People Behind the Plans: Kate Hartley

Kate Hartley laughs when talking about what could have been if she had chased a career in legal history, the academic path she started out on while at the University of California, Berkeley. But after taking a couple urban planning classes on a whim, she never looked back. Nowadays, Kate focuses on all things housing as the director of the Mayor's Office of Housing and Community Development (MOHCD) in San Francisco. She and Courtney discuss how the Affordable Housing Bonus Program leverages incentives to create affordable housing and why it's so difficult to deliver units for middle-income households in the city. Kate praises the Mission Action Plan 2020, which focuses on decelerating the rate of eviction and displacement in the famed neighborhood. She talks about the challenges inherent in her work but also projects from other cities that inspire her, such as Vancouver's investment in modular housing for homeless households.