Crises, the saying goes, create opportunities. By forcing deep problems into the light of day, crises can focus our attention on their origins and impacts, and inspire us to work collectively to build transformative solutions. The affordable-housing crisis in Santa Cruz and across California presents us with just this kind of opportunity.

Our UCSC-based No Place Like Home project arose three years ago to heed this call.

NPLH was initiated by our community partners: the area’s largest non-profit service providers — Community Bridges, the Community Action Board, and California Rural Legal Assistance — as well as SEIU Local 521, whose members work for and serve the city and county. Collectively we designed a research project to understand how the crisis affects the community, particularly the most vulnerable and undercounted: low- and moderate-income renters. Together with 250 UCSC students, we reached over 2,000 residents and stakeholders.

Through surveys and interviews, we learned about impacts: 43 percent of renters spend over half their pay on housing, 27 percent live in overcrowded conditions, and half of those who moved in the last five years did so involuntarily – mostly due to increased rents. Beyond numbers, we listened: to the sanitation worker, the last in his unit who could afford to live in the city; and the court clerk, facing displacement and worried her children would have to change schools, again.

Through historical and policy analysis we learned about origins. Cuts and opposition to affordable housing at federal, state, and local levels created our chronic affordable housing deficit. Rising demand eroded supply further. This was driven partly by a growing student population (as we’ve explained in presentations to the UC Regents and extensively on our website.) But the notion that dorms alone can solve the problem is sadly mistaken. Our crisis exemplifies the one impacting the rest of our region: driven by the growth of Silicon Valley, loss of housing to vacation and luxury rentals, ever-weaker inclusionary zoning, decades of NIMBY opposition to affordable infill and multi-family housing, and rent-gouging in a scarcity market.

This research convinced us we need comprehensive solutions. Like efforts across California, these should be centered on “The 3 P’s”: protection of tenants, through rent control, just cause eviction, and legal aid; preservation of existing affordable housing, through dedicated funds and land-use; and, over the long-term, production of new affordable housing, through reinvestment in social housing, expansion of workforce and student housing, and creation of non-market alternatives like limited-equity co-ops and community land trusts.

We are fortunate that citizen movements put measures on the November ballot to tackle these Ps: Proposition 10 and Measure M expand protections; Propositions 1 and 2 and Measure H expand funding for production and preservation. None are perfect. But together they provide an opportunity to begin solving the crisis.

Yet crises don’t inevitably spark solutions. Groups and industries that profit from the status quo will go to enormous lengths to block change. Enter Measure M.

“Yes” is a volunteer operation with $38,000 from individual donations. “No” is a corporate PR juggernaut with $750,000 and counting. Opponents don’t only have ample front lawns to plant their signs. They are funded to the teeth by the California Apartment Association and California Association of Realtors (based in Sacramento); National Association of Realtors (based in Chicago), and Compass, a venture-backed real estate brokerage firm (based in New York). Again, Santa Cruz is not alone: billions have been spent across California in similar “local” efforts. Sadly, what could be a sincere and useful policy debate has been dominated by real estate talking points, anti-tenant fearmongering, outright misinformation, and calls for voter suppression.

Embracing the historic role of our public university, we aim to provide space for more democratic discussion. Please join us at our free and public event No Place Like Home: Building Housing Solutions for All, Thursday, Oct. 18 at 7 p.m. at the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium, and visit our website for research and links. Let’s seize the opportunity to learn from this crisis, and create an affordable future for Santa Cruz.

Miriam Greenberg is a Professor of Sociology at UCSC and Steve McKay is an Associate Professor of Sociology at UCSC.