Season’s greetings!
When I became vice president here five years ago, I looked forward to expanding our team, stretching our geographic reach, integrating our programmatic, policy, and finance work, and sparking systemic change more explicitly. I am proud to share that, despite various global and local setbacks, we have done that and more – inspiring my belief that the toughest problems are solvable.
We have celebrated the wins, and from the setbacks, we have learned how to recover, adapt, and create opportunities for the future. We will rely on these deepened skills and our foundational relationships with partners like all of you in the years to come as we tackle California’s affordable housing crisis.
Here is a roundup of how the Northern California team – thinkers, doers, and dreamers – advanced our ambitious endeavors in 2024.
Securing Resources and Advancing Policy
Our team worked to restore $2 billion in proposed cuts to state affordable housing and homelessness programs alongside a coalition of 100-plus partners. Our team also helped partners around the state secure $600 million in funding for integrated housing and sustainable transportation investments through our Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities (AHSC) technical assistance. Additionally, in this year’s legislative session, our team supported 16 State bills, of which nine successfully advanced through the session, and one made it onto the November ballot as Proposition 5.
Building Capacity
Our team hosted convenings and capacity-building cohorts to support a cohesive housing preservation ecosystem, including a Preservation Public Sector Cohort for 25 public sector partners and our technical assistance for the second cohort of the Partnership for the Bay’s Future (PBF) fellows and alongside Coro Northern California and the San Francisco Foundation. In the Central Valley, we stepped up to co-convene the Stockton Housing Justice Coalition in partnership with the Reinvent South Stockton Coalition. Importantly, we also closed a total of $605,000 in HUD Section 4 capacity-building grants supporting fourteen CDCs and CHDOs.
Research
We proudly launched and completed the first version of the Central Valley Regional Pipeline for the communities of Stockton, Modesto and Fresno, building on our State Pipeline and Bay Area Regional Pipeline work. In addition, our team launched new research study on the causes, implications and solutions to rental arrears. We were also proud to work with local government organizations in advancing their affordable housing goals through new research, including partnering with the San Joaquin Council of Governments to produce a recommendations memo for the first-of-its-kind Metropolitan Planning Organization-hosted housing fund in the Central Valley. Our team also developed strategies needed to meet the City of San Francisco’s affordable housing goals and best practices to guide the city’s site acquisition and land banking efforts in the context of public, religious, and nonprofit-owned sites.
Investments and Development
Enterprise Community Loan Fund (ECLF) provided over $7.9 million in loans to two affordable housing developers, which will result in 159 affordable homes. Enterprise Housing Credits Investments provided $366 million in equity to 12 Northern California developments, which will result in 1,121 affordable homes.
Growing
We are happy to share that our team grew to 25 people, and we renovated our San Francisco offices, making them more available to partners and other Enterprisers needing a conference space or a desk to work at when in San Francisco (just ask!). In October, we hosted the 2024 Soiree by the Bay at the Conservatory at One Sansome in San Francisco and raised over $260,000 for Enterprise’s Northern California programs. At the gala, we recognized Richmond Neighborhood Housing Services as our Community Partner of the Year and Mayor Jesse Arreguin of Berkeley as our Changemaker of the Year.
Overall, I am incredibly proud of our team's accomplishments this year. With you as our partner, we feel as ready as we can be for 2025.