The California SHIMBY Movement: Social Housing in my Backyard

Abstract

The social housing movement represents a powerful coordinated effort to create publicly owned and permanently affordable housing. Social housing provides the most democratic, cost-effective, and sustainable solution to the housing crisis by permanently recycling public subsidies through resale restrictions on newly constructed and rehabilitated homes, while avoiding racially segregated patterns often associated with traditional public housing. Part of a larger international movement, California Senate Bill 555 (SB 555): Stable Affordable Housing Act of 2023 aims to address California’s housing shortfall through a resale-restricted, rather than market-based model. With documented success internationally in Vienna, Austria, and Singapore, as well as domestically with policies like the 1937 Housing Act, SB 555 marks a divergence from decades of government housing strategy to stimulate private sector production of low- and moderate-income units rather than creating publicly owned housing removed from the speculative market. As a complement to Yes in My Backyard (“YIMBY”) development, Americans should familiarize themselves with the newest and yet-to-emerge acronym, Social Housing in My Backyard (“SHIMBY”), that embraces both new construction and rehabilitation strategies, and holds the potential to transform the U.S. housing system.