By Calvin Welch : 48hills – excerpt
The Harris platform calls for huge government spending on affordable housing—along with strict market regulation.
The real estate industry-dominated press is busy claiming that Vice President Kamala Harris has fully embraced the industry’s front group (aka Yimbys) position and that that position has swept the entire Democratic Party (for example, see The Atlantic). The argument goes that since Harris has laid out a housing position and since that position makes the common-sense claim that we need to build more affordablehousing, it is a Yimby position.
But when we look at the details of the Harris (actually Biden) position on housing, it differs in fundamental ways from the classic Yimby position, at least as practiced in the Yimbys adopted hometown, San Francisco—and is most different from the policies of the Yimby’s San Francisco favorite, London Breed.
In fact, the Harris program, as outlined on her web page and press releases, far more resembles the program of her kindergarten schoolmate Sup. Aaron Peskin than the “build housing at all income levels” mantra of Breed…
The details of the Harris (Biden) program can be found here ( Harris Walz Housing Plan), here (Harris market controls ) and here (Lower Housing Costs). These are the most detailed housing proposals made by a national party since Harry Truman’s proposals in the 1948 election. They commit some $40 billion in new federal funding for affordable housing development—in stark contrast to the Obama Administration, which simply failed to appropriate new federal funding after the housing crash in 2008, choosing to bail out banks and Wall Street instead, allowing the banks to foreclose on tens of thousands of homeowners…(more)
We just posted a series of clips from a meeting with President Peskin that cover his ideas about housing, finance and governance that are on the November ballot:
Conservatorship:
Legacy Business:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9HApAeOKCsAaron on Commissions:
https://youtu.be/4NpBeF8bF8MInspector General:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkkspAy-qG0