In the most populous state in the country, California, a bill to build social housing — meaning publicly owned, mixed-income housing — came extremely close to passing on its first year of introduction: it was voted out of the State Assembly and got blocked in a Senate committee. Most legislative bills, especially bold ones, don’t pass out of the Assembly on their first introduction. I was thrilled by its momentum, as I had covered the lead-up to this bill in 2021 for Jacobin.

The sponsor, Assemblymember Alex Lee is a proud socialist (the only one in California’s Assembly) and a Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) member. He’s also a proud YIMBY.

YIMBY stands for Yes In My Backyard, in opposition to NIMBYs (Not In My Backyard), and is a movement that defines itself as “pro-housing.” YIMBYs are best known for aiming to increase the supply of housing by eliminating so-called exclusionary zoning laws, which ban the construction of apartments, public and private. And it was the YIMBY movement in coalition with organized labor and progressive housing nonprofits in California that provided the core muscle behind the social housing bill.