YIMBY Action
YIMBY Action is a 501(c)(4) social welfare nonprofit organization that advocates for more housing production. According to the Brookings Institution, YIMBY Action is the largest YIMBY organization in the United States. It is a national umbrella group that provides resources to dozens of local chapters across the United States of America.[1]
YIMBY Action argues that a shortage of homes (including the California housing shortage) is responsible for rising housing costs, and the solution is to build more homes through policy solutions.[2]
History
2014-2017: Founding
YIMBY Action arose from the confluence of prior factors. There was a growing chorus from academic researchers and thought leaders such as Edward Glaeser, a Harvard University professor of economics, and Matthew Yglesias, then a writer for Slate Magazine, that excessive land-use laws were causing housing to become more expensive. At the same time, a new generation of young adults were finding housing very expensive and able to connect and organize on platforms such as Twitter.[3]:24 And in the San Francisco Bay Area, where an economic boom after the 2008 financial crisis created new jobs and sent rents soaring, some residents protested symbols of the ascendant tech industry, including shuttle bus protests from 2013.[4]:13,24-25 The historical factors linking land use, the economy and the tech industry were tied together in a 2014 article written by Kim-Mai Cutler for Techcrunch called "How Burrowing Owls Lead to Vomiting Anarchists (Or SF's Housing Crisis Explained)"..[5]
In 2014, Sonja Trauss began giving public comment at government meetings across the Bay Area in support of new housing projects to address the city's high housing costs. She named her nascent, unincorporated organization the San Francisco Bay Area Renters' Federation.[4]:1-13 Sonja Trauss and Brian Hanlon founded the California Renters Legal Advocacy and Education Fund (CaRLA) as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization to sue cities that unlawfully denied housing.[4]:104
Around 2015, Laura Foote (then Laura Foote Clark), Austin Hunter, and Annie Fryman started an organization called Grow SF with the intent to organize politically around housing.[3]:127 For the 2016 elections, Foote and Trauss created an independent expenditure committee called YIMBY PAC to advertise for candidates like Scott Wiener for California State Senate.[4]:130
The political activism learned from the 2016 elections was professionalized into YIMBY Action in 2017, with Laura Foote as the Executive Director.[4]:130,138
2017: Incremental Progress in California Legislative Achievements
YIMBY Action advocated for housing bills in the California legislature's 2017 session, including SB 35, a bill that would allow certain housing projects to be approved faster and with more certainty.[4]:138. With the help of that advocacy, the California legislature passed a "housing package" of bills in 2017, leading to numerous articles about the strength of the YIMBY movement.[3]:142.
In San Francisco, YIMBY Action (under the local chapter SF YIMBY) successfully advocated for HOME-SF, a "density bonus bill" that allows homebuilders to build more homes in exchange for reserving more homes for lower-income households, with the support of Mayor Ed Lee and Supervisor Katy Tang.[6]:184-185
2018: Mixed Results
After incremental success in 2017, YIMBY Action championed a much bolder bill: California State Senator Scott Wiener's California Senate Bill 827 (SB 827), which would legalize apartment buildings four to eight stories tall near rail stations and bus stops. While generating a lot of attention, the bill was killed in committee amidst opposition from local governments, environmental groups and equity groups representing low-income marginalized populations.[3]:194-195 The Executive Director of YIMBY Action apologized for an event where YIMBY Action activists shouted over a rally held by tenant organizations in San Francisco.[7]
A few housing bills such as Senate Bill 828, changing California's Regional Housing Needs Assessment process, passed.[8]
In San Francisco, the death of Mayor Ed Lee led to a special election for mayor. Housing was a policy issue during the campaign.[9] YIMBY Action supported London Breed, who was the only candidate that supported Wiener's SB 827 and who ran on a self-described pro-housing platform. During the campaign, Breed attributed high housing costs to a constrained housing supply.[10] Breed won a close election, defeating Mark Leno with 50.6% of the vote (a 2,536 vote margin) in the final runoff. As Mayor, Breed pledged to build more housing by removing unnecessary regulation.[11]
YIMBY Action attempted to bring a housing streamlining ballot measure to San Francisco voters for the June 2018 election, but it failed due to lack of funding.[3]
In the 2018 San Francisco Board of Supervisors election, YIMBY Action endorsed candidates did not win. In particular, early founder Sonja Trauss's campaign for District 6 supervisor fell short, losing to Matt Haney.[12][13]
2019-2020
YIMBY Action supported the next iteration of SB 827, California Senate Bill 50 (2019) (SB 50), which ultimately failed to advance in January 2020.[14][15]
2021-Present
In February 2021, YIMBY Action filed a lawsuit alleging that the California Department of Housing and Community Development underestimated the San Francisco Bay Area's housing needs (Regional Housing Needs Assessment), and that bay area governments should be required to plan for more housing than was allotted.[16][17]
In March 2022, YIMBY Action filed an San Francisco initiative to speed up development of affordable housing and educator housing in San Francisco. It requires 52,000 signatures to qualify for the ballot.[18][19]
The San Francisco Chronicle covered YIMBY Action's endorsement in the 2022 California's 17th State Assembly district special election, where the organization endorsed a newcomer with strong policy values over more experienced candidates.[20] Matt Haney's victory in the runoff election was described as a "coup d'etat" for the YIMBY movement in a campaign where housing was a major issue.[21]
Notes
- ↑ Pearson, Cassidy; Schuetz, Jenny (2022-03-31). "Where pro-housing groups are emerging". Brookings Institution. Retrieved 2022-05-09.
