Latest / ChangeMakers with Katie Goar / Episode 152: Laura Foote, Founder and Executive Director, YIMBY Action

Transcript

Episode 152: Laura Foote, Founder and Executive Director, YIMBY Action · ChangeMakers with Katie Goar

0:05
Speaker 1: This is change Makers with Katie Gore finding the right
0:09
Speaker 1: solutions for the affordable housing community.
0:13
Speaker 2: Today's change maker is Laura, founder and executive director of
0:18
Speaker 2: yimby Action, a national grassroots organization that is fighting to
0:22
Speaker 2: make housing more accessible, more affordable, and more abundant. Through
0:28
Speaker 2: ymby Action, Laura helps turn personal housing stories into action,
0:34
Speaker 2: pushing communities to a Yes. Laura, Welcome to change Makers.
0:39
Speaker 3: Katie, thanks so much for having me.
0:41
Speaker 2: It is an honor to have you because this is
0:44
Speaker 2: one of the acronyms that everybody talks about. Your housing
0:48
Speaker 2: activism or your grassroots efforts is really getting a lot
0:53
Speaker 2: of traction, but you've got a personal experience. Let's just
0:57
Speaker 2: kind of start there and then we'll start to tackle
1:00
Speaker 2: all the different areas.
1:02
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I think it's worth going back to
1:05
Speaker 3: the beginning when we sort of started getting active. I
1:07
Speaker 3: think my story is a pretty normal one. I moved,
1:11
Speaker 3: you know, to my third city. I had a husband
1:14
Speaker 3: at the time who had gotten a job in San Francisco,
1:17
Speaker 3: and so we moved to San Francisco and we could
1:20
Speaker 3: afford the rent because he had a high income. But
1:24
Speaker 3: I was just working entry level. I was working a
1:27
Speaker 3: sales job at YELP, and I couldn't afford the rent
1:31
Speaker 3: on my own and none of my friends. You know,
1:34
Speaker 3: I had a friend who was living with an ex
1:37
Speaker 3: who was getting erratic. I had a friend who worked
1:40
Speaker 3: at coffee shops who you know, there were six of
1:43
Speaker 3: them in a two bedroom apartment I had, you know.
1:47
Speaker 3: And these are like normal stories, and the stories that
1:50
Speaker 3: people tell themselves are ones of like personal failure. Right,
1:53
Speaker 3: there's something wrong with me that I can't get my
1:56
Speaker 3: Do we curse on this podcast? Let me start, you know?
2:00
Speaker 2: And it's funny because I think if we don't cris
2:02
Speaker 2: on it, I think we are driven to. Sometimes we'll
2:07
Speaker 2: keep at PG thirteen rated.
2:08
Speaker 3: How's that? Okay? You know, people tell you the shiit,
2:12
Speaker 3: I'll spell it right. They think that there's something, you know,
2:16
Speaker 3: Oh I can't get my stuff together, and so that's
2:20
Speaker 3: you know, oh I need a better job, and then
2:23
Speaker 3: you know, okay, sure. And also housing is out of
2:27
Speaker 3: control expensive and so we were sort of like, okay,
2:31
Speaker 3: we need more housing, and San Francisco is not building housing,
2:35
Speaker 3: and every day there are proposals to build housing. And
2:40
Speaker 3: the nimbi's right, this term not in my backyard people
2:44
Speaker 3: were coming out to oppose those housing projects and say
2:48
Speaker 3: don't build this. There was nobody, no average people just
2:51
Speaker 3: coming out and saying we have a housing shortage, please
2:54
Speaker 3: build more housing. And that pretty simple message of we
2:57
Speaker 3: have a housing shortage. It's affecting me personally, my rent
3:01
Speaker 3: is too high, Please build more housing. You know, with Novel,
3:06
Speaker 3: people were surprised that we were like stunted millennials coming
3:11
Speaker 3: out and saying please build more housing, and the movement
3:15
Speaker 3: really snowballed. We started endorsing candidates, advocating for legislation and
3:23
Speaker 3: really saying we need systemic change to get more housing built,
3:27
Speaker 3: and not just in San Francisco, not just in California.
