Spent time at my office today doing some housekeeping: sifting through old bill files, cleaning up my archives.

I still had a stack of papers — mostly letters — from SB 827 that was 11 inches tall. Today was a good Monday to finally go through them and put in binders.

[thread]

Most of what I remember from SB 827 was a blur of adrenaline, pride, anxiety, dread, accomplishment... complicated feelings.

The furious lies! Righteous anger! Innocent people with misinformation! Operatives with ulterior motives! Intelligent critics!

I barely slept for months.

(Maybe that’s why I’ve been avoiding archiving all these papers.)

I was expecting to see furious late night ballpoint scribbles on the margins, trying to debunk every argument point-by-point. The coffee stains, the wine stains, the dried starchy rings from the bottom of a mug of instant oatmeal, which was always my midnight snack in the office.

I dove into this 11 inch tall pile of paper and was surprised and overjoyed to find the dozens (hundreds?) of letters written to us from people all over the *country* who were excited about what we were doing and wanted to help.

Most weren’t “experts” in the credentialed sense.

There was an East LA high schooler who wanted SB 827 in his neighborhood, and sent thoughtful suggestions in a four page long typed letter. Young parents who “don’t have much to offer, just really want to help.” Tenants in SROs. One retired city planner in the Midwest. Teachers.

Journalism students wrote us letters in their personal capacities, asking how they could be a good reporter on the subject. City councilmembers wrote us from every corner of the country asking how they can do this in their communities. Little kids drew us pictures on cardstock.

Seniors in nursing homes would send us newspaper clippings with their handwriting on the side, and scrawled arrows pointing at buildings in their old neighborhoods they wanted more of for others.

Don’t have a hot take.. I just forgot until tonight how bananas that time was in early 2018. I’d mostly fixated on the hate mail and its lingering connection to my therapy bill, mostly from being gaslit by bad-faith strangers for so long on a project I was so proud of.

I guess I blocked out everything else, especially how these folks all came together without even realizing — how they were so inspired and energized. These folks independently got their decentralized imaginations cranking on this incredible (albeit imperfect) undertaking.

Zoning reform in California hasn’t happened yet at the scale we need it, but wow, *a lot* has been accomplished in that time.

I’m proud of the direction we steered the national public consciousness around zoning’s connection to climate change & fair housing with SB 827.

I’m also deeply grateful to the critics who hung with us for 2 more years, teaching their communities (and me!) so much along the way.

That’s all. Just a corny thread full of feelings for housing twitter tonight.