By Andrew Cohen
2Ls Olivia Grimes and Meghan Riddlespurger met before law school, when Grimes was working at San Mateo County’s Housing Leadership Council and Riddlespurger at the California Department of Housing & Community Development.
After quickly bonding while pursuing law school and studying for the LSAT, when each chose Berkeley Law they saw ample outlets for housing work on the tenant and environmental side — but a gap in the production-side advocacy that galvanized them.
“We created Housers at Berkeley to build an intersectional perspective with all the law students who are passionate about tenants’ rights, economic and environmental justice, and consumer protection,” Grimes says.
The group cites three main goals: Creating a community for Berkeley Law’s housing advocates and expanding its connections with outside partners; amplifying litigation and policy strategies that connect housing access with other key rights; and fueling housing creation through information sessions on regulatory issues, proposed statutory reforms, promising impact litigation, and ballot measures.
Over 60 students across various graduate programs have actively engaged with Housers, which has put on educational and social events including a panel discussing the link between housing and climate change, an event on innovations in modular and prefabricated housing, and a gathering where attorneys across sectors spoke with students about careers in housing and land use law. Housers also staffed a table during Admitted Students Weekend to talk with prospective students.
Meanwhile, a pilot Student-Initiated Legal Services Project within Berkeley Law’s Pro Bono Program called the California Housing Initiative, led by 1L Manasa Kumarappan, aims to train a new generation of pro-housing lawyers. Students work with the California Housing Defense Fund to expand access to more affordable housing opportunities across the state.
“For me, success for Housers is about building a community of Berkeley students who care deeply about housing and creating pathways for them to advocate during and after our time here,” Riddlespurger says. “That means connecting students who want to work on housing policy, litigation, and planning, while also helping our peers better understand the legal and policy dynamics shaping the housing crisis.”
Campus partnerships
Housers strives to support and educate advocates pursuing increased housing supply and rezoning to counter high housing costs. To maximize impact, leaders have aligned with several campus partners, including the College of Environmental Design, Goldman School for Public Policy, Haas School of Business, and Terner Center for Housing Innovation.
“We’re immensely grateful for the engagement and interest we’ve had from these programs,” Grimes says. “Having superstar academics spread the word about what we’re doing, like Professor Eric Biber here at the law school, has really increased our reach. We’re hoping to incorporate more Masters of City Planning, business, and policy students into our leadership structure.”
Grimes recalls the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis hitting her neighborhood hard, dramatically changing its demographics over just a few months. “I also had an extremely stressful stretch of housing insecurity in college, which really crystallized my interest in housing,” she says.
In college, Grimes helped public law and urban planning scholar Moira O’Neill produce a massive, first-of-its-kind audit of San Francisco’s housing entitlement practices. She has since worked at various housing policy nonprofits, and assisted the Oakland City Attorney’s Office in developing internal guidance for SB 79 — signed into law in October — which seeks to increase housing density near major transit stops throughout California by requiring cities and counties to allow mid-rise, multi-family housing as a permitted use.
Riddlespurger, a former city planner in Texas and California, calls advancing housing access in places where people want to live her top motivation for attending law school.
“The severe housing affordability crisis is primarily a problem of supply in areas of high opportunity,” she says. “Here in the Bay Area — where the consequences of housing scarcity are especially stark — many law students will likely go on to practice here, become increasingly invested as community members, and eventually play a role in shaping the region’s housing policy.”
Eyeing accountability
This semester, the California Housing Initiative has helped cities figure out how best to implement SB 79 alongside their zoning plans. The bill exercises state preemption authority — overriding local zoning restrictions unless a city adopts a local alternative plan compliant with SB 79 and the state’s other housing laws by July 1.
The pilot project group, which includes Kumarappan, Grimes, and Riddlespurger, sent an enforcement letter to the San Jose City Council highlighting sites where SB 79’s upzoning requirements must continue. The students scoured the statutory text, read background reports about the new law, and virtually attended San Jose planning and city commission meetings. They are now looking into San Diego’s SB 79 implementation plans.
There’s plenty to learn, including the vocabulary of unfamiliar urban planning concepts, varying language style and persuasive tactics needed when communicating with municipal agencies, and alternative dispute resolution methods that often help achieve pro-housing policy goals. Even so, the students are embracing the challenge.
“The most rewarding part about this work has been its promise for creating tangible impact,” Kumarappan says. “By contributing to pro-housing zoning reform, our work can one day result in new homes for Californians who otherwise would not have been able to live there. It’s deeply gratifying to be a part of building a California where more people can afford to raise their families, pursue their ambitions, and put down roots in the communities they love.”
A former impact investor for an affordable housing investment firm in Austin, Texas, Kumarappan found many challenges in under-resourced neighborhoods where affordable housing is often confined — including food insecurity, healthcare underinsurance, and civic participation barriers. In response, she helped provide services such as free fresh produce subscriptions, mobile health clinics, and refugee resettlement assistance.
“Housing sits upstream of nearly every social issue we face,” she says. “Where you live determines how you live — your access to good schools, safe streets, economic opportunity, and healthcare. In this way, housing is less a single right than a gateway to all others.”