3:30
Speaker 3: It turns out it's a national catastrophe that we are
3:33
Speaker 3: chronically underbuilding housing in America, especially in high opportunity areas
3:40
Speaker 3: where there are jobs, there's opportunity, and communities are saying
3:44
Speaker 3: no to housing production. We're here to say yes, we're
3:48
Speaker 3: the yes in my backyard. We need more housing. We
3:52
Speaker 3: need it yesterday and we need it for tomorrow. Housing
3:56
Speaker 3: is such a technical and intimidating concept, and we also
4:00
Speaker 3: break apart the pipeline to get more housing it turns
4:05
Speaker 3: into this uphill bottle both ways, so to speak. So
4:09
Speaker 3: I appreciate that you're taking the personal stories of six
4:13
Speaker 3: people living in into your bedroom and trying to say, hey,
4:17
Speaker 3: this is a group of people who would.
4:21
Speaker 2: Like to be able to have housing but can't enter it.
4:24
Speaker 2: And so it's like a different twist when you hear
4:28
Speaker 2: the personal stories of what's trying to happen and how
4:31
Speaker 2: people are trying to find housing. Basically, do you find
4:35
Speaker 2: that there is more difficulty trying to build new housing
4:42
Speaker 2: or like, where is where's the crux of the problem
4:45
Speaker 2: happening for you?
4:49
Speaker 3: Housing dies the death of a thousand cuts. So we
4:52
Speaker 3: start out with restrictive zoning that, as you know in
4:57
Speaker 3: many places a single family home only zone, but all
5:01
Speaker 3: kinds of restrictive zoning that limit what can even be proposed.
5:06
Speaker 3: Then even within what's the limited amount that can be proposed,
5:10
Speaker 3: you then have permitting problems where it'll take years to
5:14
Speaker 3: actually get to a yes. And every step of that
5:17
Speaker 3: permitting is a negotiation process where the developer is, you know,
5:22
Speaker 3: putting together a community benefit package aka a local bribe, right,
5:28
Speaker 3: they're putting together you know, so's all of those things
5:31
Speaker 3: add up and increase the cost of housing because those
5:35
Speaker 3: you know, the permitting timelines and the uh instability right,
5:40
Speaker 3: what am I actually going to be able to build
5:43
Speaker 3: is unclear? And all of that drives up the cost
5:46
Speaker 3: of housing. Then you have taxes and fees that we
5:49
Speaker 3: put onto housing. So local governments are like, oh, you know,
5:54
Speaker 3: developers don't vote, so what a great group of people
5:57
Speaker 3: to put taxes on and put impact ease transfer taxes,
6:02
Speaker 3: inclusionary zoning. All of these things add up. That also
6:05
Speaker 3: drives up the cost of new housing. So what pops
6:09
Speaker 3: out the end of that process is way less than demand,
6:15
Speaker 3: way more expensive. It's just a little pittance at the
6:19
Speaker 3: end is what pops out. When like if we had
6:21
Speaker 3: had more liberal zoning, if you could build taller, larger buildings,
6:26
Speaker 3: more units at the beginning, that would help. If you
6:29
Speaker 3: made the permitting process fast fare and you just followed
6:32
Speaker 3: the rules you get your permits, that would be a
6:35
Speaker 3: huge impact. If you reduce the fees, that would be
6:37
Speaker 3: a huge impact. All of those little threads are we
6:41
Speaker 3: need to pull all of them because we are We're
6:44
Speaker 3: millions of units behind. I mean, the demand is just
6:47
Speaker 3: way outstripping the supply of housing in America.
