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San Diego suffers from a crisis of housing supply and affordability. The symptoms are obvious but the root causes are deep and complex because the provision of housing is a complicated process. The Center for Housing Policy and Design was created to fill the unmet need for a research and policy center in San Diego that is devoted exclusively to tackling the regional housing problem.
The Center for Housing Policy and Design is dedicated to improving housing supply and affordability for people of all incomes in the San Diego region. The Center seeks to close the housing research and policy gap by serving as the leading actionable housing research institution in San Diego, offering solutions for more housing supply and affordability in the region. We focus on rigorous interdisciplinary research and design-driven innovation to create an ecosystem for change.
Co-Director, Center for Housing Policy and Design
Professor, Urban Studies and Planning
Director, The Design Lab
Co-Director, Center for Housing Policy and Design Professor of Practice, Urban Studies and Planning
Postdoctoral Scholar, Center for Housing Policy and Design, The Homelessness Hub
On May 19th, 2025, we gathered faith-based stakeholders, developers, policymakers, scholars, and other community organizations committed to housing. We heard from Amy Denhart and Evan Gerber on YIGBY’s work to help churches in San Diego develop affordable housing, and from Tim Quinn, Self Help Credit Union, about developing financing tools to preserve existing affordable housing in gentrifying neighborhoods in LA.
The Center is mapping all land in San Diego County that qualifies for SB 4, the law that streamlines affordable housing approval on land owned by nonprofit colleges or faith-based institutions. We are bringing together faith-based organizations, developers, financial institutions, and housing stakeholders with the goal of unlocking affordable housing land opportunities.
San Diego has a wide range of housing production practitioners, as well as, policy and financial partners, but their efforts are often fragmented and uncoordinated. The Center is creating a “landscape map” of people and organizations working on housing production with the intent of convening them to better coordinate and streamline, and increase housing production.
The Center is conducting a scan of innovative financing techniques, including philanthropically driven local Housing Impact Funds, to design new ways to finance the development of new affordable housing and maintain existing Naturally Occurring Affordable Housing projects, with the goal of expanding the amount of financing options for these activities in San Diego.
San Diego is encouraging the production of more affordable housing near transit with little parking. These households should be less car-dependent. The Center surveyed lower-income residents in the City Heights neighborhood and found that many of them, especially those with children, cannot easily shift to transit usage and may need more alternative transportation choices, such as shuttles and rideshare subsidies.
