Renewed Hope Housing Advocates promotes development of housing affordable to the majority of the people living in the Bay Area. The median-priced home in Alameda was over $900,000 in mid 2019. To purchase such a home, a family must earn at least $144,000 a year on top of being able to pay a 20 percent down payment of $190,000. Even with these assets, housing is exceedingly hard to obtain in the Bay Area in 2019. For everyone else, it is impossible.
We invite you to join our fight in the belief that decent housing that does not drain our income enables us to better do our jobs, raise our families, enjoy our friends and contribute to society.
Since it organized during the fight to save East Housing from demolition in 1999, Renewed Hope has worked on:
- Alameda Point: Of the 800 units to be built by Alameda Point Partners, 25 percent will be affordable to very low to moderate income residents resulting from a 2001 lawsuit and settlement agreement between the city of Alameda and Renewed Hope. Eden Housing, a non-profit developer in Hayward, will be building 128 units of low income housing for both seniors and families while residential builder Thompson/Dorfman will be doing 72 moderate income units.
- Rent Stabilization: Renewed Hope initiated a rent survey in 2014 to bring attention to the rising rent crisis and supported the Alameda Renters Coalition which formed that year. Five years of struggle has resulted in a rent stabilization ordinance passed in 2016, a just cause eviction ordinance in May 2019 and stronger rent controls anticipated later this year.
- Affordable homes in Alameda: Since 2001, Renewed Hope has pushed the city to adopt policies supporting the building of affordable housing despite the obstacle of Measure A, the 1973 ban on multi-family housing in Alameda. A 15 percent inclusionary requirement along with the density bonus ordinance has resulted in affordable homes in every new Alameda project along with some low income rental projects. The latest project to open is the 21 unit Everett Commons on Everett Street.
- Housing Element: In July 2012 the City of Alameda finally passed a Housing Element, after Renewed Hope wrote a demand letter implying it was ready to take legal action. This General Plan document lays out where Alameda allows acceptable densities to facilitate affordable housing construction and effectively overrides the city’s 40-year ban on multi-family housing for these parcels.
- Harbor Island Evictions: Fought evictions of 300 mostly low-income and minority families in one the city’s largest apartment complexes – lobbied city heavily and served on a committee to prevent further abuses.
- Measure A: Renewed Hope opposed Measure A based on its defacto discriminatory effect of limiting construction to single family homes (and duplexes) affordable to middle and upper income people. Both state and federal housing agencies agreed with RH and put pressure on the city to change Measure A.
- Measure B: Despite its desire to see development move ahead quickly at Alameda Point, Renewed Hope analyzed and drew serious attention to the pitfalls of the developer-sponsored Measure B in 2010 that would have lifted Measure A on Alameda Point. Its report “Doubtful Promises” sounded the alarm on the detrimental agreement the city would be forced to accept with the developer Sun-Cal if the measure had passed.