6:52
Speaker 2: And when a community says no to housing, there's such
6:55
Speaker 2: a ripple effect not just through the people, but the
6:59
Speaker 2: labor and through the market and even homelessness. So like
7:04
Speaker 2: it's not just this one person in the one unit,
7:08
Speaker 2: just sense of ripple through the whole community. And the
7:10
Speaker 2: people that are infected are often invisible in some regards too,
7:16
Speaker 2: because you're adding longer commutes, You're having nursing shortages, You're
7:21
Speaker 2: having teachers that change jobs midstream because they want to
7:25
Speaker 2: work closer to their home because they can't afford to
7:28
Speaker 2: live in the community where they're teaching. I mean, like
7:30
Speaker 2: there's just just sends this talkway through the whole community.
7:35
Speaker 2: How do you how do you get in front of that?
7:38
Speaker 2: Is it possible? Or as a community, what is it
7:43
Speaker 2: that they can do to get in front of this?
7:46
Speaker 3: Do you think? I mean more so, there are people
7:50
Speaker 3: who already are putting the dots together, right. The YIP
7:54
Speaker 3: movement is made up of people who already have put
7:57
Speaker 3: the dots together that the housing shortage is driving, the
8:00
Speaker 3: teacher shortage is driving mega commuting is causing all these problems,
8:05
Speaker 3: and all that they need to do is get active
8:08
Speaker 3: in their community and demonstrate for local officials. Right, the
8:12
Speaker 3: local elected official who might have an individual housing project
8:15
Speaker 3: in front of them is like doing this political math.
8:18
Speaker 3: They're like, well, there's eighty people here opposing it, and
8:22
Speaker 3: nobody's here supporting it. So I'm gonna say no, right,
8:26
Speaker 3: And so we can just change that political math by
8:29
Speaker 3: having a handful of people saying, actually, this would benefit
8:32
Speaker 3: our community. That then shifts the dynamics also the narrative
8:37
Speaker 3: wise of like connecting the dots that they're everybody. You know,
8:41
Speaker 3: I talked to nimbi's every once in a while who
8:44
Speaker 3: never want to be called a nimbi. Right, That's the
8:45
Speaker 3: first thing they'll tell me is that they're not a nimbi.
8:47
Speaker 3: They just have concerns. And I'm like, okay, let me
8:50
Speaker 3: hear your concerns. And their concerns are you know, esthetic,
8:53
Speaker 3: or they're worried about parking in the neighborhood and they
8:56
Speaker 3: have a particular concern about a particular housing produm. And actually,
9:01
Speaker 3: you can really open somebody's mind when you're like, you know,
9:05
Speaker 3: I hear that you're concerned about parking on that block,
9:10
Speaker 3: but I'm really worried about the fact that nobody my
9:14
Speaker 3: age can afford to live here, and you're and you know,
9:18
Speaker 3: and your your kids have had to move away, right,
9:22
Speaker 3: and you're missing your grandchild's first steps because your kids
9:28
Speaker 3: can't afford to live here. And that does you know,
9:32
Speaker 3: people have not necessarily connected those two dots together before,
9:37
Speaker 3: and they're like, you know, your small businesses in town
9:41
Speaker 3: are struggling to hold on to staff because nobody can
9:45
Speaker 3: afford to live near the jobs and opportunity here. And
9:48
Speaker 3: so is some teenager going to commute, you know, an
9:53
Speaker 3: hour out of town to work at the ice cream parlor.
9:56
Speaker 2: No?
9:57
Speaker 3: Right, that's like, that's your entire local economy is unraveling
10:04
Speaker 3: because of this. And I do think that people as
10:07
Speaker 3: that narrative gets out as sort of as people write,
10:10
Speaker 3: you know, they write in the national newspaper, but then
10:13
Speaker 3: they also need to write it in the local paper.
10:15
Speaker 3: Here's how it's affecting our community, and really help people
10:18
Speaker 3: connect those dots to be able to see that when
10:22
Speaker 3: you block housing, you're cutting off your own future. You know,
10:28
Speaker 3: like so many cities and towns in America are struggling
10:31
Speaker 3: right now because of the affordability crisis that's driven by
10:37
Speaker 3: this tendency to say no, that is really something that
10:41
Speaker 3: you could just wake up tomorrow and actually say, actually,
10:44
Speaker 3: we are going to be the community that says we're
10:47
Speaker 3: going to allow more housing.
10:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, when you think of transitioning from a not in
10:52
Speaker 2: my backyard to a yes in my backyard, there's glimmers
10:57
Speaker 2: of hope in certain communities. But are there patterns that
11:02
Speaker 2: you're noticing about those types of communities? Is there something
11:07
Speaker 2: in the secret sauce? Is there a pattern that you
11:11
Speaker 2: see or is it truly just still case by case.
11:15
Speaker 3: I mean, I think the pattern is that there are
11:18
Speaker 3: people who want to pretend that this is like a
11:21
Speaker 3: technical issue that there is like you know, there's some
11:26
Speaker 3: policy that we can sort of micro make a policy
11:29
Speaker 3: that makes everybody happy, and like, unfortunately, this is a
11:33
Speaker 3: political issue, and so the question is like what are
11:37
Speaker 3: our values and do our policies reflect our values and
11:41
Speaker 3: get us the outcomes that we want? Do your local
11:45
Speaker 3: and state elected officials see that they you know, politics
11:51
Speaker 3: is one in which elected officials, for better or worse,
11:55
Speaker 3: try to do what they think their voters want them
11:58
Speaker 3: to do. Voters are demonstrating that they will get punished
12:04
Speaker 3: for approving a housing project, then okay, they won't do it.
12:08
Speaker 3: And so I think it's really incumbent on the voters
12:11
Speaker 3: to get more active and to demonstrate, you know, when
12:15
Speaker 3: you know your state elected official, right, go and talk.
12:19
Speaker 3: They're very accessible, right.
12:21
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, I mean. And what's interesting though, is that
12:25
Speaker 2: when officials come to the ribbon cuttings all these properties,
12:30
Speaker 2: especially if they're new construction and renovation, that they realize, oh,
12:37
Speaker 2: that's what this is. Oh that's what housing looks like.
12:40
Speaker 2: Oh that's what housing does. So there's several organizations. Yes,
12:45
Speaker 2: once you identify who they are and you actually invite
12:47
Speaker 2: them to some of these ribbon cuttings, you do see
12:52
Speaker 2: a change in mentality there.
12:54
Speaker 3: I mean, I think this is where like making this
12:57
Speaker 3: issue political and bringing other people in so so like
13:00
Speaker 3: the AARP has realized that older people are deeply affected
13:07
Speaker 3: by the housing shortage, and they have become housing advocates
13:11
Speaker 3: and that is like so incredible, right they realize that
13:15
Speaker 3: when grandma wants to move into an apartment so that
13:19
Speaker 3: she can be self sustaining, and when nursing staff want
13:24
Speaker 3: to be able to live in a community, right, that
13:26
Speaker 3: this is really hurting older people just as much as
13:30
Speaker 3: it is younger people, and so they've come out strong
13:33
Speaker 3: for housing. Sometimes some large employers are starting to say,
13:38
Speaker 3: we have a housing shortage. We have to do something
13:40
Speaker 3: about it. I think if more employers joined that chorus,
13:44
Speaker 3: that could make a huge difference. You know, it really
13:48
Speaker 3: affects their bottom line. They're unable to hold on to
13:50
Speaker 3: and retain staff, that's something major for them. All of
13:54
Speaker 3: these people coming together into that chorus of a coalition
13:58
Speaker 3: is making a difference. Across the country, we're seeing i think,
14:03
Speaker 3: good incremental change. So, you know, Virginia is the latest
14:06
Speaker 3: state to adopt a Yes in God's Backyard bill that
14:10
Speaker 3: allows churches and religious organizations to build housing and largely
14:16
Speaker 3: subsidized hornable housing. That's a great, you know, first step.
14:20
Speaker 3: A lot of states are adopting legalizing backyard cottages and
14:24
Speaker 3: casitas and ADUs. That's another great little step. You know.
