How Four Marin Leaders See the Future of Workforce Housing in Marin
Image courtesy of iStock
By Kirsten Jones Neff, March 19, 2026. Published on Marin Magazine.
Twenty-five hundred years ago, the Greek philosopher Heraclitus articulated a fundamental law of the Universe when he proclaimed that life is a constant state of flux. Here in Marin County, we have tested that principle for decades, as Marinites have strived to preserve life as we have always known it in the county, including idyllic vistas, emerald open spaces and low-density housing. While the vistas and open spaces are not going anywhere, local leaders say Marin’s resistance to affordable housing is no longer sustainable. As land and housing prices continue to soar, they believe that workforce housing projects are critical for the environment and our quality of life.
“Everyone wants Marin to stay the same,” says Sarah Jones, Marin County Director of Community Development. “The paradox is that Marin cannot stay the same unless we have workforce housing for people who work here.” The “workforce” Jones refers to includes teachers, law enforcement officers, healthcare workers, caregivers for the elderly and other essential workers who either will not take jobs in Marin because they cannot afford to live here, or must commute from afar, impacting their ability to do their jobs, increasing home-insecurity and adding cars (and pollution) to our already congested roadways.
These same local leaders also believe that we have entered the moment for change — a historical juncture where not only is the California state government imposing mandates on the county, but the majority of Marin citizens recognize that we must provide housing for the people who ensure that our communities thrive. From politicians to government employees, developers to nonprofit leaders, a multitude of voices are describing a sustainable future for the County, and calling for more rapid progress toward that future.
Jenny Silva, Executive Director of Call Marin Home
Call Marin Home (formerly the Marin Environmental Housing Collaborative or MEHC) is a Marin County nonprofit coalition that advocates for affordable and sustainable housing. The mission, according to Executive Director Jenny Silva, is to “expand housing through production, preservation, and protections for an inclusive Marin County.” Recognizing the complexity of the housing landscape, Call Marin Home both advocates for new housing projects and coordinates local nonprofits, developers, legal advocates and community groups to address the housing crisis in the county. Collaborators include Habitat for Humanity, Homeward Bound, Legal Aid of Marin, Canal Alliance, Thompson-Dorfman/Educational Housing Partners, Eden Housing and others. “Older people can’t hire caretakers, people are recognizing there is not a pathway for their children to move back to Marin, we have teacher turnover and shortages because teachers cannot live here in Marin. Honestly, it’s embarrassing,” says Silva.
In a 2025 opinion piece for the Marin Independent Journal in support of the Oak Hill Apartments project in Larkspur near San Quentin, Silva points out that a 2022 report from Marin Promise Partnership found that 43% of Marin school staffers “could not afford a studio apartment anywhere in Marin.” She also notes that, according to the Novato Unified School District, “teachers between 25 and 34 years old stay on the job for an average of only 1.6 years.” (According to the article, turnover has “increased from 3% to 14% over an 11-year period,” while Marin officials estimate that it can cost “as much as $25,000 per year to recruit a replacement.”)
“We cannot make the change that is needed by adding another 40 units here or there. In some towns, there’s just one project with people fighting it tooth and nail,” says Silva. “People don’t realize what an outlier Marin County is. They think a one year delay on a project is acceptable. Elsewhere, a one year delay would be considered horrible.”
The California state mandated Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) for Marin County is 14,210 units by 2031, and, according to Silva, the progress has been extremely slow due to lawsuits filed by anti-growth groups that delay construction. “People say, we’ve gone too far, we’ll have runaway development,” she says. “There are 330 units, total, under development at the moment. We’re not even close to what we need to do.”
At the same time, Silva adds, she has noticed change on the ground amongst the people of Marin in recent years. “It used to be that when we stood up to advocate for a project, we stood up alone. Now there are others, sometimes people who are not even affiliated with any organization.”
Sarah Jones, Director of Community Development for Marin County
Marin County Director of Community Development Sarah Jones agrees with Silva that there has been a shift in sentiment around housing. “From the outside it looks like we’re not getting too far,” she says. “But compared to five or 10, even three years ago, we’re in a better place. Something like the Marinwood Apartments project, a mixed-use infill development of 125 affordable units that has been approved, in the past, we could not get a project like that going.”
Marinwood Apartments — located at the former Marinwood Plaza Shopping Center site just off the freeway — will offer one-, two- and three‑bedroom residences for households at 30–70% of Area Median Income (AMI). The project, funded by Marinwood Propco, L.P. and Tableau Development, faced a lawsuit that was voluntarily dismissed last summer, while the County has committed Affordable Housing Trust Fund loans to help fill financing gaps so the development can move forward. “I would love to see more projects like Marinwood Apartments,” says Jones. “Marinwood is what we call ‘gentle density,’ meaning it is development at a scale that makes sense in the community.” As a former planning director for the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, Jones is an advocate for access to regional transit as a critical piece to making workforce housing development sustainable. “I would like to see a stronger connection between all the pieces (including transit) that it takes to make housing work.”
