The Housing Shortage Is Stealing Our Future
Remarks from the Annual YIMBY Action Party
This is the text of my remarks at the annual YIMBY Action fundraiser, on May 7th, 2025:
We have watched the number one issue in America become the cost of living. Three quarters of Americans say that "the affordability of housing" is getting worse in their community.
Cities used to be these gleaming escalators to the middle class. You could move to a city with just your two hands and a bit of tenacity, knowing you could work hard and find a place.
But what was once an escalator to prosperity has stalled. And worse, in many cases, the escalator is running backwards. The cost of housing pushes people down into poverty. It pushes people out, away from jobs, opportunity, culture, and community. They can still see those gleaming cities of opportunity, but it is increasingly out of reach.
And the bitterness in America is palpable right now.
But you here today - together we are working to change that. And it IS happening.
A few weeks ago in San Francisco, we had a big hearing about Mayor Lurie’s new Family Zoning Plan, and I thought it would be adorable to bring out my two little kids - and some of you saw how that worked out.
But as I was waiting with 40 plus other YIMBYs — and let’s take a second to appreciate that number: More than 40 YIMBYs waiting to give their public comments!
As I was waiting, I ended up chatting with a couple that was getting married in the building that day. They both worked in the city, so of course I asked them where they lived. And of course, it was a distant suburb. I looked it up later: their commutes were an hour and half each way.
And here on this day of hope and promise for them, I could see the future they were being denied. The gross hypocrisy that our city would welcome them, temporarily, to come take their beautiful wedding pictures, and then back to wherever you can afford.
The housing shortage is stealing their future.
It has already stunted my generation, and as I look at my own toddlers, I know that if we don’t right the ship now, it’s going to steal their futures as well. The housing shortage robs us of our potential, as individuals and as a society.
But YIMBYs are not willing to let the next generation fall when it is within our power to bring them back up!
There is a fundamental truth about movements and neighborhoods: when you bring people in, you make communities stronger.
Together we have the power to build the city we want, to build the future we want. We have been building towards this moment: Today is when we fight back against the dark. Today is when we lay the foundation of the homes, the neighborhoods and communities of tomorrow.
Today we say, yes to people, yes to housing, yes in our backyards.