We were blown away by the YES ON HOUSING turn out of the Sonoma Valley Collaborative Council and community members who responded to our call to speak up as the Sonoma County Planning Commission considered the revised version of Sonoma County Draft Housing Element Update.

SVC’s core message on July 20, targeted for the specific decisions on the day’s agenda, was “We need Sonoma County to Affirmatively Further Fair Housing by zoning for denser and more affordable homes in more 'high-resource' areas."

Here are a few statements made by our members, staff, and supporters.

John Hennelly, CEO of Sonoma Valley Hospital and SVC Council member stated:

“I wanted to attend today just to provide my support. [Sonoma Valley] Collaborative has been working very hard to help the County and help the Valley get focused on this need. As a major employer in the Valley, I want to share my voice, lend my voice to the effort. Not a month goes by that I don't have an employee in my office expressing their concern, and we lose probably one a month to a lack of housing, as as their leases expire or rental renewals are increased, the ability for them to stay in in the Valley, to serve our community, becomes impossible. I just want to share that and my support to this initiative. Thank you."
 

Leonardo Lobato, Executive Director of La Luz Center and SVC Council member, gave the statement that included:

“Two-thirds of our clients earned less than $26,000 a year. The number one service that we provide to our clients, to these individuals, is support with housing and shelter. The need in Sonoma Valley is very high. Rents are high and increasing, the cost of homes is prohibitive, and it has its human toll in our community. Many of the people that we serve work 2 or even 3 jobs a day and have little time for anything else, other than being with their families at night. I am here to raise their voices to you. We need Sonoma County to plan for accessible, affordable homes in all types of neighborhoods. And let me emphasize again with the force of the 2,000 people that we serve: We need Sonoma County to plan for accessible, affordable homes in all types of neighborhoods."
 

Kim Jones, Coordinator of SVC read statements by Teen Services members, including one by Jay, a senior at Sonoma Valley High School:

“I live in a one bedroom apartment that can’t hold a family of five. Our rent has gone up, and it is far from school. I am always late. Housing can bring more families, make a diverse and connected community, provide privacy, and can be comfortable, letting you sleep well. It is crowded everywhere, with big families trying to live in small spaces. It’s a broader problem, because it can also cause the population to decrease, with less students, teachers and families. Make housing affordable for families with low income!”

Angela Ryan, Executive Director of Sonoma Valley Community Foundation and SVC Council member, said: 

"It is not only high resourced people who deserve to have housing. Housing is a human right, and we are seeing the effect on our schools in Sonoma Valley of the high cost of living, in the unavailability of affordable housing. You heard about the overcrowding. But we're also seeing that happening in declining enrollment. We've already had to see one school close in our small community of Sonoma Valley, and there are two more that are potentially being discussed to be close, and that is because families simply cannot afford to live here, and I don't want to have to contemplate the future of a Sonoma Valley without children in it, because this is the canary in the coal mine in terms of what happens when you can't provide housing for your communities. This is a housing crisis. We have to be using every possible location for building more housing that we possibly can."

Ann Colichidas read statements of Latina parents in the LEADS program, translated by Nidia Figueroa, including one by Carmen Sanchez:

My friend Monica has 3 children. Her husband had an accident and is home. She is the only one at home who works and can no longer afford rent and expenses In Sonoma. Because of this, they are leaving the state so they can afford to live. As a parent, having the assurance that my children have a place to sleep and live calmly is important. If the cost of rent is increasing and salaries are decreasing, many people (families) will be without a home. We need to lower the cost of rent and lessen the requirements. We need to have more regulated housing."  (Original text) “Mi amiga es Monica, ella tiene 3 hijos, su esposo tuvo un accidente y esta en casa. Ella es la unica en casa que trabaja y no puede más con la renta y los gastos. Ellos se cambiaran de Estado para poder ayudarse. Como padre de familia tener la segurid de que mis hijos tengan donde dormir y vivir tranquilamente es importante.Es un problema porque costo de la renta es mas alto y el saldo laboral es reducido habra mucha gente (familias) sin hogar. Necisitamos Disminuir el costo de las rentas al igual que los requisitos. Tener una vivienda mas arreglada” 

Fred Allebach, Sonoma Valley Housing Group member and SVC Council member's statement included that:

"...Sonoma County needs to affirmatively further fair housing by putting accessible, affordable high density, housing in high resource neighborhoods for integration, equity, and balanced community growth. It's not right and it's incompatible with AFFH law to create a regulatory wall to maintain a pattern of low density residential segregation."

Elisa Stancil, community member and Glen Ellen resident, said:

"I definitely support Sonoma Valley Collaborative, and as a Glen Ellen resident, I really wanted to be clear that co-housing and improved public transportation are key to some of this density that you are envisioning. And certainly we in Glen Ellen, those of whom I know, are all for co-housing shared opportunities for people, seniors and students, and we would like to see this happen at Sonoma Development Center, which, of course, is just in a bit of a situation. Certainly the vision for making people comfortable and having a positive opportunity to live a whole life will benefit all of us...we in Glen Ellen are pitching for good housing, good experiences, and good opportunities that are crafted for the future, not for the past. So I support, and happily endorse Sonoma Valley Collaborative. Thank you."

THANK YOU FOR MAKING THIS A YES ON HOUSING MOMEMENT!

Thank you to the many Sonoma Valley Collaborative and community members who e-mailed in their endorsements of our policy recommendations.

At the July 20 meeting, a few people asked what a “high-resource area” is. The definition driving the County is this map and the methodology behind it can be found at https://belonging.berkeley.edu/2023-ctcac-hcd-opportunity-map. The map shows characteristics “such as educational attainment, earnings from employment, and economic mobility.” The State requires–and SVC supports–that middle and low-cost housing be distributed across all types of neighborhoods, and that “high-resource areas” take their share.     

This advocacy matters! The UNITED VOICE of all the logos above and community members won 21 of the 26 housing affordability policies we advocated for in the City of Sonoma Housing Element, in many cases writing policies that the City of Sonoma adopted word-for-word. Thank you for joining us in our ongoing work to improve the Sonoma County Housing Element, which impacts most of Sonoma Valley's communities.