Model Places Illustration

Housing

We Believe: Housing is a human right and should be affordable to everyone.

Our Goals

• Increase the supply of housing.

• Provide more affordable housing for low- and middle-income residents.

• Protect low-income communities of color from displacement.

Monte Vista Gardens apartments in San José

SPUR Report

Housing the Region

Imagine a Bay Area where our greatest challenge, the scarcity and expense of housing, has been solved. This may sound like an impossible dream, but it isn’t. Within the next 50 years, we can live in an affordable region. But only if we make significant changes, starting right now. SPUR's series Housing the Region defines the Bay Area's housing crisis and put forth concrete steps to build a better, more affordable region.
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Regional Strategy Illustration

SPUR Report

A Civic Vision for Growth

The Bay Area is a place of incredible possibility, but it faces threats from some of the highest housing costs in the country, growing income inequality, long commutes between jobs and affordable homes, and increasing danger from climate change. If we continue with business as usual, the region can expect these challenges to continue to escalate. But what if the people of the Bay Area chose a different future?
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SPUR Report

What It Will Really Take to Create an Affordable Bay Area

The San Francisco Bay Area’s lack of housing and limited affordability have significant ramifications for the people who currently live here, the people who once lived here but have been forced to move elsewhere and the people who used to be housed but now live on the street. These housing pressures are remaking the region’s diversity, culture, economy and environment.

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Model Places Illustration

SPUR Report

Model Places

Over the next 50 years, the San Francisco Bay Area is expected to gain as many as 4 million people and 2 million jobs. In a region where a crushing housing shortage is already threatening quality of life, how can we welcome new residents and jobs without paving over green spaces or pushing out long-time community members?
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Apartment Buildings

SPUR Report

Room for More

Our housing agenda for San José lays out 20 concrete steps the city can take to address the chronic housing shortage, ranging from fixing its planning process to finding more funding for affordable housing.
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Apartment Construction

SPUR Report

8 Ways to Make San Francisco More Affordable

San Francisco is in the midst of an affordability crisis. Reversing the situation will require far-reaching changes to the city’s housing policies. But there are many things we can do at the local level to make San Francisco more affordable for the people who live here.
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Homes in San Francisco

SPUR Report

A Housing Strategy for San Francisco

San Francisco’s unique culture is threatened by the high cost of housing. Unless we do something, the city will lose its artists, its progressive politics, its immigrants and its young people. This second edition of our Housing Strategy for San Francisco updates the policy reports that define SPUR's housing agenda.
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Updates and Events

Photo of the California State Capitol in Sacramento

Six SPUR-Sponsored Bills Will Become California Law

News /
The 2024 state legislative year ended with a number of big wins for SPUR and our partners in affordable housing and transportation advocacy. Governor Newsom signed hundreds of bills into law, including six pieces of SPUR-sponsored legislation that will make housing faster and easier to build, support development of interim housing for unhoused people, and make dangerous roads safer for pedestrians and bicyclists.
Snell and 70th Avenue, Oakland

SPUR Sponsors State Bills to Promote Housing Production

News /
Among the many state housing bills SPUR is advocating for this year, we are sponsoring five in particular that would facilitate housing production through transit-oriented, mixed-income, and affordable residential development. The bills tackle issues from lack of transparency about the total costs of a project’s development impact fees to attempts by jurisdictions to thwart the so-called Builder’s Remedy.
California State Capitol

SPUR Sponsors State Housing and Transportation Legislation

News /
SPUR is co-sponsoring a number of state bills this year and lending advocacy support to many more. Our focus this legislative session is on designing safer streets and addressing California’s housing affordability and availability crisis. Here’s a look at the legislation we’re sponsoring.
Blue report cover with white text reading "Planning by Ballot: Local land use ballot measures and their impact on housing production in California"

Planning by Ballot

Research
SPUR has created the most up-to-date database of local land use ballot measures that impact housing production in California. Many of the 208 measures we identified curb urban sprawl and protect open space. But others undermine infill housing production in urbanized areas. Over the long term, measures that restrict infill housing can undermine housing affordability and have the potential to exacerbate racial segregation.
Tomiquia Moss headshot

Q&A With Incoming State Housing Secretary Tomiquia Moss

News /
This week, former SPUR board chair Tomiquia Moss began her new job as secretary of California’s Business, Consumer Services and Housing Agency (BCSH). SPUR is thrilled to support Tomiquia in her new role. We recently spoke with her about what she’s looking forward to working on as BCSH secretary.
report cover with illustration of residential buildings arranged in the shape of the State of California

Structured for Success

SPUR Report
A key cause of California’s high housing costs is its decentralized and fragmented housing governance system. Multiple state and regional agencies, offices, departments, and systems are responsible for planning and funding housing. Add hundreds of cities, each with its own authority to zone for housing, and the complexity becomes dizzying. A new SPUR report makes 11 recommendations to set California and the Bay Area on the path to produce the housing we need.
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