SV@Home is partnering with the Gilroy Housing Coalition to help advance community-driven strategies that address the city’s significant housing challenges, including high cost burdens, overcrowding, and a severe mismatch between wages and available affordable homes. Through monthly meetings, SV@Home provides policy expertise, technical assistance, and organizing support to help the coalition align its goals with Gilroy’s Housing Element and develop a strong displacement prevention framework. Together, we are working to protect long-time residents, strengthen community identity, and expand access to safe, stable, and affordable housing for all in Gilroy.

SV@Home is proud to partner with the Gilroy Housing Coalition, a collaborative group of local organizers, nonprofit service providers, and community leaders working together to advance housing justice in South County. Our work is supported in part by a grant from United Way Bay Area (UWBA), who also participates in coalition meetings and helps guide the coalition’s community-centered strategy.

Gilroy’s Housing Element provided a key opportunity for the Coalition to advance tenant protections in the city: Housing Element Program F-5 has key deadlines to research, develop and adopt a Displacement Prevention Policy within a year from now. As the City develops its displacement prevention policy and works to implement other Housing Element commitments, SV@Home will continue supporting the Gilroy Housing Coalition to ensure Gilroy’s future protects long-time residents, strengthens community identity, and expands access to safe, stable, and affordable homes for all.

Gilroy faces significant housing challenges that underscore the urgency of the coalition’s work. More than a third of Gilroy residents rent their homes (37.15%), and many struggle with affordability:

• 47% of renter households—nearly 3,000 families—are cost-burdened, spending 30–50% of their income on housing.
• 23% of renter households (1,434 families) are severely cost-burdened, spending more than half their income on rent.
• Overcrowding also remains a critical issue: nearly 12% of rental homes are overcrowded, and 205 renter households are severely overcrowded, contributing to health and safety concerns.
• Gilroy’s jobs-housing ratio further highlights the mismatch between wages and available housing. With 6.1 low-wage jobs for every low-cost rental home, low-income workers—many of whom are farmworkers, service workers, and essential laborers—face intense competition for too few affordable units.

These pressures disproportionately affect communities of color. In 2023, 57% of Gilroy’s population was Latinx, a significantly higher proportion than the Bay Area overall, underscoring the importance of culturally competent, multilingual outreach and tenant support.

View SV@Home’s website for more data and sources on Gilroy’s housing needs.

Grounded in the lived experiences of Gilroy residents, the Gilroy Housing Coalition developed four core goals:

• Prevent displacement before it happens
• Preserve affordable housing
• Produce new affordable units
• Support residents who have been displaced and/or fallen into homelessness

Through monthly strategy meetings, SV@Home provides technical assistance, policy research, and organizing support to help the Gilroy Housing Coalition build a strong and actionable housing justice agenda. Our work includes:

• Educating members on tenant protection tools such as rent stabilization, Just Cause Eviction, anti-harassment protections, and mobile home tenant rights
• Helping the coalition align its goals with the City’s Housing Element 
• Supporting outreach to elected officials and city staff
• Providing policy models based on successes in other Santa Clara County cities

If you are interested in supporting this work in Gilroy, reach out to our Tenant Protection and Empowerment Associate, Emily Ann Ramos at emily@siliconvalleyathome.org.