West Marin housing advocates are joining forces to promote a $20 billion Bay Area affordable housing bond that will be on the ballot in November. The measure would allocate about $700 million to Marin County. West Marin Community Services, the San Geronimo Valley Community Center and the community land trusts in Point Reyes Station, Bolinas and the San Geronimo Valley are now part of a countywide coalition calling itself Housing for All Marin. The groups are planning a series of informational sessions on the bond, with one scheduled for Wednesday, Aug. 7 at the Point Reyes Presbyterian Church from 6 to 7:30 p.m. “This is a once-in-a-lifetime moment that we have here to raise a lot of money for affordable housing,” said Maya Friedman of the Marin Organizing Committee. “It could build or preserve about 75,000 affordable homes across the nine Bay Area counties.” The bond is being prepared by the Bay Area Housing Finance Authority, an agency of the nine-county Bay Area Association of Governments. It needs a two-thirds vote to pass, unless voters approve an accompanying ballot measure that would reduce that threshold to 55 percent—still a high bar to clear. A $20 billion bond would add $19 per $100,000 of assessed value to homeowners’ tax bills in Marin, where real estate prices are among the highest in the nation. “We have a huge number of people who are unhoused in the Bay Area,” Ms. Friedman said. “We are really behind the curve on developing new affordable housing, and this money would go a long way toward closing the shortfall.” In April, supervisors allocated money for a new planning staffer who will work with local groups to map out a plan for how to spend the windfall should the bond pass. If approved, the funds would be disbursed over 10 years, and the amount each county receives would be pegged to its property values. Each county would get back 80 percent of what it contributes, with the balance going to BAHFA for regional projects. “It would mean more affordable housing dollars that have a great return on social impact,” said Jarrod Russell, executive director of the Community Land Trust Association of West Marin. According to a county analysis, 79 percent of West Marin workers commute from outside the community, compared to 63 percent elsewhere in the county. Nearly 48 percent of workers in the coastal zone earn less than $40,000 a year and the proportion of people spending more than half their income on housing increased from 19 percent to 23 percent between 2010 and 2022.