Thank you to all of our expert panelists, audience members, and allies for helping us host two great Affordable Housing Month events this year! Although these virtual gatherings will come to a close at the end of the month, our work is not done. If you haven't become a member of Palo Alto Forward yet, please consider joining to help us make our city (and region) a more affordable, sustainable place to call home. Did you miss our events? Below are recordings, complete with Q&A: - Click here to watch our 4th annual ADU workshop, co-hosted by the City of Palo Alto- Click here to watch our Missing Middle panelHave ideas for events you'd like to see us host this summer? Email us and share your ideas!  Palo Alto Forward's upcoming events: Seniors Only focus group on May 26th, to talk about what home means  Housing Jeopardy on May 29th, with SV@Home  

What better way to spend a sunny September Saturday morning than a walk around the block with twenty five other housing advocates?  The Forbidden Homes Tour, Palo Alto edition was a great way to explore the naturally dense, walkable neighborhood of Downtown South in Palo Alto, and to have a candid discussion about why Palo Alto has been experiencing extreme inaffordability.     Read more

Sign the petition here! Palo Alto Forward urges the community to consider the benefits of the Cubberley site for adding some much needed housing in Palo Alto.  In particular, the site offers an excellent opportunity for a number of kinds of housing: Teacher housing--all of the master plan housing scenarios put forward by the consultant propose some number of teacher workforce units.  Palo Alto Forward strongly supports this effort to provide more affordable housing options for these valued members of our community. Senior housing--the proposed Cubberley site promises to create a community village that would be an appealing location for subsidized, lower income senior housing or other below market rate uses. Market rate housing combined with BMR units. The inclusion of some smaller market rate units can fill a missing market niche while providing the leverage to get additional BMR units. We believe that housing can be added into a small portion of the site without in any way diminishing the recreational areas and opportunities. The redevelopment of the Cubberley site offers the opportunity to upgrade recreational and community uses while at the same time adding needed housing. Palo Alto Forward looks forward to participating in the future of this important project.

There has been a lot of discussion recently about the CASA compact and related legislation, such as state bill SB50.  Much of the conversation has been misleading as many options are still being considered and a final legislation has not been adopted. Palo Alto Forward strongly supports the principles of the CASA compact, which form the basis for a large amount of the state’s legislative efforts around housing.  The Committee to House the Bay Area (CASA) compact was developed over the past year and a half by committees composed of advocates for low-income residents, non-profit and market rate developers, labor, business and environmental groups and city representatives. The meetings were public and included extensive public comment. Read more

In this post, we try to answer some questions about the CASA compact.   Read more