Regions at WorkScaling Solutions: How Regional Agencies Are Seeding the Next Generation of Housing...

California's housing crisis is often treated as a city-by-city challenge - approvals, zoning, local politics, and local budgets. But the reality is messier and more regional: housing markets stretch across boundaries; commutes connect multiple jurisdictions, and displacement pressure rarely stays contained.

That's why a growing number of regional agencies are stepping into a quietly catalytic role -helping communities do together what is difficult, inefficient, or simply unrealistic to do alone. One of the clearest examples is the rise of regional and subregional affordable housing trusts, where local governments pool resources, reduce administrative burden, and build durable funding platforms that can flex with market needs.

In this model, the regional agency isn't the headline-grabber. It's the convener, the architect, the steady hand, setting up the governance, creating the shared table, and building the structure that lets local jurisdictions move from interest to action.

Why Regional Housing Trusts Matter

Housing trusts aren't new. Cities and counties have used them for decades to assemble local revenues, attract matching dollars, and provide flexible gap financing for affordable housing. What's changing is the scale and the strategy - more places are realizing that a trust built across multiple jurisdictions can solve practical challenges that routinely stall local efforts.

A regional housing trust can:

• Pool resources so smaller and mid-sized communities aren't forced to "go it alone" with limited staff capacity or inconsistent funding.

• Spread administrative costs and simplify the work of program design, underwriting, reporting, and compliance.

• Create a larger, more predictable funding platform that helps sustain long-term production and preservation strategies.

• Support fairness and consistency while still allowing local priorities and market realities to shape investments.
  

Just as important, regional scale opens the door to funding sources that don't fit neatly inside city limits. As California's policy framework continues shifting toward Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT), greenhouse gas reduction, and mitigation-based investment, revenue and impacts increasingly spill across jurisdictional boundaries. Regional agencies are often the natural place to manage that complexity, translating mitigation dollars into housing investments where they reduce pressure, improve access, and support broader regional goals.

The Regional Advantage: Big Enough to Work, Local Enough to Fit

The strongest regional trusts strike a careful balance: big enough to build capacity and attract funding, but structured so decisions remain grounded in local context-differences in market conditions, development capacity, land availability, and community priorities.

This is where regional governance shows its value. The regional agency helps create the conditions for collective action without displacing local control - aligning housing investment with transportation systems, climate objectives, and economic realities, while keeping implementation responsive to local needs.

Regional Leadership in Practice

Across the CALCOG network, housing trust models are taking shape in ways that reflect local context, yet share a common theme: regional agencies are helping member jurisdictions build something stronger together than any one community could build on its own.

• San Joaquin Council of Governments. In the San Joaquin Valley, affordability challenges are deeply linked to long commutes, job-housing imbalances, and limited local fiscal capacity. SJCOG has helped advance a regional housing trust concept that aligns housing investment with transportation planning and air quality goals. By placing housing finance within a broader regional framework, SJCOG helps local jurisdictions access tools, structure partnerships, and pursue funding strategies that would be difficult to assemble independently, while keeping investment decisions grounded in local market realities.

• San Mateo City/County Association of Governments. In one of California's highest-cost regions, C/CAG has been a long-standing example of what regional collaboration can unlock. Its housing trust efforts provide a flexible vehicle that supports preservation, production, and strategies that help communities remain stable in the face of displacement pressures. The approach reflects a practical regional understanding: housing affordability is inseparable from transportation access, economic competitiveness, and quality of life - and coordinated stewardship can amplify local action.

• San Gabriel Valley Council of Governments. The San Gabriel Valley is diverse by design, built-out communities alongside evolving opportunity areas, with differing needs and capacities across its member cities. SGVCOG's housing trust exploration reflects that reality by advancing a subregional approach that allows cities to participate at a scale that makes sense for them. The benefit is twofold: local jurisdictions gain access to shared expertise and pooled resources, while the region strengthens its collective ability to move projects from concept to delivery.

• Gateway Cities Council of Governments. The Gateway Cities region faces acute affordability pressures alongside long-standing infrastructure and environmental justice needs. Gateway Cities COG has supported housing trust initiatives that emphasize both production and preservation, particularly in areas where housing investments can reinforce transit, job access, and community revitalization. By organizing this work at the subregional level, the COG helps ensure housing dollars support broader outcomes - without requiring each city to build a separate funding system from scratch.

Other CALCOG Members Exploring Trust Models

Beyond these examples, more CALCOG members are assessing housing trust structures tailored to regional and subregional needs, rural regions looking for scale, fast-growing areas seeking to capture mitigation funding, and coastal communities focused on workforce housing. In each case, the regional agency plays the same essential role: convening partners, clarifying options, structuring governance, and converting complex policy frameworks into workable tools local governments can use.

A Note on the Bay Area Housing Finance Authority

The Bay Area Housing Finance Authority, formed by ABAG and MTC, represents a broader evolution of regional housing governance, combining elements of a housing trust with large-scale finance tools, policy coordination, and the potential for voter-approved funding. While BAHFA extends beyond the traditional housing trust model, it reinforces the same core lesson: regional institutions can unlock solutions at a scale that no single jurisdiction can deliver alone.

Looking Ahead

Regional housing trusts aren't a silver bullet. They require trust-building among jurisdictions, clear governance, and sustained commitment. But they're increasingly proving to be one of the most practical ways to bridge the gap between state housing expectations and local implementation capacity.

As California continues to connect housing, transportation, and climate policy, especially through VMT- and mitigation-oriented approaches, regional agencies are poised to play a more meaningful role in turning shared challenges into shared solutions.

The momentum is building. And with it, the opportunity for regional housing trusts to become a durable, locally responsive tool, scaled to the challenge, shaped by local markets, and enabled by the quiet leadership of CALCOG members across the state.

More Resources:

- San Bernardino Housing Trust (by SBCOG - affiliated with SBCTA)
- San Juaquin COG Housing Trust
- San Mateo City/County Association of Governments Housing Elements
- San Gabriel Valley Regional Housing Trust
- Gateway Cities Affordable Housing Trust (GCAFT)