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Housing continues to be scarce in the Bay Area and unobtainable for even many middle-income residents. ���ϴ�����is advocating for and sponsoring legislation that incentivizes and removes barriers to housing production. In addition, we are supporting a nearly $8 billion budget request for investments in affordable housing and funding for homelessness solutions.

J. Peter Winkelstein, longtime ���ϴ�����board member, talented architect, mentor, and friend to many, died on March 29 at age 94. His work for ���ϴ�����continued past his board tenure, as the chair of the new ���ϴ�����Urban Center Building Committee. He exemplified a well-lived life of public contribution, and we will all miss him.

The Bay Area’s climate change adaptation strategies don’t reflect — and might even worsen — the impacts of coastal groundwater rise, which is expected to accelerate with sea level rise as the climate warms. New findings on groundwater rise point to multiple potential risks: degradation of underground infrastructure, movement of underground contaminants left by industrial activities, and an increase in liquefaction during earthquakes. The region’s coastal areas may need a new adaptation paradigm.

The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) is intended to protect people and places from the environmental impacts of new development and infrastructure. But it has not been designed to protect against a rapidly warming climate, and ironically, it has sometimes been used to block projects aimed at doing so. ���ϴ�����Transportation Policy Director Laura Tolkoff recently testified before a state committee on possible reforms to the law.

The convergence of high food prices and the end of CalFresh emergency allotments is hitting low-income Californians hard. ���ϴ�����is co-sponsoring two bills to keep struggling households from slipping through the food safety net. Both would make proven pilots into permanent benefits that reduce hunger and improve public health.

California has taken a big step forward in scaling up healthy food incentive programs: CalFresh participants can now get bonus dollars from their healthy food purchases electronically credited to their benefits card. That technological leap happened because of legislation ���ϴ�����co-sponsored. Now ���ϴ�����is working to overcome the remaining challenge to enlarging healthy food incentive programs: insufficient funding.

San Francisco’s office vacancy rate, one of the highest in the country, has dampened the city’s liveliness and economic prospects. Other cities are tackling the resilience challenges that office-centric downtowns face by reconsidering office building uses and creating incentives for redevelopment. San Francisco can take a page from their revitalization plans.

San José’s parks and open spaces are underfunded and falling into disuse. Realizing their potentially large economic and social dividends will take significant and sustainable funding mechanisms. Now more than ever, the city must study, assess, and develop long-term funding strategies with clear communication, intentionality, and creativity.

Recipients of CalFresh food assistance are about to take a big hit: emergency allotments authorized during the COVID-19 pandemic are set to expire just as food costs are at historic highs. ���ϴ�����is working to make temporary food access programs permanent and has just launched a statewide project institutionalizing supplemental benefits by making them directly reimbursable to recipients’ EBT cards.