14:30
Speaker 3: In order to really address the chronic housing shortage, we're
14:33
Speaker 3: gonna have to take bigger steps. But the initial steps
14:36
Speaker 3: demonstrate that there's an appetite and an interest in addressing
14:41
Speaker 3: the housing shortage. And I think the pattern that I'm
14:44
Speaker 3: seeing is that you really start to see the bigger,
14:47
Speaker 3: these winds snowball.
14:49
Speaker 2: Right.
14:49
Speaker 3: Once you demonstrate that, you know, an elected official is
14:53
Speaker 3: going to be rewarded for prioritizing housing production, then people
14:57
Speaker 3: get bolder and bolder and bolder, And so I think
15:00
Speaker 3: the initial steps. Then we talk about missing middle. Then
15:04
Speaker 3: we talk about you know, more technical. I don't know
15:07
Speaker 3: how nerdy your audience gets, but you know, stinate density
15:10
Speaker 3: bonuses and you know laws that you know allow for
15:16
Speaker 3: more housing near transit, those kinds of you know, to
15:21
Speaker 3: build the political will and demonstrate that people want you
15:24
Speaker 3: to solve the housing shortage.
15:27
Speaker 2: The example you mentioned in Virginia with the Yes in
15:31
Speaker 2: God's Backyard, you're you know, you are seeing hospitals, nonprofits, churches,
15:38
Speaker 2: what I would say are have been non traditional players
15:43
Speaker 2: coming into the affordable housing space through necessity, through desperation.
15:48
Speaker 2: And you know, it's great because you are bringing people
15:51
Speaker 2: more into that ecosystem. But you know, you think that
15:55
Speaker 2: there are a group of people who maybe are waiting
15:57
Speaker 2: on the sidelines, who also need to get into that ecosystem.
16:02
Speaker 2: What would you say to them or where would you
16:06
Speaker 2: point them if they were still sitting on the bench,
16:09
Speaker 2: so to speak.
16:11
Speaker 3: And this is you anybody who wants America to have
16:15
Speaker 3: a thriving middle class to be involved in this fight.
16:20
Speaker 3: I mean, it is. It is so cross economic, cross generational.
16:26
Speaker 3: The housing shortage is hurting literally everyone, even the people
16:30
Speaker 3: who think that they're benefiting. Right, you might be a
16:33
Speaker 3: homeowner in a community and you think that you know,
16:37
Speaker 3: oh well, my home value is going up, so I'm
16:40
Speaker 3: benefiting from this artificial scarcity. They're also being hurt, right,
16:44
Speaker 3: Your kids are being hurt, the fact that businesses in
16:48
Speaker 3: your town are falling apart. You're also being hurt in
16:51
Speaker 3: other ways that maybe you're not translating back to the
16:54
Speaker 3: housing shortage. And I think that's kind of like the
16:58
Speaker 3: universality of this and that it's it's there are many
17:02
Speaker 3: problems that are really complicated. This is like very pure policy,
17:07
Speaker 3: like we could just make different choices, right, It's not like,
17:12
Speaker 3: you know, I feel like COVID and things, there's like
17:14
Speaker 3: some external factor that, like, you know, something might happen
17:19
Speaker 3: to us. And we know the housing shortage is self imposed.
17:22
Speaker 3: We shut down housing production over the past fifty years
17:26
Speaker 3: in America, and we could just change our policies. And
17:30
Speaker 3: I think there's something very uplifting about that while frustrating,
17:35
Speaker 3: uh that like this is there are many problems that
17:38
Speaker 3: are that we have, you know, ideological differences about. In fact,
17:44
Speaker 3: this is one where you know, whether you're a far
17:48
Speaker 3: leftist who thinks that we you know, prioritizes equity and
17:51
Speaker 3: social justice, you should be pro housing because you know,
17:55
Speaker 3: when we have a housing shortage, a dispropress disproport affects
17:58
Speaker 3: low income and minority people. Whether you're on the far
18:02
Speaker 3: right and you believe in private property rights and you're like,
18:05
Speaker 3: somebody who owns a piece of land should be able
18:08
Speaker 3: to build what they want to build, right, come, come
18:10
Speaker 3: into this tent. Right, we have a big tent. And
18:13
Speaker 3: in fact, you know, it's a really wide ideological spectrum
18:17
Speaker 3: that can come to a pro housing perspective.
