Everyone in the Bay Area already knows this story. It’s reported globally and lived locally: a region so expensive that owning a home here has quietly become a fantasy for the people who keep it running.

When I was the mayor of Oakland, I heard these stories every day. The teacher who commuted an hour each way because they couldn’t afford to live in the neighborhood where they worked, the nurse who stacks shifts and sleeps in a friend’s spare room for a couple of days at a time, the single parent who has abandoned the dream of homeownership. Despite well intentioned efforts, there hasn’t been a program that has offered a real solution to help middle-class Californians own a home. Until now.

Proposition 37 offers something that voters should feel optimistic about — a real fix with tangible gains. It opens the door for the  middle-class to afford a home without the burden of a down payment that is out of reach. Prop. 37 accomplishes this with no cost to the taxpayer and that’s because the loans will be backed by revenue bonds, funded by private investors and repaid entirely by the homeowners who use them, not taxpayers. The result is a low-interest, down payment assistance loan built for middle-class Californians who’ve been told for a generation that homeownership here just isn’t in the cards.

The numbers are sobering. California has the second-worst homeownership rate in the nation, with the median home price recently hitting a record $930,260. That means a traditional 20% down payment runs in the hundreds of thousands range — more cash than most households will ever have sitting in a bank account.

In Alameda County, the gap is worse. The typical home here is valued at roughly $1.07 million, according to Zillow’s Home Value Index. A conventional 20% down payment on that home comes to about $213,000. Under Prop. 37, a buyer’s share drops to 3% — about $32,000 — with the state’s bond fund covering the other 17%. That’s the difference between a decade of saving and a plan that might actually work in a normal person’s lifetime.

That difference is the whole point. The teachers, nurses, firefighters and small business owners who hold our communities together shouldn’t need a six-figure head start just to buy in the place they serve. Prop. 37 gives them a real shot at building equity, putting down roots and getting the stability that comes with owning a home they can pass down to their children.

Unlike other home buying assistance programs, Prop. 37 is paired with an estimated 190,000 new homes. It’s the first of its kind program that couples new housing inventory with homebuying assistance — a duo that can result in real results for working families across the state.

Prop. 37 simplifies the process of home loans, a daunting gauntlet of red tape and bureaucracy that is yet another hurdle for previously tried programs.

The financing structure is clear-cut: 80% comes from a conventional first mortgage through a bank or credit union, 17% comes from the private bond fund as a fixed-rate second trust deed administered by the California Housing Finance Agency and 3% comes from the buyer.

Prop. 37 also builds in real guardrails that ensure the program is working like it’s supposed to. Borrowers must be California residents, meet income limits, make their own monthly payments and live in the home — no investors, no flippers.

The measure also caps lender fees, bans discriminatory lending practices and lets homeowners pay off their loan early with no penalty.

In my tenure as mayor, I tried to move affordable housing programs from paper to reality, and I know how rare it is to find one this direct. As CEO of the Bay Area Council, I support Prop. 37 because its impact reaches past individual families — it strengthens the workforce, the tax base and the economic health of every community that depends on people being able to afford to live near their jobs. Making the Bay Area a place people can actually afford to call home is central to our mission.

It’s no surprise that Prop. 37 has such broad support — Democrats and Republicans, business and labor, veterans’ groups and taxpayer advocates. That’s rare in this state, and it should tell you something. Join me in voting “yes” on Prop. 37.

Ms. Schaaf is the president and CEO of the Bay Area Council and the former mayor of Oakland.