By John Elberling : 48hills – excerpt
The document needs major changes if it has any hope of promoting social equity
Editor’s note: The Association of Bay Area Governments and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission will meet Thursday/21 to consider approving Plan Bay Area 2050, which seeks to address housing needs in the region.
Despite its lofty goals, Plan Bay Area 2050 as now constituted will in fact result in the disappearance of the Bay Area’s lower-income/working class/minority BIPOC central-city communities and the market-driven displacement of hundreds of thousands of their long-time residents. Many will be forced out of the Bay Area entirely.
Housing is a human right. Affordable housing for all the people of the Bay Area is their human right. That was the commitment of the National Housing Act of 1937 that still remains unfulfilled today, 84 years later. That must be the commitment of PBA 2050. This is social housing, housing that all low/moderate/middle income households can afford. But it can only be accomplished with the full commitment of the local, state, and federal funding that it will take.
Without that, PBA2050 is nothing but an empty shell full of empty promises.…(more)