundreds of thousands of skilled, living-wage jobs for people looking for work. This may be a contributing reason for why, according to polling from Data for Progress and the Justice Collaborative Institute, more than 60% of Democrats, Republicans and Independents combined support a federal social-housing program.

Moreover, social housing already has proven to be an effective solution to affordable-housing production in cities in Europe and Asia such as Vienna, Norwich and Singapore.

In California, Assemblymembers Alex Lee, Wendy Carillo and Ash Kalra have introduced AB 2053, the California Social Housing Act of 2022 that would establish a statewide social-housing program responsible for eliminating the gap between housing need and housing production. The bill would ensure that no Californian pays more than 30% of their annual income on housing costs by the year 2050. Moreover, all housing units produced would be protected for the duration of their existence from being sold or transferred to the private real estate market, ensuring permanent affordability.

The California Legislature should pass AB 2053. Assemblymembers Lee, Carillo and Kalra need your support for the bill, which failed in the Senate Committee on Governance and Finance.

The affordable-housing crisis in the Bay Area needs a remedy. The lives of working-class Californians depend on the implementation of viable solutions. For me, the choice is clear based on my decade of experience working on affordable-housing issues and studying housing and urban policy.

Social housing for all is the solution.

Michael R. Fisher Jr. is an assistant professor of African American studies at San José State University and an affiliate scholar at the Metropolitan Policy Center at American University. He is also a Public Voices Fellow with the Op-Ed Project.