{"id":76636,"date":"2025-10-28T09:57:56","date_gmt":"2025-10-28T16:57:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=76636"},"modified":"2025-10-28T09:57:56","modified_gmt":"2025-10-28T16:57:56","slug":"in-the-heart-of-the-bay-homeowners-fight-to-stay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=76636","title":{"rendered":"In the Heart of the Bay, Homeowners Fight to Stay"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By<\/span>Selen Ozturk<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Once a refuge for the American dream of homeownership, Hayward has become a testing ground for California\u2019s housing crisis.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Maeve Brown, executive director of Housing and Economic Rights Advocates (HERA), introduces the panel of speakers discussing the fight to stay housed at an October 14 media briefing co-hosted by HERA and ACoM. The panel, from left to right: Christina Morales, Hayward housing manager; Senator Aisha Wahab; Derek Barnes, CEO of the East Bay Rental Housing Association; Nancy Rivera, executive director of A-1 Community Housing; and HERA Senior Attorney Gina Di Giusto. (Photo: Jessica Martin)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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HAYWARD, CA \u2014 Once a refuge for the American dream of homeownership, Hayward has become a testing ground for California\u2019s housing crisis.<\/p>\n

This battle for families to keep their homes in Hayward is a microcosm of struggles to stay housed in diverse, once-affordable areas across the state and country, experts and residents said at a Tuesday, October 14 media briefing held at the downtown library by American Community Media (ACoM) and Housing and Economic Rights Advocates (HERA).<\/p>\n

A statewide landscape of crisis<\/h2>\n

\u201cDuring the Great Recession, my family lost their home in a foreclosure, and so this issue of the housing crisis is personal for me,\u201c said Senator Aisha Wahab, a keynote speaker at the event attended by 15 media and 15 housing experts and community advocates.<\/p>\n

\u201cNearly 15 years later, I\u2019m still a renter, and that\u2019s the story of millions of Americans,\u201d continued Wahab, who represents California\u2019s 10th district, including Hayward, and who is the only renter in the 40-member state Senate.<\/p>\n

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Senator Aisha Wahab describes her background as a renter and housing advocate in Hayward. (Photo: Jessica Martin)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

With a $100,000 yearly salary considered \u201clow-income\u201d by the state in\u00a0five<\/a>\u00a0Bay Area counties, even the affordability floor is too high for families living one paycheck or illness away from losing everything.<\/p>\n

In California, foreclosure rates have risen 20% from 2024 to 2025, while foreclosure starts \u2014 meaning the first required notice of default \u2014 have risen 44%.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis pattern looks very much to me like what we saw in the lead-up to the great 2008 foreclosure crisis,\u201d said Maeve Brown, executive director of HERA \u2014 but with more debt. In 2008, U.S. mortgage debt was $9 trillion. This year, it reached $13 trillion.<\/p>\n

Nor is this crisis limited to homeowners.<\/p>\n

\u201cTenants\u2019 ability to survive is woven into homeowners\u2019 abilities to survive,\u201d Brown explained. \u201cYou think about 2008 or the pandemic and how many grown-up kids flocked back to the family home, for those lucky enough to hold onto one \u2026 That home is a source of security for the people who own it and for the next generation.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Media listen as Maeve Brown compares the current crisis in Hayward and California to the Great Recession lead-up. (Photo: Jessica Martin)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cHaving conversations with people who have not rented in the last 20 years, they\u2019re unaware of how renters are treated. They\u2019re unaware of the fee after fee after fee,\u201d added Wahab, who was elected in 2022 after four years on the Hayward City Council.<\/p>\n

Since then, she has passed legislation securing $300 million for down-payment assistance, securing $500 million for homelessness prevention, raising the renter\u2019s tax credit for the first time in decades, capping HOA fines at $100, allocating $1.4 billion for affordable housing in this year\u2019s state budget amid a deficit and advancing the\u00a0nation\u2019s first social housing bill<\/a>\u00a0to create 1.4 million affordable units statewide.<\/p>\n

But supply and demand won\u2019t fix a crisis when the supply is unaffordable, she cautioned: \u201cIn 2023 we developed a little over 100,000 units in the entire state. We\u2019re 2.5 million units in need for our actual population, and 1 million of those units needs to be for affordable housing \u2026 but here in Alameda County, the average cost of a home is $1.4 million.\u201d<\/p>\n

The crisis in Hayward<\/h2>\n

\u201cWhen we compare this city to the county, we see a lower-income community,\u201d said Hayward Housing Manager Christina Morales.<\/p>\n

