In 2017, among other assaults on the rights of people of color and others,  the Trump administration moved quickly to gut a critical portion of the federal Fair Housing Act. In response, Public Advocates’ Sam Tepperman-Gelfant reached out to allies from the Western Center on Law & Poverty and the National Housing Law Project to craft legislation that would put the federal requirements to affirmatively further fair housing into state law in California. After a year of determined advocacy work, in September of 2018, Governor Brown signed AB 686, sponsored by Assembly member Miguel Santiago . Beginning in 2019, hundreds of cities, counties and state agencies in California were required to take proactive measures to fix housing inequality on the basis of race, national origin, disability and other protected classes. An important consequence of the law is that all cities and counties must reach out and engage constituents on issues of inequity and discrimination in housing. Public Advocates is currently involved in implementation of that watershed state law.