As the mayor of Berkeley, state Sen. Jesse Arreguín pushed to build more homes in the well-off and famously liberal community in the San Francisco Bay Area. Yet, he is still a renter in that area and was evicted several times while growing up in San Francisco, he said. 

That experience gives him a perspective that he said he will use to help shape California’s housing and homelessness future as chair of the Senate Housing Committee.

“I know what it’s like to lose your home and how scary and challenging it is to not have a place to live, and there are thousands of people in our state who experience that on a weekly, if not monthly, basis,” the Berkeley Democrat told The Sacramento Bee in a recent interview. “So, that’s why I’m really focused on not just building homes but also protecting our neighbors from homelessness.”

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