Are you a member of MCBA and thinking of increasing your involvement? Consider applying for a Director position for the Term 2025 - 2027

Many of our readers may feel far removed from the housing affordability crisis, but perhaps we're not opening our eyes wide enough. The housing affordability crisis affects us all, which is why we've dedicated this issue of the Marin Lawyer to the subject.

Are you having trouble hiring staff? Figuring out how to walk your children to school without encountering homeless individuals? Have you tried to hire a caregiver for aging parents? (FYI – at $17 per hour, there's a good chance whoever you hire lives in their car.) As an attorney focusing on housing and homeless policy, these are the complaints I regularly hear – and they often come from the same people who object to new housing developments.

When I was a first-year law student many years ago, my constitutional law professor began the semester by posing an intriguing question to the class: Why do we accept the United States Supreme Court's interpretation of the law as final? I hadn't previously considered the 'why' behind it; I had simply taken it for granted. His explanation fascinated me: it's the same reason we can exchange green and white pieces of paper and agree they have a set value.

It's a collective choice to believe in and uphold this system. Decades later, that insight still reverberates with me. But what happens when a growing number of citizens stop believing in the integrity of our judicial system and the rule of law?

No matter what your political leanings are, I think most of us are frustrated by the chronic problems with homelessness in our communities. No one likes to see tent cities, camps, people sleeping on the streets, trash, remnants of drug and alcohol addiction, and other belongings strewn about our streets. I am sure the people living like that did not plan to live like that and wish it were different for them too. They don’t want to be out there like that, but have given up when faced with the steep obstacles to rectify their individual circumstances. Even with the $18 million Marin County received to work on homelessness this spring, there does not seem to be a solution to this problem, which seems like it has bounded too far out of control to reel it back in.

Recently, jurisdictions in Marin County and across the state updated their housing elements, the portion of a jurisdiction’s General Plan that addresses how the jurisdiction will meet the housing needs of everyone in the community over the next eight years. In this process, much attention was paid to the new housing element requirements involving affirmatively furthering fair housing (“AFFH”). Jurisdictions have a legal duty to affirmatively further fair housing, which means “taking meaningful actions, in addition to combating discrimination, that overcome patterns of segregation and foster inclusive communities free from barriers that restrict access to opportunity based on protected characteristics.” (1) Assembly Bill 686 requires that a housing element is consistent with the AFFH duty by including an assessment of fair housing to identify fair housing issues in the jurisdiction, and by including priorities, goals, and actions to remediate these issues and promote fair housing, among other requirements.

In March of 2024, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) agreed to settle its high-profile antitrust lawsuit (the "NAR Settlement"), which includes the payment of approximately $418 million in damages and adjustments to its rules and policies governing commission payments to its brokers and agents. Prior to the announcement of this settlement, several similar lawsuits were filed against NAR and/or real estate brokerage firms and related organizations across the nation, two of which were filed in California. In both of these California lawsuits, plaintiffs claim that the named defendants engaged in anticompetitive practices to keep real estate commissions high in violation of state and federal antitrust regulations.