As our community has grown into the smart, diverse, creative contingent it is today, we’ve failed to build enough homes for everyone. Our population doubles in size each day as workers commute (sometimes hours each day) to our jobs-rich city where they cannot afford to live. 

Who pays the ultimate price for this? We all do…

That’s why Palo Alto Forward is launching a new campaign. HOMES FOR EVERYONE? YES! is aimed at recruiting residents who want to see progress and foster real change for one of our area’s most entrenched and difficult-to-fix issues. This problem is tricky but the power to make a difference lies with all of us acting locally.

Whether you care about worsening traffic, growing inequality, declining school enrollment and closures, the struggles of our local retail centers, rising cost of goods and services, the unhoused, or climate and air pollution–more housing in the right locations in our city is the solution.

We want to tell our children they have the opportunity to live in the community where they grew up. We want our parents, friends, coworkers, and neighbors to have housing options so they can continue to thrive in our city. We want a clean environment and a hopeful and healthful future. We are tired of talking about the housing crisis, let’s change things.

So many people want to do something about housing, and yet the problem sees little progress. We get it, housing is a complex issue to solve, particularly in a community as thoughtful and strong-minded as ours. That’s why our solution is a simple, perhaps even obvious one: build homes for everyone.

More housing means more services, more transit expansion, stronger local schools, more diverse voices in our community, more inclusion and more community connection. 

Now, let’s get to work!