Housing is too expensive. Our communities are too unequal and too segregated. We’re not even remotely prepared for climate change, which is already here. Passio...
Housing After Dark Episode 17: Jonathan Fearn on the Monoculture of Development, Social Housing, and Aligning Policy and Industry
Jonathan Fearn is someone I’ve gotten to know slowly over the past five years the old fashioned way—by seeing him at housing events. Jonathan is a Senior Vice President of Real Estate Development at Oakland’s own Signature Development Group, where his day job is to build buildings, most of which are for people to live in. But for me, and I imagine many of you listening in, Jonathan is someone known for what he calls his “extracurriculars”—serving on public committees and non-profit boards across the Bay Area. He’s never the loudest person in the room, even when he’s on stage, but when you look at his list of accomplishments and the places where he shows up, you’ll realize how quietly important a person like Jonathan is to moving all of Bay Area housing forward. It’s an honor to have him on the show, and I hope you enjoy our wide-ranging conversation on everything from the interconnectedness of the housing economy to social housing. Get full access to Where We Go From Here at alexschafran.substack.com/subscribe
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Housing After Dark Episode 16: Shanti Singh on Prop 33, Social Housing and Productive Disagreement
Shanti Singh is the legislative director for Tenant’s Together, a statewide Coalition of local tenants rights organizations and one of California’s most important voices for tenants rights and housing protections. Shanti herself is one of the most interesting people I know in this business, someone with a diverse background—including time in finance—who understands both the technical and political side of housing. She’s an intellectual and an activist, and someone who I have learned I can trust— a trust that enables us to disagree from time to time, not just in person but on air.In this episode, we discuss the past, present and future of rent control and tenant protections in California, the challenges and opportunity of Prop 33, and our shared love of social housing as an idea. This is also the first episode where my guest and I talk in depth about somewhere we disagree. I’m grateful to Shanti for coming on board to do this, and what enables this to work is partly that trust that we have built. It also comes from an important fact—we share a vision of a better housed California, where amongst many other things, tenants have real rights. Like with many housing disagreements, the issue is over how to get there, not where we need to go. There is more consensus about the destination than the path, and I hold onto this fact as a key source of hope for California housing. Get full access to Where We Go From Here at alexschafran.substack.com/subscribe
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Housing After Dark Episode 15: Ruby Bolaria Shifrin on Philanthropy's Role in Fighting our Housing Crisis
When you work in the nonprofit sector in the US, philanthropy is everywhere, even when it’s sometimes trying to pretend it's just following the expertise on the ground. One of the many reasons for which I like and respect Ruby Bolaria Shifrin, the VP for community at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, or CZI, is that she’s not afraid to lead. As we discuss today, Ruby has a background as both an organizer and developer, and has now spent the past six years funding a who’s who of Bay Area and California housing orgs. It’s given her a unique eye for housing politics, and for what she thinks philanthropy can and cannot do, in housing. It’s also made her one of the smartest and most thoughtful people we have in the business, someone who is unafraid to nudge us all forward, and to support a wide range of housing ideas and organizations, including some who may think they are on different sides of the housing fight.Thanks as always for tuning in, and if you like the show, please give it some love on social media or pass it along to someone who needs to hear Ruby or any of my other amazing guests. Get full access to Where We Go From Here at alexschafran.substack.com/subscribe
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Housing After Dark Episode 14: Paul Fordham on Homelessness, the Unhoused, and Funding
Today’s guest, Paul Fordham, is doing something that is so much harder than it should be—housing the unhoused in one of the wealthiest counties in America. As the Co-Chief Executive Officer of Homeward Bound, he helps lead one of Marin County’s most important homelessness organizations, a group which provides a wide range of housing and services to the County’s most vulnerable residents. His work for me is both personal and professional. Marin is where I’m from, a place of incredible beauty, wealth, and privilege. It’s also a place that has been hostile to housing for generations, and as a result it is one of the most segregated places in the Bay Area. It’s also not entirely rich—one third of Marin-ites rent, and there are people all around the county barely hanging on to the roof over their heads. But Marin is showing signs of change on the housing front, in part because of the work of people like Paul and organizations like Homeward Bound.I will do more to feature people doing transformative work in Marin in coming episodes, including some of the projects I am honored to be a part of. I will also feature much more about the professionals working on the homelessness side of housing, part of my own long overdue effort to bridge the homelessness / housing divide, a divide which is still very real, even if most of us in the business know it shouldn’t be.In the meantime, I hope you enjoy this conversation with this smart and savvy Mancunian, a person who has become an important leader and a critical voice in housing in a place very different from where he grew up. Thanks as always for tuning in, and if you like the show, please give it some love on social media or pass it along to someone who needs to hear Paul or any of my other amazing guests. Get full access to Where We Go From Here at alexschafran.substack.com/subscribe
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Housing After Dark Episode 13: Nikki Beasley on the Importance of Homeownership
Today’s guest, Nikki Beasley, is someone I first came across during a pandemic era webinar. I listen to a lot of webinars about housing and Nikki, the Executive Director of Richmond Neighborhood Housing Services, is a frequent contributor to the world of housing ideas. If you haven’t heard her, she’s great live, but her intelligence and charisma are not the only reasons why I am a card carrying member of her fan club. She also keeps it real, and too often she’s the only person in a housing space talking about homeownership, even when many of the folks in the room are homeowners too. Our conversation gets into this dynamic and talks about how and why she is willing to stand up for a housing system which gives BIPOC households a real choice in whether to own their housing in one way or another. I hope you enjoy listening.Thanks as always for tuning in, and if you like the show, please give it some love on social media or pass it along to someone who needs to hear Nikki or any of my other amazing guests. Get full access to Where We Go From Here at alexschafran.substack.com/subscribe
Housing is too expensive. Our communities are too unequal and too segregated. We’re not even remotely prepared for climate change, which is already here. Passionate people and organizations come up with smart, workable answers to these problems. But a diverse set of entrenched political divides keep us from realizing those solutions.
Join practitioner, researcher and writer Alex Schafran once a month for the latest on the past, present and future of housing, planning and urban development. Guests include housing practitioners, researchers, elected officials and more.
Let’s all work together towards a better housed California.
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