Robert Hoo, Legal Services of Northern California and Sacramento Housing Alliance

During my fellowship, I worked at two organizations, Legal Services of Northern California (LSNC) and the Sacramento Housing Alliance (SHA), to promote inclusionary housing programs in the Sacramento region. Inclusionary housing, or inclusionary zoning, refers to policies that require housing developers to set aside a certain percentage of new units for low-income families. These policies can accomplish two important goals: increasing the supply of affordable housing and promoting economically integrated communities.

The fellowship project incorporated both legal strategies at LSNC and community-based advocacy strategies at SHA to further the spread of inclusionary housing ordinances. In the first half of the fellowship, my work contributed to the adoption of one of the most aggressive inclusionary ordinances in the country for Sacramento County. The second half of the fellowship focused on protecting this ordinance from a legal challenge filed by developers, and building community coalitions to advance additional inclusionary ordinances in the suburban areas of Sacramento.

A) Sacramento County Litigation

As mentioned previously, the major developers in the region filed a lawsuit challenging Sacramento's new inclusionary ordinance as an illegal takings and an illegal tax under California state law. I was able to support the lead attorneys from LSNC in successfully intervening in this lawsuit. The parties were preparing to enter settlement negotiations when my fellowship ended.

The most interesting part of this issue for me was balancing the legal timeline and strategy with the political implications of the lawsuit. The consensus opinion among the attorneys who were defending the ordinance was that the developer lawsuit did not have much chance of success. And, since the developers had not asked for an injunction, the implementation of the ordinance was not affected by the lawsuit.

Politically, however, the lawsuit had a major effect on the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors and on other cities in the region. The ordinance had passed narrowly and the lawsuit gave skeptics and opponents another reason to question the wisdom of inclusionary policies. It also provided developers with some leverage to ask for concessions in exchange for making the litigation go away. Finally, the lawsuit had a chilling effect on other local governments who were considering the adoption of inclusionary programs.

In summary, the lawsuit appeared to be more of a political strategy than a serious legal challenge. Nonetheless, it had to be taken seriously as a legal challenge and disposed of accordingly. Unfortunately, the litigation timeline does not move quickly and there was some disconnect between the way that lawyers understand and communicate about legal issues and the way that community groups react to lawsuits.

I was faced with several challenges in coordinating between the legal and political strategies. There was a desire to downplay the threat of the lawsuit, while simultaneously galvanizing community support and anger around the intransigence of the developers. There was a need to build a sense of urgency about meeting the political challenge posed by the developers, while also preaching patience about the slow pace of litigation. Finally, there was a desire to challenge the arguments that the developers were making, while avoiding having the public debate focus on the fiscal issues that the developers wanted to raise, as opposed to the issues of fairness and opportunity that the advocates wanted to address.

I helped organize a regional summit of community groups to coordinate strategy, press conferences to disseminate the public message, and other measures to counter the political strategy of the developers. As the fellowship came to a close, the opposing sides were at something of a stalemate, which has to be considered a victory for housing advocates, since the ordinance remains in effect and has resulted in applications for thousands of units of affordable housing, which will be built in the coming years.

B) Advancing Inclusionary Programs Throughout the Region

A major goal of the fellowship was to pass an inclusionary ordinance in Rancho Cordova, a newly incorporated city outside of Sacramento where significant growth is projected to occur. At the beginning of the summer it became apparent that the city's timeline for adopting housing policies would extend beyond the term of the fellowship. Nevertheless, I continued to work on building a community coalition to advocate for an inclusionary program.

Rancho Cordova is a city of about 50,000 people that has a decidedly small town feel. The residents tend to lean Republican and they fought for incorporation because they felt that the County government was dumping too much low-income housing in their community. These factors presented significant challenges to any inclusionary program. On the other hand, Rancho Cordova is a blue collar town that prides itself on not being a snobbish, exclusive community. These factors provided an opportunity to focus on the benefits of providing housing opportunities for everyone amidst a crazed housing market.

I met with church pastors and community leaders and got referrals to talk to active citizens. I also used LSNC and SHA contacts to identify low-income tenant leaders. In individual meetings, I identified several issues that resonated among local residents. As mentioned above, I discovered that most residents had no desire to become an exclusive community and were shocked by the size and price of the new homes that were being built in the region. Longtime homeowners had purchased their homes for $15,000 to $20,000 and were shocked at the new 4,000 square foot homes with $500,000 asking prices that were being built in the city. They knew that their children could not afford to buy those homes and that local wages were not high enough to support those prices. In short, I discovered that although Rancho Cordova is a conservative community, issues of economic populism had some appeal.

As the fellowship came to a close, a diverse group of citizens had begun to meet on a regular basis to plan how to advance an inclusionary program in Rancho Cordova. The citizens spanned ethnicity, class and age and included low-income tenants, as well as homeowners. The group had agreed on the outlines of a proposed inclusionary policy and was preparing to meet with the planning staff and city council. While I was sad to leave at such an exciting time, I was extremely pleased at the group's commitment and cohesion and optimistic about the chance for success. I did feel some desire to stay on after my fellowship for a few more months in hopes of seeing the conclusion of the effort in Rancho Cordova, but the Sacramento County experience indicates that these campaigns often drag on for years, rather than months.

The original goal of the project was to achieve an inclusionary housing policy in Rancho Cordova. The presumption was that Sacramento County would adopt a policy prior to the start of the fellowship and that my time would be focused on Rancho Cordova. It turned out that these were unrealistic and incorrect presumptions. When I arrived in Sacramento, the county ordinance was still being contested and there was uncertainty about how that effort would turn out. Also, the City of Rancho Cordova's timeline for adopting housing policies did not coincide with the fellowship year. I also underestimated the challenge of being the only person in LSNC and SHA who was assigned to the Rancho Cordova project. While both LSNC and SHA were fully committed to the project, neither organization had experience coordinating legal and community-based organizing strategies and I was left on his own to figure out how to make stuff happen.

Despite these challenges, I believe that many of the goals and objectives of the fellowship were met. The Sacramento County ordinance was adopted and is being implemented. It includes the most aggressive income targets of any inclusionary program in the nation and will result in thousands of units of affordable housing, which will be integrated in new developments. There is also a diverse group of committed citizens in Rancho Cordova who are implementing a plan to convince the city council to adopt an inclusionary ordinance. While the ultimate success of this effort is uncertain, a great deal was accomplished in the fellowship year. Finally, I left LSNC and SHA with a model for how to coordinate legal and community-based organizing strategies that can be applied to other cities in the region.

While the changing realities on the ground required a shift in the goals and objectives, the overall intent of the fellowship project was met. Inclusionary programs in the Sacramento region are on the rise and this will result in an increase in affordable housing and residential integration in the fastest growing region of California. Now that the fellowship is over, I would change two things if I had the opportunity to do it all over again. First of all, I would have taken early steps to establish mentoring relationships with groups that have experience with community based organizing. While LSNC provided mentoring around legal issues and SHA provided community contacts and expertise, neither group had any experience with organizing. Eventually, I was able to establish relationships with a local Industrial Areas Foundation affiliate that was able to provide support around this issue, but it would have been helpful to begin this process earlier.

Second of all, I would have built a small caseload of landlord-tenant cases at LSNC. The fellowship proposal did not include any provision for this and LSNC did not ask me to take any cases. However, this would have made me feel more integrated in the office and would have provided valuable experience. On the other hand, I had more than enough responsibilities on my plate and it is possible that even a small caseload would have diminished my ability to meet the goals and objectives set out in the project.

Since October, I have been working as an organizer with the Industrial Areas Foundation affiliate in Los Angeles.