By Jennifer Berger
2025 President
Santa Barbara Association of Realtors
In today’s housing debate, the term “housing advocate” is often used as shorthand for tenant organizations. Tenant voices are important and deserve to be heard, but equating housing advocacy with a single viewpoint misunderstands how housing actually works. A housing advocate is anyone who works to improve housing outcomes. That includes renters seeking stability, but it also includes homeowners, housing providers, builders, lenders, planners, and those helping families purchase their first home. Housing is not a single-interest issue. It is a system.
There is no legal or statutory definition of “housing advocate.” In housing policy, the term has always been broader, describing people and organizations working to improve housing outcomes across the full continuum: renters seeking stability, homeowners pursuing the American Dream, housing providers maintaining existing homes, builders working to increase supply, lenders expanding access to credit, and community organizations balancing housing with environmental and infrastructure realities. Limiting the definition to one group may be convenient, but it is incomplete.
Housing does not exist without housing providers who maintain properties, invest in repairs, and shoulder rising insurance, utility, and regulatory costs. It does not expand without builders navigating complex approval processes. Homeownership does not happen without advocates for fair lending, down-payment assistance, and first-time buyer access. And affordability cannot be addressed without increasing supply.
Treating these perspectives as outside the housing advocacy conversation is counterproductive. Affordability, stability, and access cannot be achieved by focusing on only one segment of the housing continuum. Policies that ignore how housing is financed, maintained, and supplied risk reducing availability and undermining long-term stability for renters and owners alike.
Effective housing advocacy recognizes that renters, owners, and providers are not opposing sides and in fact are participants in the same system. Stable housing outcomes require balance, predictability, and collaboration.
If Santa Barbara is serious about addressing its housing challenges, we must move beyond labels that divide. Housing advocates are not defined by which side of the rental debate they stand on, but by their commitment to improving housing outcomes. Renters, homeowners, housing providers, builders, and those working to expand supply are all part of the same system—and none succeed at the expense of the others. The housing crisis is not an “us versus them” problem; it is a shared challenge that requires collaboration, balance, and policies that recognize how housing is actually created, maintained, and sustained. Housing works best when everyone at the table is recognized as part of the solution.
Jennifer Berger is a top producing, third generation California REALTOR® with Compass, bringing 28 years of experience in residential real estate, serving Santa Barbara and its surrounding communities. She currently serves as President of the Board of Directors for the Santa Barbara Association of Realtors. She can be reached at 805-451-5484 or jennifer.berger@compass.com.
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