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

Structured for Success

A key cause of California’s high housing costs is its decentralized and fragmented housing governance system. SPUR makes 11 recommendations to set California and the Bay Area on the path to produce the housing we need.
Read More
photo of balconies on an apartment building

Research

Losing Ground

SPUR examines how the Bay Area’s housing market has become shaped by scarcity and wide economic divides — not only among income groups but also among races and ethnicities.
Read More
Apartment Building

Research

Housing the Middle

SPUR digs into the housing market’s failure to meet the needs of middle-income households. California can look to innovative programs across the country as models for how to address the state’s housing challenges.
Read More
Apartment Construction

Research

Planning by Ballot

SPUR has created the most up-to-date database of local land use ballot measures that impact housing production in California. Over the long term, measures that restrict infill housing can undermine housing affordability and have the potential to exacerbate racial segregation.
Read More

Updates and Events

Many buildings in Copenhagen’s historic city center were renovated and redeveloped after Denmark’s near bankruptcy in the 1980s.

Housing for Everyone, the Danish Way

News /
Over the last 100 years, Denmark has taken structural and local policy implementation approaches to housing that have much to teach the Bay Area. We got to meet leaders in government, architecture, housing and sustainability who shared their insights and fielded our group’s many questions about how the city renewed its urban core without demolition and how it builds two types of housing that we don’t have: social housing and housing co-ops.

SPUR Comments on the San José Housing Element 2022

Advocacy Letter
In July 2022, the City of San José released its Draft Housing Element for public review, outlining key goals and strategies to achieve the city's housing goals over the next eight years. SPUR is committed to working in partnership with the city to develop a housing element that complies with state law and includes strong implementation strategies.
222 taylor street apartment complex

What’s the Real Difference Between San Francisco’s Two Affordable Housing Ballot Measures?

News /
This November, San Francisco voters will be asked to choose between two competing charter amendments to streamline the creation of new affordable and workforce housing, one co-sponsored by SPUR. On the face of it, Prop. D and Prop. E appear very similar. But the policy details included in these measures make a significant difference in the impact each would have on affordable housing production in San Francisco.

SPUR Comments on the San Francisco Housing Element 2022

Advocacy Letter
SPUR urges the City to develop stronger implementation mechanisms to develop specific policies and implementation strategies for equity priority geographies and cultural districts on a faster timeline, create more incentives for housing in well-resourced areas, and commit to reforming the approvals process.
The ABCs of JPAs

The ABCs of JPAs

Policy Brief
With housing prices out of reach for many, California is facing the need to find new ways to create housing affordable to middle-income households. A promising new model — joint powers authority (JPA) owned middle-income housing — uses tax incentives to close the gap between development costs and affordable rents. This brief by SPUR and the Terner Center for Housing Innovation explains how the JPA model works, how it’s being used and how to ensure that it delivers meaningful public benefits.
Get Our Newsletters