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OUR CLIENTS: Peninsula Community Foundation
In the Bay Area's San Mateo County the cost of housing has led to a crisis for
residents and employers alike. Recently a small and committed group of civic
leaders representing all sectors of society – healthcare, government, education,
real estate, environmentals – came together to address the issue
of San Mateo's housing crisis.
This group, called the Nachos and funded in large part by the Peninsula Community
Foundation, sensed that the disconnect between the public and officials would
make it impossible to bring about the dramatic increase in available, affordable
housing the county desperately needed. They felt that the best role they could
play was as a facilitator in the largest sense; a convener of ways to thoughtfully
engage the public and reconnect them with decision-makers in order to create
momentum for change.
They began with a series of countywide ChoiceDialogues in which representative random samples of the public worked through several very different approaches to dealing with the housing crisis.
Their conclusions were clear and consistent, showing that once the public had an opportunity to work through the alternatives they strongly favored approaches that involved increasing density along main transportation corridors in the county.
The next step was to convene two Stakeholder
Dialogues, in which key leaders
(elected officials, CEOs, housing advocates, developers, health and education
leaders) came together with some of the citizens who had participated in the
ChoiceDialogues to further clarify and advance the citizens' vision for the future
of the county and develop action plans. These sessions proved to be powerful
for the participants, who were surprised by the amount of common ground they
discovered and, as a result, were more hopeful about achieving solutions.
Using the results of these dialogues as a road map, the Nachos are now planning to scale up their engagement efforts to more citizens and leaders alike, building the support needed for effective change to resolve the housing crisis.
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go back to ChoiceDialogue
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