18:21
Speaker 2: I would say that at least the good thing is
18:23
Speaker 2: is that everybody is talking about it right now on
18:26
Speaker 2: both sides of the aisle, and so there's a lot
18:28
Speaker 2: of room for deal making when it comes to you know,
18:33
Speaker 2: there used to be a time when many of us
18:35
Speaker 2: who have been in this industry for decades upon decades,
18:38
Speaker 2: is you know, we were like with the megaphone and
18:40
Speaker 2: talking and nobody was listening to us for decades, So
18:44
Speaker 2: it least the tide has changed where people or both
18:50
Speaker 2: are talking about it, and you know, there is a
18:53
Speaker 2: lot of deal making to be had. There's people who
18:56
Speaker 2: are talking about policy. But you know, you're right, this
18:59
Speaker 2: is an issue that impacts everybody's constituents, the underemployed, the
19:06
Speaker 2: middle class, seniors, like it impacts everybody. And you know,
19:13
Speaker 2: we're all getting smarter in the housing space as it
19:15
Speaker 2: relates to density and zoning and all those nuances. But
19:20
Speaker 2: we are getting smarter about that, but we still haven't
19:24
Speaker 2: turned on that production pipeline quite yet.
19:27
Speaker 3: So to this kind of like bipartisan you know, we
19:31
Speaker 3: just as of Friday, passed in the US Congress hugely
19:36
Speaker 3: bipartisan pro housing bill, the Road to Housing Act, overwhelming
19:42
Speaker 3: bipartisan majorities in both houses. And the bill has a
19:46
Speaker 3: lot of complexity to it, and it's sort of a
19:49
Speaker 3: good like nudging bill. It's going to be nudging a
19:52
Speaker 3: lot of communities to build a little bit more housing.
19:54
Speaker 3: But what's really significant about it for me is that
19:58
Speaker 3: it passed overwhelmingly. Everybody's acknowledging that we have a housing
20:02
Speaker 3: shortage and that you know, the federal government. That's like,
20:05
Speaker 3: there's mass when's the last time we had a broadly
20:09
Speaker 3: popular bipartisan bill pass Congress. Like, I don't know, there's
20:14
Speaker 3: got to be some statistics on this, but it really
20:17
Speaker 3: makes me excited for you know, next year, I think
20:19
Speaker 3: we're going to see bolder legislation, more bipartisan work. All
20:24
Speaker 3: of the pro housing bills that have been proposed in
20:26
Speaker 3: Congress have had a Republican and a Democrat as co
20:30
Speaker 3: authors on them, and so I think that, you know,
20:33
Speaker 3: to the to the degree that there's hope for bipartisanship
20:36
Speaker 3: in America, it really is in this pro housing category
20:40
Speaker 3: where there's just a lot of opportunity, right.
20:43
Speaker 2: And it's interesting because there's this piece of you know, hey,
20:47
Speaker 2: we passed something. You know, now let's all not take
20:50
Speaker 2: a sigh and sit down like a collective side. It's like, no,
20:54
Speaker 2: that's the baseline to build on. And so we affordable
21:01
Speaker 2: I mean, I mean we're in the compliance space. We're
21:03
Speaker 2: not in the policy space, but every single policy IMPACTSS
21:07
Speaker 2: So we are in this portion of time where we
21:11
Speaker 2: have to say, let's create that the baseline and now
21:14
Speaker 2: let's keep refining it. If it didn't get right, you are,
21:17
Speaker 2: Let's keep adding to it and building to it, no
21:20
Speaker 2: pun intended, I suppose. So you have eighty seven chapters,
21:25
Speaker 2: tell us what are your goals there? How do you
21:28
Speaker 2: want to expand like, how are you organized? When it
21:31
Speaker 2: comes to that, because I know part of how you're
21:33
Speaker 2: organize is also.