- ↑ Murphy, Katy (2017-11-12). "'Homes for human beings': Millennial-driven anti-NIMBY movement is winning with a simple message". The Mercury News. Retrieved 2022-05-19.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; no text was provided for refs named{{{1}}} - ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 Dougherty, 2020
- ↑ Cutler, Kim-Mai (2014-04-14). "How Burrowing Owls Lead To Vomiting Anarchists (Or SF's Housing Crisis Explained)". Techcrunch. Retrieved 2022-04-06.
- ↑ Shaw, 2018
- ↑ Dillon, Liam (2018-05-02). "A major California housing bill failed after opposition from the low-income residents it aimed to help. Here's how it went wrong". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2022-05-19.
- ↑ Schneider, Benjamin (2021-01-25). "Bay Area Takes Step Toward Major Housing Growth". SF Weekly. Retrieved 2022-05-09.
- ↑ Dineen, J.K. (2018-06-02). "Housing a defining issue in SF mayor's race". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 2022-05-09.
- ↑ Breed, London (2018-01-30). "An Affordable City for ALL of Us". London Breed. Retrieved 2022-05-09.
- ↑ Fracassa, Dominic (2018-07-11). "Big crowd at SF Civic Center sees London Breed sworn in as new mayor". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 2022-05-09.
- ↑ "Post-Election Thoughts: Big Spenders, YIMBY Retreat, a Breed Rebuke, & More". The Frisc. 2018-11-07. Retrieved 2022-05-10.
- ↑ Mojadad, Ida. "Trauss Trounced in YIMBY Litmus Test". SF Weekly. Retrieved 2022-05-10. Unknown parameter
|orig-date=ignored (help) - ↑ Brinklow, Adam (2019-05-16). "California's transit-housing bill SB 50 stuck in Limbo until 2020". Curbed SF. Retrieved 2022-05-19.
- ↑ Ho, Vivian (2020-01-31). "California housing bill's failure comes amid fierce debate on how to solve crisis". the Guardian. Retrieved 2022-05-19.
- ↑ Bay City News (2021-02-06). "Housing advocates challenge state's calculation of Bay Area housing needs". The San Francisco Examiner. Retrieved 2022-05-18.
- ↑ Schneider, Benjamin (2021-02-04). "YIMBYs Sue for Even More Housing Via RHNA". SF Weekly. Retrieved 2022-05-18.
- ↑ Wright, Sarah (2022-03-04). "YIMBY Takes Another Swing at Housing Reform With New Ballot Initiative". San Francisco Standard. Retrieved 2022-05-18.
- ↑ Dineen, J. K. (2022-04-04). "After being rejected by S.F. supervisors, a charter to streamline housing could go to the voters". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 2022-05-18.
- ↑ Garofoli, Joe (2022-01-30). "What the YIMBY endorsement really says about San Francisco's housing crisis". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 2022-05-23.
- ↑ Gardiner, Dustin (2022-04-20). "Matt Haney's Assembly victory is a coup for YIMBY activists seeking to align with S.F. progressives". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 2022-05-23.
Cite error: <ref> tag with name "RiseOfTheYimbys" defined in <references> is not used in prior text.
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Dougherty, Conor (2020). Golden Gates: Fighting for Housing in America. Penguin Press. ISBN 9780525560210. Search this book on 
Shaw, Randy (2018). Generation Priced Out: Who Gets to Live in the New Urban America. University of California Press. ISBN 9780520299122. Search this book on
External Links
"YIMBY Action Internal Revenue Service filings". ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer.
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