Public Advocates

Our Metropolitan Equity Team advocates for equitable development, affordable housing, tenant protections, increased local transit service, and policies to break down patterns of segregation and the inequitable allocation of public and private resources. At the state level, we co-convened the Social Housing Coalition and the Stable Homes California coalition, which are advancing innovative, off-market solutions to create and preserve affordable housing. In Sacramento we successfully supported AB 721, which removes restrictions in covenants on density for affordable housing developments, and AB 215, which strengthens the state's enforcement of the Housing Element law and the public's right to meaningful opportunities to comment on local housing plans. (Continued at Schedule O)

In 2021-22, Public Advocates' Education Equity Team, with our partners and allies, won a $1.1 billion state investment in racially just and relationship-centered community schools for a total investment of $4.1 billion over the past two state budgets; a permanent 6.56 percent cost-of-living adjustment and a $4.32 billion increase to the LCFF base grant; the equitable distribution of the nearly $8 billion Learning Recovery Emergency Block Grant; and $100 million to expand the Community Engagement Initiative, which Public Advocates won in 2018. (Continued at Schedule O)