Affordable housing experts will be on air to answer listener questions, discuss housing
Housing experts from across the Bay Area will converge at the KRCB 91.1 FM news radio station in Rohnert Park on Sunday, March 31 for an in depth discussion and question and answer session on affordable housing for a special show dubbed, “Connect the Bay.”
The partially live and taped show aims to not just address the issue, but to discuss possible solutions and answers to the housing crisis that’s not only affecting Sonoma County, but the North and South Bay as well.
A large component of the show will be geared toward giving listeners a voice by garnering their questions, comments and concerns.
Experts from Habitat for Humanity and Legal Aid of Sonoma County, among others, will be on hand to answer questions and provide insight.
KRCB FM Radio News Director Steve Mencher said the impetus for creating the show was wanting to connect the North and South Bay with important issues. Sonoma County’s KRCB, which is under the umbrella of Nor Cal Public Media, has a sister station in the South Bay following a 2018 acquisition of the South Bay station.
“Since 2017, we’ve been experimenting with how to present news so we created a news show, ‘The new normal,’ a response to the post-fire landscape. After a year and a half of ‘New normal,’ we said, ‘How can we connect the North and South Bay with important issues and how can we have a live show with guests from around the Bay?’” Mencher said.
Consequently, they decided to pick a subject that is pertinent throughout all corners of the Bay, affordable housing, and thus “Connect the Bay” was born. Their idea was to look in and focus on whether the needs in underserved communities were being met.
Mencher added as a journalist and as a person, one of his biggest concerns regarding affordable housing is that people are getting farther and farther away from their work. “Where will teachers, firefighters and blue collar workers live? This is the real reason it is a crisis in the Bay Area, we have the most inequity and distance between the rich and the poor,” he said.
The show will be comprised of taped feature stories as well as live reports.
“We will have reports such as rental housing market, especially in the Latino community. We’ll also discuss how people in rental markets are at a disadvantage, for example poor living conditions, uninhabitable living, rent control and just cause eviction,” Mencher said.
Guest speakers include Vince Harper of Community Action Partnership of Sonoma County, Housing outreach attorney Evan Livingstone of Legal Aid of Sonoma County, CEO of Palo Alto Housing Randy Tsuda and Mike Johnson of Habitat for Humanity, among others.
Johnson will discuss the idea of accessory dwelling units and how those housing options could be part of the overall solution.
The show will also discuss the CASA Compact (The Committee to House the Bay Area) and its 10-point plan to tackle housing in the nine counties of the Bay with the Metropolitan Transportation Agency and the Association of Bay Area Governments.
Mencher said with this show he hopes to provide the audience with a voice and to help increase their power as citizens, as well as to continue the discussion on housing.
“We hope to give our audience a voice. Second, we want this dialogue to continue. People are coming up with lots of ideas on how to tackle the housing crisis — we want to be a part of the solution. We aren’t simply going to cry and say, ‘This is the problem,’” Mencher said. “We’ll be counting on the audience on Twitter, Facebook or other social media to call and let us know what their concerns and questions are and how we can answer them.”
The half-hour show slated for 5:30 p.m. will be available to listeners on KRCB 91.1 FM, as well as on the NPR app. People can also watch the show on KRCB TV.22 and on the Facebook live stream. To send in questions, people can comment on their Facebook page at KRCB FM Radio 91 or on Twitter at @KRCBFMRadio91.
For more information about the show, visit: https://norcalpublicmedia.org/connectthebay.
