November 5, 2025
San José City Council
City of San José
200 East Santa Clara Street
San José, CA 95113
Sent via electronic mail
Re: Inclusionary Housing Ordinance Proposed Changes – Request for Engagement & Postponement
Dear Mayor Mahan, Vice Mayor Foley, and City Council:
I write on behalf of the Housing Justice Workgroup of the Race Equity Action Leadership (REAL) Coalition.
In advance of the upcoming City Council meeting to consider proposed dramatic changes to the Inclusionary Housing Ordinance (IHO), we are deeply concerned about the lack of meaningful engagement with the full range of community stakeholders necessary to inform Council decisionmaking.
Historically, the City’s Housing Department has engaged in robust dialogue with local nonprofits, tenant advocates, grassroots leaders, and developer and landlord representatives when evaluating major housing policy changes. This longstanding practice has been essential to ensuring that City decisionmakers are empowered with a full understanding of the real-world impacts of policy decisions.
Community-based nonprofits and tenants bring critical, lived expertise — they witness and experience every day how housing policies shape residents’ ability to remain safely and stably housed in San José. Their voices must be proactively sought and valued as part of any equitable policymaking process.
Recently, however, these engagement practices have fallen short. To our knowledge, only one community meeting was held regarding proposed changes to the IHO, and several key stakeholders, including SVCN, learned of the event only on the day-of. The IHO was a hard-won achievement built through diligent advocacy from housing justice advocates, the business community, and faith leaders. Advancing amendments without thorough consultation with the tenants
Letter from REAL Coalition to City Council re Inclusionary Housing Ordinance, November 5, 2025
and advocates who fought for — and are most directly affected by — this policy represents a serious lapse in process and transparency.
Moreover, without clear data or analysis explaining the rationale for these proposed changes, the City risks undermining its own adopted commitments to equity and community engagement, as articulated in the Housing Element, Fair Housing Action Plan, and City Council’s broader equity framework. Any weakening of inclusionary requirements could deepen displacement pressures, widen affordability gaps, and move the City further from its stated goals for equitable housing production.
Given the limited engagement to date and the absence of transparent justification for the proposed changes, we respectfully urge the Council to postpone consideration of this item until the Housing Department conducts robust outreach and provides opportunities for meaningful community input. We understand this discussion is currently slated for early December, and we hope the City will prioritize a transparent and inclusive process before any vote is taken.
We stand ready to partner with the Housing Department and Council offices to co-design an engagement process that reflects the expertise of tenants, nonprofits, and community members most affected by housing instability.
Together, we can ensure that San José’s housing policies continue to advance equity, stability, and opportunity for all residents.
Thank you for your attention to this important matter.
Sincerely,
Jeremy Barousse
Amigos de Guadalupe Center for
Justice and Empowerment
Gia Pham
Housing Choices Coalition for
Persons with Developmental
Disabilities
Alison Brunner
Law Foundation of Silicon Valley
Melissa A. Morris
Public Interest Law Project
Poncho Guevara
Sacred Heart Community Service
Sandy Perry
South Bay Community Land Trust
Kyra Kazantzis
SVCN
Letter from REAL Coalition to City Council re Inclusionary Housing Ordinance, November 5, 2025
Cassandra Magana
West Valley Community Service
Signed as representatives of the Housing Justice Workgroup Race Equity Action Leadership (REAL) Coalition
For any questions or concerns, please email Shannon Zhang at [email protected]
About REAL:
The REAL community of Silicon Valley based nonprofit leaders and allies has been meeting since June 2020 to use our positional power to advocate for a more racially-just and equitable society; to establish a peer network of leaders committed to fighting white supremacy and systemic racism in ourselves and our institutions; and to hold each other accountable to the promises we made in the Nonprofit Racial Equity Pledge. The REAL coalition is broadly representative of the nonprofit community including human and community services, behavioral health and health, arts and culture, domestic violence, older adults, food security, education, environmental, farming, legal, disability rights, LGTBQ rights, ethnic, immigrant rights, housing and homelessness, criminal justice reform, urban planning, and intermediary organizations, and others. REAL has 50 core nonprofit members, numerous individual members, and hundreds of active participants in the nonprofit community.