Happy New Year!

Happy 2023! I hope everyone had a great New Year’s and is as excited as we are to be back in the office. [1] I also hope you’re excited for the first CCB newsletter of the year!

In this month’s edition of the California Community Blog [2], we’ve got a couple things on deck. First, I’m excited to share a short piece I wrote on a question we get every now and again: “Why homeownership?” It’s been on the to-do list for a while, so we decided to give the people what they want. As you’ll see, it’s an issue where we have strong feelings but do our best to leave room for nuance.

Second, we share a little about what's coming up for CCB in 2023. We’re really excited about the things that we have lined up for this year and wanted to give everyone a sneak preview. We’re also excited to share because we know that every idea has room for improvement, so we’d love your feedback and thoughts about our work.[3]

If any of what we describe is confusing or doesn't make sense, we hope you'll let us know. If you're one of the folks that actually reads these newsletters, [4] you're probably at least moderately invested in our work, and if you don't understand what we do it's likely that no one else does. So we hope you'll give us a shout if anything doesn't make sense, doesn’t add up, or even if you have a cool idea you think might be good for us to work on.

Lastly, in what’s becoming an annual tradition, I’d like to remind everyone that when things get tough this year — stalled legislation, a grant doesn’t come through, your work-life balance is laughably bad — let’s draw inspiration from all of the amazing activists that came before us and persevered through so much. For me that’s Fannie Lou Hamer and her quote up top.

Have a wonderful week everyone, look forward to checking in again next month!

PS - You can read the full newsletter that was sent out to our subscribers here!