Roughly 47% of Hayward\u2019s homeowners earn less than the median local income, while 70% of Hayward\u2019s tenants earn less.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no benefit even to affordable housing for renters\u201d when affordable housing in the city is pegged up to 80% Area Median Income (AMI) \u201cyet 46% of tenants are cost-burdened,\u201d explained Morales. \u201cIt\u2019s very challenging to save money to become a homeowner at all. They\u2019re just trying to make rent.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Media listen to Christina Morales explain the current landscape of housing policy in Hayward. (Photo: Jessica Martin)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cOne thing about Hayward is that having a single income makes it nearly impossible to purchase a home on your own,\u201d added Mizgon Zahir, a second-generation homeowner whose parents fled to Hayward as Afghan refugees.<\/p>\n

Zahir, who once rented in the city as a single mother, continued: \u201cWhen I met my current partner, we merged families, and bought my second home. But his adult children live with us and contribute to the household, and we\u2019re still constantly under pressure: If my health fails, or one of us loses work, what will happen to our family? The generations that come after us will continue to face this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although Hayward itself exceeded its housing goals by roughly 107% in its last planning cycle between 2014 and 2022, \u201cthe gap remains for units that are below-market,\u201d said Derek Barnes, CEO of the East Bay Rental Housing Association. (EBRHA).<\/p>\n

For EBRHA homeowners as for those in Hayward, small property owners are the backbone of affordable rentals \u2014 but many of these owners are older adults in danger of losing their own housing.<\/p>\n

About 55% of EBRHA members own four or fewer units, and most members are older than 60 \u2014 but 54% of these owners over 60 are currently in danger of losing their house.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to look at the specific needs of those smaller owners,\u201d said Barnes. \u201cIt\u2019s not enough to describe them based on the units that they hold. It\u2019s their access to capital for major or minor repairs that threatens habitability \u2026 and that threatens keeping the home at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

As of 2022, nearly 80% of U.S. senior adults owned their homes, but over one-third\u00a0 were cost-burdened, paying over 30% of their income on housing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe home is aging along with our bodies,\u201d said Brown. \u201cThe home needs care and you need to be able to pay for repairs. Where does that money come from when you\u2019re barely holding on?\u201d<\/p>\n

Morales added that one affordable senior housing complex recently built in Hayward, providing AMI rents between 30% and 60%, denied 41% of applications \u201cbecause the seniors\u2019 income was too low \u2026 Even renting is no longer an opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Mizgon Zahir describes her experience as a former single mother renter, and now a multigenerational homeowner, in Hayward. (Photo: Jessica Martin)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The struggle to stay housed<\/h2>\n

At the community level, Hayward\u2019s families are now joining forces to survive.<\/p>\n

Nancy Rivera, executive director of Hayward-based counseling organization A-1 Community Housing, said \u201cFor many of our clients, the dream of owning a home now means pooling resources across multiple households just to qualify for a $6,000 mortgage or a $700 HOA \u2026 It\u2019s a testament to a market that\u2019s increasingly out of touch with working families.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMany years back, many of my family and friends couldn\u2019t afford to live in San Francisco, and they made the decision to move to Hayward. Once, Hayward was that affordable place,\u201d she continued. \u201cNow, we are seeing a lot of families moving to Modesto, to Stockton, they\u2019re moving out of state.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, as during the 2008 crisis, the first lesson A-1 teaches their clients is whether home ownership is right for them at all.<\/p>\n

\u201cHome ownership is not for everyone \u2026 many people believe that, having a high credit score, they can buy a property, but how much stable income do they have?\u201d explained Rivera. \u201cWe\u2019re seeing new young adults who come to our office, who witnessed that through their parents, and they don\u2019t want to get into home ownership.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Maeve Brown gives closing remarks at the briefing. (Photo: Jessica Martin)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Kary Hua, housing program manager and counselor at ASIAN, Inc., agreed: \u201cEven 10 years ago, people here could rent and count on later on buying, but now renters can barely keep afloat on the first step,\u201d she explained, adding that while forbearance and foreclosure relief programs are still available as they were during the recession and the pandemic, \u201cour families find there\u2019s so much less federal funding now.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe story of home ownership is the story of abilities,\u201d said HERA Senior Attorney Gina Di Giusto. \u201cIs there availability? Affordability? Eligibility? Sustainability? Can you actually keep the home that you fought so hard to finally get?\u201d<\/p>\n

Far from being the finish line, she continued, homeownership is when troubles escalate with servicers miscalculating fees, HOAs forcing thousands of dollars in assessments and repair, scammers promising foreclosure rescue and heirs losing family homes because there\u2019s no trust or will.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re a homeowner, if you want to be one, you need legal help,\u201d added Brown. \u201cFor longtime owners, your family home is still the cheapest housing you\u2019ll ever have. Let us help you keep it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BySelen Ozturk Oct 27, 2025 Once...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ca-local"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=76636"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76636\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76637,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76636\/revisions\/76637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=76636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=76636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=76636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}