Basic Needs Coalition
Building a Unified Voice for Human Dignity and Stability
In 2025, San Diego Housing Federation launched the San Diego Basic Needs Coalition — a cross-sector platform uniting housing developers, healthcare providers, food security organizations, homelessness and service providers, workforce advocates, and student organizing groups around a shared goal: ensuring every San Diegan has what they need to live and thrive.
In its first year, the coalition built a shared governance structure, issued a joint regional statement opposing federal policies that criminalize homelessness, submitted unified budget priorities to every San Diego City Council office, and pushed the county to responsibly use its reserves to offset anticipated federal funding cuts.
By speaking with one voice across sectors, the coalition is turning fragmented efforts into coordinated action — strengthening our collective power to advance policy that ensures access to housing, healthcare, food, childcare, and essential services for all San Diegans.
Turning Civic Power Into Community Stability — 2026 ballot measure voting guide
This is our first-ever voter guide — built by Basic Needs Coalition members, for San Diego voters and the advocates who serve them. It covers every qualified statewide ballot proposition on the November 2026 ballot, plus one local measure, the San Diego County Health & Safety Act (Measure B); candidate races and other local measures aren't included. Supporter and opposition lists reflect publicly available information at the time of publication and aren't exhaustive — for the most complete and current lists, visit Ballotpedia at ballotpedia.org.
This guide exists because coalition members showed up meeting after meeting, bringing real expertise and lived experience to a long and complicated ballot, and took the time to work through it together rather than leave San Diegans to sort it out alone. That same spirit — cross-sector, collaborative, and grounded in the belief that an informed electorate is a stronger one — is what built the coalition in the first place. We see this guide as the start of an ongoing tradition, not a one-time project: we're already looking forward to returning to this work every election cycle, refining it, and building on what we've learned so it keeps getting more useful for San Diego voters and the advocates who serve them.
Our Vision
A San Diego where every person has a safe, stable, and affordable place to call home, fortifying the foundational pillars of well-being— from nutrition and childcare to healthcare, education, and economic opportunity.
Our Mission
To unite cross-sector advocates, stakeholders, and organizations to build a more integrated, compassionate, and effective system of care through unified policy advocacy and education, coordinated outreach, orchestrated service delivery, and community power.
Our Goal
To achieve systemic change by staying informed on and influencing policy and budgets at all levels of government (federal, state, county, local jurisdictions) to protect and expand affordable housing, prevent homelessness, and strengthen the entire ecosystem of basic needs services.
Who We are
Representatives from organizations across sectors focused on advocacy and advancing policy in housing, homelessness services, childcare, healthcare, and food insecurity.
Contact
Dante Golden, Senior Policy Director
Dante@housingsandiego.org
Media Coverage and Statements
11/7/2025: Funding cuts, skyrocketing rents push San Diego's housing voucher program into deepening deficit
“We are having emergency meetings within our sector on a weekly basis with our resident service providers to talk about what is happening with food, with medical care, with rent, with any other supports, with child care. We are seeing, one by one, the supports that families rely on to thrive are being taken away. This is painful.” — San Diego Housing Federation, President and CEO, Stephen Russell
3/28/2025: North Park church's affordable housing project highlights new market of 'off-site' housing credits
“Because we are seeing a significant amount of market-rate development right now, this off-site provision has actually provided a really significant revenue stream for the production of 100% affordable buildings that can be built more efficiently, can actually leverage the dollars that are being contributed, and ultimately have a really positive impact on the housing crisis.”— San Diego Housing Federation, President and CEO, Stephen Russell