After a thorough questionnaire, an informative debate, and a vote of the membership, YIMBY Action and our chapters are proud to endorse Matt Haney for Assembly District 17 in the Special General Election on April 19!

Matt Haney is the pro-housing candidate this election. Throughout the campaign and in the YIMBY debates, and in the questionnaire, Haney has embraced YIMBY’s vision of housing abundance. Matt Haney supports YIMBY’s core values to reform zoning, streamline processes, increase funding, and stabilize existing residents. Matt Haney champions an all-of-the-above approach to building more housing, including market-rate housing, subsidized affordable housing, and social housing. Matt Haney’s close relationships with legislators and powerful players, like Assembly Housing Chair Buffy Wicks and the building trades, will help him be an effective legislator at the state level. Matt Haney is the pro-housing voice that we need in the California legislature to continue our important work to make the city and state more affordable.

We recognize that Matt Haney opposed YIMBY initiatives in the past: in 2019, Supervisor Haney opposed SB 50, a key state zoning bill to legalize midrise apartments near transit and jobs. In 2019, Matt Haney voted down Mayor London Breed’s proposed charter amendment to streamline affordable housing and teacher housing. But Matt says his perspective on housing has changed and he is committed to being a champion for housing in Sacramento.

Matt Haney’s housing policy evolution and embrace of a pro-housing message is a glowing testament to the YIMBY movement’s organizing power and how the discourse around housing has changed dramatically. Matt Haney supported SB 9, ending single-family zoning and legalizing duplexes on all lots statewide, and supports further strengthening state minimum zoning standards. Haney supports more housing process streamlining: he supported streamlining for local business permitting under Prop H November 2020, and he authored a local bill to streamline CEQA environmental appeals for city transportation projects. And Haney recognizes that we have too much local control when it comes to housing. Haney recognizes that market-rate housing helps reduce rents.

Unfortunately, Haney’s opponent, David Campos, does not wish to advance YIMBY values & policy. Campos does not support statewide zoning bills; does not champion CEQA reform; does not want the state to overrule local control; does not believe the state must promote market-rate housing (in fact, he believes that San Francisco has over-produced market-rate housing); and disbelieves scholarship from economists that market-rate housing puts downward pressure on rents. We appreciate Campos’s engagement with our membership during the campaign, and his support of Supervisor Rafael Mandelman’s local fourplex legislation. However, David Campos in the California State Assembly would be a setback to California’s pro-housing movement.

Voters have a clear choice in this election: should the new Assemblymember continue the leadership of their predecessor, David Chiu, to advance policies that promote housing abundance and opportunity for all? Or should they reverse Chiu’s wins and accelerate the exodus of the working class and middle class from California? We must progress and fight for housing affordability. YIMBY Action endorses Matt Haney for Assemblymember.

Endorsed by San Francisco YIMBY, Streets for People, Urban Environmentalists, Northern Neighbors, Grow the Richmond, Southside Forward, Progress Noe Valley, and YIMBY Action.