People

I moved to the Bay Area in 2011, looking for work. I found a job right away, but housing was another story. I was able to stay with my dad’s cousin in El Cerrito before eventually moving in with two roommates in West Oakland. By 2014, I had been working in the bay for 3 years, mostly as a high school math teacher, but I still didn’t have any savings. The combination of low pay, high rent, and high transportation costs trapped me. I even considered moving back to my parents’ house in Philadelphia, but I couldn’t afford to move. What was incredible about the situation was that everyone was unhappy - even higher income renters I met were unhappy with their housing situation. The only people who seemed to be winning in this were homeowners, and they were complaining too - about too many new neighbors. I felt that both personally, and as a region, we had nothing to lose. The current situation was miserable and untenable and it had to change. So I started organizing!

After being laid off in 2020, my husband and I were unable to afford their apartment in Redwood City, CA. That experience got me interested in housing activism. Since then, I’ve written about housing and organized underrepresented communities to speak out for housing projects and increases in affordable housing.

I used to live in a below ground-level living room that always smelled of mold, for which I had the privilege of paying a couple thousand dollars a month for. I thought this was an unalterable fact of life until the early YIMBY movement coalesced, which I was all too happy to join.

My parents were immigrants that worked hard to put a roof over our heads. Now that quintessential American Dream seems more and more out of reach for hard working folks across the country.

I first joined the workforce during the 2008 recession and spent the better part of a decade trying to find a foothold in the job market. Even after finding full time employment, I regularly worked an additional 20-30 hours a week as a Lyft driver to cover my cost of living. I eventually found stability, but I was lucky—and too many others were not.

When I moved from Atlanta to Oakland, my rent doubled at the same time as my number of roommates did. I see direct results of the failure to build enough housing in the growing number of neighbors who sleep in their cars, in the park, or in the doorways of buildings. Building more housing is not the only solution to addressing their needs, but it is an essential part of what we must do. I’m back home in Atlanta and to work to prevent Atlanta from experiencing the same crisis Oakland has.

When I moved from Pittsburgh, PA to San Francisco at 25 to pursue my dreams, my rent tripled. I spent most of my savings, and it was hard to survive until I got on my feet. Since then, housing costs have more than doubled yet again, which would’ve made it impossible for me, were I 25 now. When I see people struggling on the street, I think about how close we all are to losing our homes. It reminds me daily that something must be done and that there is no time to waste.

After moving to Los Angeles, I quickly came to love my adopted home city, but found myself shocked at the region’s struggles with homelessness, traffic, pollution, and inequality. After realizing that these issues were all related to L.A.’s severe lack of housing, I decided that I wanted to be part of the solution to these challenges.

When I was serving as a council member in Clarkston I saw firsthand how neighborhood defenders can grind progress to a halt.

When I moved to San Francisco I worked in sales. My friends in the city all worked in retail, food service, and similar industries. We worked full time, but the cost of living was too high for us. I struggled for a while to find an apartment that I could afford on my own. Eventually, I realized that the housing crisis trapped people like myself and my loved ones because—despite the fact that we were working hard and earning money, it wasn’t enough for me to find a place to live.