21:34
Speaker 3: Part of your success. Yeah, So we have eighty seven chapters.
21:39
Speaker 3: Each one of those chapters has at least three local
21:43
Speaker 3: volunteer leads who are managing that chapter. Are you know,
21:48
Speaker 3: having local meetings, getting the members active in that community,
21:53
Speaker 3: supporting legislation, legislative changes in their community, supporting individual housing
21:59
Speaker 3: projects as the propose, and then endorsing pro housing candidates.
22:03
Speaker 3: And so that network of activists is really pushing the
22:08
Speaker 3: ball forward. You know, we're seeing legislative success in Colorado
22:13
Speaker 3: and Illinois, Virginia, California. Of course, California had two hundred
22:18
Speaker 3: plus bills this past year. Not all of them were good,
22:21
Speaker 3: but that kind of moving the ball forward by demonstrating
22:26
Speaker 3: that there's in district support and supporting individual housing projects.
22:32
Speaker 3: We also have a legal enforcement arm you and be
22:35
Speaker 3: law that when cities don't comply with these new state laws,
22:40
Speaker 3: we go so far as to sue cities and say, actually,
22:44
Speaker 3: you have to follow these new state laws that are
22:47
Speaker 3: demanding that we build housing. We do a lot of
22:51
Speaker 3: implementation work, so you know, you'll pass a state law
22:55
Speaker 3: that requires cities to update their zoning. Then you have
22:58
Speaker 3: to go into each community and say, hey, guys, knock knop,
23:01
Speaker 3: did you actually update your zoning? Are you actually increasing
23:05
Speaker 3: housing production here? You know, that's a the activists in
23:10
Speaker 3: the community demonstrating that there's people who actually think this
23:14
Speaker 3: is important. That is the lion's share of the work, right.
23:17
Speaker 3: So ymb Action, our staff, we're providing that backbone network expertise, uh,
23:23
Speaker 3: you know, legislative support and technical experts, and you know,
23:28
Speaker 3: we have a if you're into uh chatting with fellow
23:32
Speaker 3: activists online, we have six thousand people in a ymb
23:35
Speaker 3: Action lack that are all chattering away about housing policies.
23:39
Speaker 3: So if you become a member, you can join the
23:41
Speaker 3: slack and find your local state where people are following
23:45
Speaker 3: state legislation and you know, humping each other up for
23:49
Speaker 3: the next lobby day what have you.
23:52
Speaker 2: Well, you know, it's such a kind of I would
23:56
Speaker 2: say diversion from our normal pod cast guests because you know,
24:01
Speaker 2: we're proposing different types of innovation or housing. But I
24:07
Speaker 2: think having you on here has helped us really talk
24:10
Speaker 2: about what is what is needed? You know, what are
24:14
Speaker 2: the obstacles? And you know, I think about this though,
24:18
Speaker 2: like what are the metrics, like if you're going to
24:20
Speaker 2: future cast in ten years or five years, what are
24:24
Speaker 2: the metrics by which you can look back and say
24:27
Speaker 2: our movement getting people to say yes in my backyard
24:32
Speaker 2: made it difference and it changed fill in the blank, like, well,
24:36
Speaker 2: how would what would you say for your future vision
24:40
Speaker 2: casting to be able to show a metric that you're like,
24:43
Speaker 2: you knew you guys made a difference.
