Mission, Vision, & Values
We’re working together to ensure everyone in our East Bay community has a safe and affordable home.
Our Mission
EBHO mobilizes the power and wisdom of our members to produce, preserve, and protect affordable housing opportunities for low-income communities in the East Bay.
Our Vision
A racially and economically just East Bay where everyone has a safe, stable, and affordable home.
We Believe
Housing is a Human Right
Everyone deserves a safe, stable, and affordable home. Housing’s role as a home for people must be prioritized above its role in creating excessive profit for investors. While we understand and work within the constraints of our current economic system, we believe that human well-being should always come before property rights or investor concerns and that our policies should evolve to reflect those priorities.
Housing Justice Intersects with Racial, Economic, Disability & Social Justice
Housing has been used as a means of creating and perpetuating racial and economic injustice. Therefore, affordable housing production, preservation, and tenant protections are crucial to achieving racial and economic justice. By creating affordable housing opportunities—especially for people with the lowest incomes, people of color, and people with disabilities—we address historically discriminatory, unfair, and racist policies and practices. At the same time, we work to make the affordable housing industry and movement more equitable.
Knowledge is a Path to Justice
We all have lived experience and expertise; we grow as individuals and as a movement by sharing it. We educate residents, advocates, voters, and policymakers on the value of affordable housing and we bring facts, proven solutions, and human compassion into discussions and decision-making about affordable housing.
Collective Action Builds Power
Our advocacy starts from a position of collaboration and keeps relationships at the core. We maintain a diverse membership, engage the unique assets that each of our members bring so that each can contribute and play a role, strengthen networks among our members, organize residents, and build coalitions. These different skills, roles, and perspectives allow us to win housing justice campaigns, promote equity within our movement, and show our solidarity with other social change movements.
More Voices and More Representation
The needs, priorities, voices, and aspirations of those most impacted by the housing crisis should play a central role in shaping housing policy. We strive to amplify perspectives and leadership that are less often heard and move towards transformational, rather than transactional, organizing. How we discuss issues—and who is at the table—profoundly influences how people feel, think, and then act on issues.