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Assemblymember Wicks Appointed Chair of Assembly Housing Committee

For immediate release:
  • Erin Ivie
  • Director of Communications, Office of Assemblymember Buffy Wicks
  • 510-619-8495
  • erin.ivie@asm.ca.gov

Sacramento — On Tuesday, Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland) was appointed by Speaker Anthony Rendon as the Chair of the Committee on Housing and Community Development. 

Asm. Wicks was appointed to the vacant seat previously held by former Assemblymember David Chiu, who in November left the Assembly to become San Francisco City Attorney. Asm. Wicks looks forward to continuing her predecessor’s track record of housing leadership; building upon the momentum he created as California continues to recover from the impacts of the pandemic, and utilizing her background as a lifelong organizer to build collaboration and consensus around the biggest issue facing California. 

“We have a great deal of work to do to find solutions for one of our state’s most intractable crises, and the growing challenges of housing affordability, our homelessness epidemic, renter protections, and pathways to home ownership,“ said Assemblymember Wicks. “Finding solutions to these problems has been my top priority during my time in office, and I am thrilled for the opportunity to continue this leadership as the next Chair of the Committee on Housing and Community Development. I stand ready to lead with bold action on housing policy, working collaboratively with Speaker Rendon, his team and a diverse range of stakeholders to push for housing production, and to help empower the Legislature to reimagine housing in California. I appreciate the vote of confidence from the Speaker as we tackle the monumental issues at the forefront of Californians’ minds.” 

Prior to her appointment as housing chair, Asm. Wicks spent her first three years in office building a strong track record as a champion for housing production, renter protections, and a pathway to home ownership for California’s working families. Her successful collaboration with diverse stakeholders across California – from tenant activists, to labor leaders, to market rate developers, to nonprofit affordable housing advocates – paved the way for Asm. Wicks to pass more housing production bills than any other Assemblymember during the years since she took office. 

From 2019 to 2021, Asm. Wicks worked with her colleagues in the Assembly and counterparts in the Senate on a range of legislation to increase both production and renter protections. She was one of the first members to pass and get signed into law “Missing Middle” legislation with AB 1485 (2019), ensuring a streamlining mechanism to ease housing production for moderate income earners. She passed and the Governor signed into law AB 725 (2020), which increased multifamily production in single-family home neighborhoods; and AB 1851 (2020), which reduced residential parking requirements on properties owned by religious institutions to allow for the construction of housing. And, in 2020, Asm. Wicks was the only Member of the Legislature to successfully pass two housing production bills, in the midst of economic turmoil.

“Asm. Wicks’ policy experiences at many levels inside and outside of government have been invaluable on the Housing Committee under its previous chair,” said Speaker Rendon. “She has the know-how to keep this committee working at the forefront of housing policy. We must keep California focused on this issue, and she can do it.”

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