No one in California today caused the housing crisis. Its origins stretch back to a time when laws were explicitly racist in a way that we wouldn’t tolerate now. Nevertheless, we live with the consequences of those decisions, and we have the opportunity to make new choices that live up to our values. Louis wants to reimagine our built environment because it’s necessary for our future prosperity and is key to our educational, racial, socioeconomic, criminal, and environmental justice priorities. Louis wants to:

• Triple home production statewide to reach Gov. Newsom’s 3,000,000 homes goal in 10 years, not 30. If we do this by making sure areas with lots of jobs, buses, and trains also have lots of homes, we will advance many goals as we add more and more affordable housing.

More than 4 out of 5 people who work in AD51 live out of district. Some drive over 50 miles to get here and pay for gas and parking each day. Making it so the people who make our communities vibrant through their labor, energy, and ideas can live near their jobs will cut down on traffic, emissions, and accidents as it furthers socioeconomic justice.

• Provide financing to homeowners in communities that were redlined so they can use new tools like SB9 to redevelop their properties. By doing so, we will add housing as we push-back on the racial wealth and gentrification. Louis learned of this idea from architect Michael Anderson.

• Start a statewide rental insurance program to prevent economic shocks like job loss or hospital bills from turning into evictions. 

• Make sure everyone facing eviction has the right to a lawyer. CA scores a 1.3 out of 5 on eviction protections, behind Kentucky and Kansas. That’s not acceptable.

• Get rid of Article 34 of the CA Constitution, which makes it effectively illegal to build social housing when these subsidized units are badly needed.

• Unify all government funding needed to build 100% affordable housing into one department, not six. This will make it so these critical resources don’t cost up to $1 million per unit like they do today. It will give more seniors, formerly unhoused people, and the most economically distressed Californians a more stable life.

• Take politicians out of all permitting processes so that it doesn’t take over ten years to complete some projects. This will eliminate corruption and make it cheaper to build housing of all kinds and let us either lower rents, or add more affordable units to each new building.