Thanks to all who came!! And four affordable housing wins last week!!

What a party!! Thanks to all who came and donated to make our “Affordable Housing Rocks!” Nov. 2nd event a success. Over 130 people attended and we raised about $5,000. A church in San Marion will be donating  another $1,000! if you would like to help us reach our goal of $10,000 here’s a link you can use to donate:  Donate

Please enjoy pictures of the event here: Photos from Affordable Housing Rocks!

One the heals of our Saturday event, we spent Sunday rallying the troops to join us to for five affordable housing actions last week. Learn about our wins!

1. On Monday Nov. 3 in partnership with Pasadena’s Tenant Union, we won a moratorium on all evictions in Pasadena without a just cause. CA has followed Oregon on a rent gouging bill, but it doesn’t go into effect until Jan 1^st and in the meantime landlords have been evicting. I’m so proud of our city for passing this. We had a least 150 folks out articulating their stories of being evicted for no good reason after faithfully paying rent for 20 or more years.   It was clever and impressive how the city had two city council meetings back to back, the 2^nd one at 12:01 so that they could do the 2^nd reading of this new ordinance on a separate day as required by law, so it would go into effect last Thursday. See: Pasadena Now

2.  That same Monday night, we also had the final reading of our updated Inclusionary policy (which has produced 577 affordable units at no cost to the city, with units embedded into high-end developments and indistinguishable from luxury apartments). This updated policy will now cause all developers to supply 20% of all new housing to be affordable, or pay an increased fee, which will go into our affordable housing trust fund (which has been highly productive—690 more affordable units have been leveraged from this fund)  and other significant changes like ending all trade downs (a policy that will lead the way for many other cities to produce more affordable housing).  Our inclusionary team met for 1.5 years and did a stellar job culminating last Monday! Folks from Alhambra and San Gabriel were on our team to learn how we do research and advocacy, this concept is now spreading. Now even South Pas is now wanting inclusionary housing!-so amazing!  See Pasadena’s new policy: Updated Inclusionary Policy

3. Additionally that evening, we also were able to assure that an affordable housing developer that is proposing 94 units—half for homeless and half for families—is now among the top 5 contenders for consideration for Pasadena’s Civic Center and the YWCA designed by Julia Morgan—who designed the Hearst Castle. We now have our work cut out for us to assure that this proposal by National Core wins. We have had prayer vigils lead by different churches d every Monday on that site for about 3 months. After we pray we walk into the City Council next door and testify on why this is a good proposal. See link to National Core: National Core

4.  We were able to testify at the llth hour that evening as to why an over-concentration policy need to be changed so as to make a path for more affordable housing to be built in NW Pasadena–historically a lower income part of Pasadena now quite gentrified. See Staff Report on over-consentration

5. On Wednesday at the Planning Commission, we able to get the land use designation for a property close to PCC changed from a hotel use to a possible use for student affordable housing. This was the 2^nd time we have showed up about this site. It was not an easy win—so glad for partners like Unite Here and LA Voice to help this time around. There is funding for all kind of affordable housing—family, AIDS, homeless, seniors, special needs—but not for homeless students. So we are praying for this site to somehow, by the grace of God, be used to help some of the 19% of all Pasadena City College students that have experienced homelessness.

Again, enjoy a few photos from our Affordable Housing Rock! event: Fun Photos with captions from Affordable Housing Rocks!

Donate here to reach our goal: Donate

More to come!!

With joy,

Jill Shook, Missions Door, Catalyst, Executive Director, Making Housing and Community Happen (MHCH)

http://www.missionsdoor.org/missionaries/shook-jill

Doctor of Ministry, Bakke Graduate School

Blog: makinghousinghappen.net  Websites: www.makinghousinghappen.org and makinghousinghappen.com

Author/Editor: Making Housing Happen: Faith Based Affordable Housing Models

Jill@ makinghousinghappen.com   Phone: 626) 675-1316