Author: Ray Bramson (Ray Bramson)

When San Jose voters approved the Measure E real estate transfer tax increase in 2020, the mandate was clear. The revenue generated by the new ballot measure from the sale or purchase of property worth more than $2 million would go directly to addressing the lack of affordable housing in our community. It was a...

There was a time in the not so distant past when the topic of homelessness was not the soup du jour of so many council chambers, community meetings, and letters to the editor. The issue has always been around, of course, but the intense focus on what we are or aren’t doing to meet the...

With the recent failure of Silicon Valley Bank, I find myself reflecting this morning on the fragile web that makes affordable housing possible. SVB was a leader in lending to deeply affordable developments across our region and its exit means one less reliable anchor point in the complicated web of resources that makes a project...

Last month, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass declared a homelessness emergency in her city. The move was meant to dramatically speed up services for the thousands of people living on the streets, while also cutting through the local red tape that slows the delivery of new services to a crawl. Backing the new mayor’s play, the...

In an interview on Good Morning America in 1984, President Ronald Reagan addressed a topic rarely discussed by any commander in chief: homelessness. Yet despite his acknowledgment that this is a crisis that has faced our society for generations, he fell into the old game of shifting the blame. Bad economic and housing policy had...

With a winter storm rolling in on this bleak December night, it’s easy to start thinking about all that has continued to go wrong in 2022. Set against a backdrop of a looming recession, you can look out across the Silicon Valley and see a place where there just aren’t enough affordable homes, wages are...

Imagine waking up to the smell of smoke and looking out the window only to see a fire in your backyard. Once you get out of the house safely with your loved ones, you’re probably going to call the fire department for help putting out the inferno. But what if when the brave firefighters showed...

It’s football season in America, and here in San Jose, while we punt the political pigskin of housing this year, some people are fumbling the ball when it comes to understanding what really works to create meaningful change for so many in our community. So in a Hail Mary pass, I’m going to give it...

Recessions usually mean bad tidings for everyone. Jobs are lost, savings are depleted, and the poor get poorer. Generally the most vulnerable people feel the pinch the worst, struggling to make ends meet while shivering under the shadow of a bleak economic outlook. That’s why with major market indicators once again pointing to the strong...

Since 2015, over 20,000 people have left the streets to find permanent housing in Santa Clara County. Let that sink in for a second. It’s the population of many small cities in California. How have they found these new homes? It’s a combination of supportive services, rental subsidies, new affordable housing and crisis response. Often,...