Local, Regional & State Action
Through Leadership, Education, Outreach, & Lobbying
Susan leads lobbying trips to the Capitol with local elected officials and community leaders. Teams represent northern and southern California, urban and suburban, multi-ethnic, Republican and Democrat, prosperous and not-so-prosperous men and women. Together they advocate for/against specific bills and promote the theme that top-down, one-size-fits-all legislation does not meet housing needs. Local authority, in collaboration with regional and state agencies, is superior to the trend toward the globalization of housing.
Leadership Support
Learn and expand courage and competence to set direction, delegate, promote teamwork, improve problem solving and decision-making, set boundaries, ask for support, and represent constituents’ well-being.
Susan joined mayors and city council members from Palo Alto, Cupertino, Sunnyvale, Los Altos, and Pleasanton to describe housing legislation and actions to preserve local control.
Educate & Engage
Form a community group and keep attendance high by running effective meetings with agendas, facilitation, and tools to deal with difficult people. Learn how to host a Town Hall that inspires action and gets media coverage.
Susan promotes Town Hall meetings, working with groups like Better Cupertino, Palo Altans for Sensible Zoning, and the West Bay Citizens Coalition.
Outreach/Networking
Develop strategies to get your message out to the public using social media and speaking engagements. Learn how to recruit partners and allies, share resources, and collaborate to reach mutual goals.
Networking with civic groups, and beyond neighborhood and homeowner associations, educates the broader community about the high stakes of housing legislation.
Lobbying & Legislation
Understanding legislation, how to monitor and track bills, and how to influence legislators is a steep learning curve. Learn about the resources and how to assemble teams to meet with legislators. Cultivate champions for your cause.
Susan and a lobbying team with reps from through the state meet with Senator Bob Hertzberg to discuss housing solutions
Rallies
Sometimes rallies, signs, and speeches are the best way to build awareness. Learn how to use all the tools in your tool box to educate, engage, and make a difference.
Dozens of elected officials and community leaders gathered in the MTC/ABAG lobby before a controversial vote on a housing compact called CASA.
Media Relations
Susan Kirsch—guest on KQEDNEWS.COM with host Marisa Lagos and Heather Knight, columnist, SF Chronicle.
You need the media to tell your story. The media needs you for balanced reporting. Learn how to build your media contact list, work with print, radio, TV and social media, prepare for interviews, write articles, and build support for your point of view.
2019 Campaign Against SB-50 & High Density Housing
Senator Scott Wiener (D-SF) leads his colleagues in a relentless push to impose top-down, one-size-fits-all housing bills on all California communities. His bills reduce equity and disregard the unique qualities of urban/suburban, inland/coastal, or high tech/agricultural. His bills would replace the decision-making authority of locally elected officials acting on behalf of their constituents with state quotas and mandates.
The legislative mantra is often about affordable housing. But the truth is, legislation rarely meets the housing needs of low-income residents, but instead permits more market-rate housing.
In 2019, BrightPath Video, Livable California, and neighborhood and homeowner groups from throughout the state rose in opposition to SB-50. Besides the standard calls, meetings, Town Halls, and emails to legislators, Susan posted short videos on social media to educate the general public about the risks of SB-50 and easy actions viewers could take to derail the bill.
It worked! SB-50 was defeated!
2020 Nix-the-Nine Campaign: Collaborating to Stop Harmful Housing Bills
Legislators authored dozens of new housing bills that that benefit speculators, investors, and developers, but fail to meet the need for affordable housing.
Using research from the Embarcadero Institute, we organized a campaign against nine harmful bills. A common threat from the bills was to reduce local control and environmental protections and increase bonuses and incentives for developers.
COVID-19 restrictions required a new campaign style that included Zoom calls, webinars, media outreach, letter-writing and call-in campaigns. Read the full report in The Marin Post here.
It worked! Seven of the nine bills were nixed!!
2021 Boomerang Bills
Corporate housing interests have a heavy hand in determining the housing legislative agenda. It’s not enough to defeat high density bills once. They come back year after year.
In 2021, a growing alliance of groups are monitoring, educating, and opposing negative bills that fail to meet the need for affordable housing.
Below, you will find just a fraction of neighborhood and homeowner groups around the state.