California Renters Legal Advocacy and Education Fund — General Support

[Housing Policy Reform] CaRLA staff reviewed this page prior to publication. The Open Philanthropy Project recommended a grant of $300,000 over two years to the California Renters Legal Advocacy and Education Fund (CaRLA) (now CalHDF) for general support. CaRLA is a nascent advocacy organization that intends to litigate and advocate against regulatory barriers to building housing in the San Francisco Bay Area. Sonja Trauss, the organization’s cofounder, has been successful in some past efforts at mobilizing the public on the subject of land use reform, and we believe that CaRLA presents a good opportunity to grow the field of advocacy-oriented land use reform groups. 1. Background Land use reform is one of our focus areas within U.S. policy. Our current priority within this focus area is to grow the field of advocacy-oriented groups working to remove regulatory barriers to building more housing in key regions. 2. About the grant 2.1 Proposed activities Initially, the main strategy CaRLA intends to follow is to pursue litigation against municipalities that restrict the construction of new housing despite laws that give developers the right to build. If these lawsuits are successful, CaRLA hopes that municipalities and developers will more often take pro-housing state laws into account.1 To begin with, CaRLA has hired a lawyer to sue the City of Lafayette for violating the Housing Accountability Act by rejecting a proposal to build 315 apartments in favor of a lower-density project, despite the original proposal being compliant with relevant zoning laws and previous planning. For more examples of cases where local governments have potentially broken state or federal law by not allowing more housing construction, see CaRLA Vision Statement. In addition to litigating such cases, other activities that CaRLA may undertake include developing educational resources and/or hosting educational events about housing in the Bay Area; coordinating local residents to attend hearings regarding proposed housing projects; and researching potential future cases it could pursue. 2.2 Case for the grant The San Francisco Bay Area is a key region for land use reform, having some of the highest housing costs and heaviest constraints on further construction in the country (more in our cause report on land use reform). CaRLA’s cofounder, Sonja Trauss, has been able to attract some public interest to the issue in San Francisco through the SF Bay Area Renters’ Federation (SFBARF), which she also founded. We view CaRLA as a good opportunity to support Trauss to do broader work to reduce housing restrictions throughout the rest of the Bay Area, which we expect will be necessary to make progress on housing affordability. SFBARF will continue to focus on community organizing and campaigning, particularly within San Francisco, while CaRLA, as a 501(c)(3), will focus on approaches like the litigation strategy described above and educational initiatives to increase public awareness about the need for more housing across the Bay Area. 2.3 Budget and room for more funding CaRLA expects Trauss’s salary and legal fees to be its main expenses in the near-term future. In addition to this grant, the organization has also received $100,000 from one other donor.3 Overall, we believe this grant is riskier than usual. 3. Plans for follow-up We expect to have a conversation with CaRLA staff every 3-6 months for the next two years, with public notes if the conversation warrants it. At the one-year mark, we expect to provide an update on this grant, either by publishing public notes or by producing a brief write-up. Towards the end of the grant, we plan to attempt a more holistic and detailed evaluation of the grant’s performance. 4. Goals for the grant We hope that this grant will allow CaRLA to establish itself as a sustainable independent organization supporting increased construction of housing throughout the Bay Area. Ideally, the organization would be successful in its case agai