Former Berkeley Mayor and7th State Senate District Sen. Jesse Arreguín was appointed Chair of the Senate Housing Committee earlier this month. Arreguín, who remains the Chair of the Senate Public Safety Committee, will begin leading the committee Feb. 1. 

Since voters elected Arreguín to the state Senate in November 2024,he has introduced three bills to facilitate housing development, all of which were signed into law.The bills remove barriers to accessory dwelling unit construction, require public agencies to publish housing development application criteria and clarify existing law on local government housing plans.

“The Senator is a big proponent of the 3 P’s of housing – production of new housing, preservation of affordable housing, and protection for tenants,”said Stefan Elgstrand, Arreguín’s press secretary, in an email. 

Arreguín succeeds State Sen. Aisha Wahab, former Chair of the Housing Committee. Last April, Wahab opposed an upzoning bill, SB 79, which would increase housing construction around major public transportation stops. 

Wahab worried that SB 79 prioritized the interests of developers over affordability guarantees for tenants, whereas Arreguín voted for the bill. 

“Housing is the biggest issue for most people in California and I pushed for real solutions that serve the people not industry… affordability, prioritizing and protecting renters from displacement or weakened rights, expanding affordable housing development, increasing accountability from cities and developers and challenging false narratives that dominate the topic in the building,” Wahab said in an email. 

According to Elgstrand, Arreguín believes in a “housing first” approach to houselessness, which means getting unhoused individuals into transitional housing and supporting programs that help participants find stable housing. 

When he was Berkeley’s mayor, Arreguín supported the development of housing at People’s Park, which was previously home to an unhoused encampment. As state senator, Arreguín co-authored a bill allowing Alameda and Los Angeles counties to dispose of abandoned recreational vehicles that some advocates for the unhoused believe could increase the number of individuals living on the streets. 

“During his time as Mayor, homelessness in Berkeley went down at a time when it was increasing in neighboring areas, showing that our investments in housing and homelessness were working and would like to see this scaled up statewide,” Elgstrand said in the email.

According to Elgstrand, as housing committee Chair, Arreguín hopes to expand the CalHome Program that provides loans to first-time homebuyers for down payments. Elgstrand noted this would require more funding, which might be difficult given California’s budget deficit. 

Arreguín intends to support future legislation to make the Tenant Protection Act permanent after it expires in 2030, according to Elgstrand. The act currently caps rent increases at 10% —Arreguín would support lowering this cap to 5%. 

“He will lead in his own way, but my hope is seniors, renters, and the working poor are the center of every decision,” Wahab said of Arreguín in the email.