24:45
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know. So we track you know, there's a
24:48
Speaker 3: lot of input things that we track, right, number of activists,
24:51
Speaker 3: you know, number of chapters, number of bills passed, Right,
24:54
Speaker 3: I would even consider that an input. Right. The bills
24:57
Speaker 3: are nice, but they're not actually units of how the
25:03
Speaker 3: staff that we follow. That makes sense internally, but I
25:07
Speaker 3: feel like it's so hard for people externally. Is units unblocked? Right,
25:13
Speaker 3: So these are projects that we did some kind of activism,
25:18
Speaker 3: We touched it in some way. Maybe somebody came out
25:21
Speaker 3: and gave a public comment, maybe we sent a letter
25:23
Speaker 3: of support, maybe we sent a letter threatening a lawsuit. Right,
25:28
Speaker 3: those are units that we're getting pushed back, and we
25:31
Speaker 3: consider them and they are going. They are now have
25:34
Speaker 3: their their entitlements secured. So last year we had sixty
25:39
Speaker 3: six thousand units that we consider unblocked that we helped
25:44
Speaker 3: push towards entitlement secure. So that's I think the number
25:49
Speaker 3: that I keep an eye on that feels like our
25:53
Speaker 3: north Star. Now what's hard about that number is once
25:57
Speaker 3: we actually solve the problem, we're not going to be
26:00
Speaker 3: unblocking anything because they will just be unblocked. So eventually
26:05
Speaker 3: we'll have to shift to you know, America's housing production
26:09
Speaker 3: as our north Star. But for now, I'm keeping this
26:12
Speaker 3: number of units unblocked as something we're really focused on,
26:16
Speaker 3: and hopefully in five years I can switch to just
26:19
Speaker 3: total housing production.
26:21
Speaker 2: I like how you said that with the north Star,
26:24
Speaker 2: and I'm assuming that's both new construction and preservation or
26:28
Speaker 2: is that just your construction?
26:31
Speaker 3: So okay, you know, we try to be really militantly
26:35
Speaker 3: focused on production. You know, there are a lot of
26:38
Speaker 3: great organizations that are doing preservation work, and there's not
26:42
Speaker 3: enough who are focused on the under supply of housing
26:45
Speaker 3: in America, and so ymb tries to be you know,
26:48
Speaker 3: we support preservation, but we are really focused on production.
26:53
Speaker 2: Well, Laura, we have covered a lot. Is there anything
26:56
Speaker 2: that we've missed as we're closing out that you want
26:58
Speaker 2: to add on here?
27:00
Speaker 3: I mean, it sounds like your audience is the kind
27:02
Speaker 3: of people who would love to like nerd out on
27:03
Speaker 3: fluorery ratios or whatever. So they like to.
27:08
Speaker 2: Nerd out on anything housing.
27:10
Speaker 3: So and like you know, finance and whatnot, and we
27:14
Speaker 3: do have you know, we're trying to take that energy
27:17
Speaker 3: and make it politically relevant. And so I think that
27:20
Speaker 3: like people who who love to nerd out on housing policy,
27:24
Speaker 3: you have a home in the YMBI movement. We're just
27:26
Speaker 3: going to make you give public comment also about how
27:30
Speaker 3: housing personally affects you. So you know, these are that
27:33
Speaker 3: balance of when to pull out the chart and when
27:37
Speaker 3: to say, actually, we need to tell more personal stories
27:39
Speaker 3: and make sure people know that housing is political and
27:43
Speaker 3: personal and that if we don't solve America's housing shortage,
27:48
Speaker 3: you know, we're all kind of doomed. It's it's necessary,
27:52
Speaker 3: and you know the next generation is counting on us
27:55
Speaker 3: to solve this issue.
27:57
Speaker 2: Well, a good housing policy that it's an affordable market
28:01
Speaker 2: is a great economic policy. So like we have the links.
28:04
Speaker 4: Here, the data, it's there, the needs there, so we
28:08
Speaker 4: appreciate what you're doing on the policy side and the
28:11
Speaker 4: education and awareness side something that never goes away, does it.
28:16
Speaker 2: So we're glad to have organizations like you.
28:18
Speaker 3: Thanks for having me, Katie, This is great.
28:21
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to change makers with Katie Gore. To
28:25
Speaker 1: find out more about Katie, go to quad L dot com.
28:28
Speaker 1: That's qu a d e l dot com. This has
28:33
Speaker 1: been a production of Forbes Books Radio