Another recent improvement in the housing landscape, says Jones, is the ongoing development of the Community Land Trust Network of Marin, which connects the various land trusts across Marin County. “The County is supporting this network and helping it to coalesce to provide a scaffolding and the sharing of resources for the land trusts across Marin,” says Jones. Land trusts are community based nonprofits that purchase land or property, and take it off the open market, generally for conservation or to stabilize housing costs for local workers. In 2019, Marin County purchased 54 units of former Coast Guard housing in Point Reyes, where the lack of workforce housing is a longstanding problem and has prevented sustainable agriculture from truly being sustainable. The County is working with the Community Land Trust Association of West Marin (CLAM) to ensure the homes, priced for low-income families and agricultural workers, will remain affordable for the long run. Homeowners will be able to build equity to benefit from homeownership, but when they sell, the price is limited by a formula that keeps the home affordable for the next buyer. For rental housing, the rate is set based on income levels rather than market rates.
Andrea Osgood, Chief of Real Estate Development, Eden Housing
One of the most impactful in-progress workforce housing projects in Marin is the Oak Hill Apartments project near San Quentin in unincorporated Larkspur. Oak Hill will sit on 8.5 acres of surplus state land between San Quentin Village and the Larkspur Landing waterfront, and will create 250 new affordable rental homes, split between two residential communities: one developed by Eden Housing, a Bay Area housing nonprofit, and one by Education Housing Partners (EHP), the nonprofit branch of Mill Valley based Thompson-Dorfman developers.
The community developed by Eden Housing will comprise 115 units for low-income households, with construction currently slated to begin this year, and residents moving in in 2028. “Eden was founded by a small group of retirees who became fair housing activists back in 1968. They held their first meetings at an I-Hop,” says Andrea Osgood, Eden’s Head of Real Estate Development. Over the years, Eden Housing has purchased over 12,000 units of affordable housing across California, and following Governor Newsom’s 2019 call to action to search statewide for unused land for development, Eden was chosen to build the Oak Hill project on unused land in Larkspur. “We lean into our work in Marin County,” says Osgood. “And we are excited to partner with the State and commend the Governor. At a time when it is hard to find actual dollars, the Governor asked, ‘What are the resources we already have to make a project possible?'”
Meanwhile, the community developed by EHP will consist of 135 units dedicated to low- to moderate-income educators, school support staff and County of Marin employees. Introducing an innovative financing method, EHP has partnered with the County and the Marin County Office of Education to create a Joint Powers Authority to own and finance the workforce housing component. This will allow districts to offer their teachers and staff below-market rate housing in Marin, helping teachers to stay in Marin districts.
Eric Lucan, Marin County Supervisor
For Marin County elected officials, the approach to housing has been a tricky push and pull, balancing the need to comply with California laws while also addressing local environmental concerns, zoning restrictions and infrastructure and financial shortfalls. Marin County Supervisor Eric Lucan, currently the President of the Board for 2026, is one of the most visible champions of housing projects on the Board of Supervisors, and has been a strong advocate for permanent supportive housing for the homeless and other vulnerable populations. In 2023, as the State put pressure on counties, he helped pass the Marin County Housing Element, a plan outlining Marin’s approach to providing supportive and workforce housing. Now, as President, he has placed housing solutions at the top of the list for the Board of Supervisor’s 2026 agenda. “There is no question there is significant demand for workforce housing in the County,” says Lucan “Surveys come back, again and again and again, that show that workforce affordable housing is a top priority — and that is across the board, including Marin homeowners.” He points out that over the past 40 years home prices in Marin have increased by over 800%, while inflation-adjusted income has only gone up 40–60%.
From Lucan’s perspective, the space, leadership and collective’s will to build exists in the County, but the primary obstacle is financing. “We have many very good projects that are shovel-ready, such as the Habitat Redwood Boulevard project in Novato, but the high cost of construction, labor and materials, and where interest rates are right now, makes it hard for developers to make these projects pencil out.” The Habitat for Humanity Redwood Boulevard development will provide 80 homes for low and moderate income households. There are numerous funding sources, including large county loans, city grants, state programs and various subsidies and fee waivers, but Habitat still faces a shortfall for the $85 million dollar project.
Lucan is currently running for California’s State Assembly, and says, if elected, he will work on this piece of the puzzle from Sacramento. “There’s a big lens in Sacramento on streamlining affordable housing right now. The next question is, how do we unlock more financing?”
Community Land Trusts in Marin
Community Land Trust Association of West Marin (CLAM)
The Mount Tam Community Land Trust