Empty Home Tax Campaign Newsletters

12/29/2021 – End of Year Newsletter

We hope the winter and holiday season has been happy and healthy for you and your loved ones. We are reaching out to update you on the Empty Home Tax Campaign and highlight opportunities for you to take action to ensure we get on the ballot and fund affordable housing in the City of Santa Cruz. 

As we have said before, this is a people powered campaign and it is going to take a BIG push over the next three months to make sure we are successful. Like you, we know and love this community and want to make sure Santa Cruz is a place for all of us!

• We were approved by the City of Santa Cruz October 27th, 2021 to begin collecting signatures to get the Empty Home Tax on the November 2022 ballot.
• Our incredible volunteers hit the streets on October 29th and began collecting signatures on petitions to advance our goal of at least 5000 signatures by the end of March 2022. We have been at the Farmers Markets, special events, and hitting up our friends and family wherever and whenever we can. 
• We have collected over 1000 signatures to date and are currently verifying these signatures. Only signatures from those registered in the City of Santa Cruz count.
• 102 individual donors have donated to the campaign  raising $10,692; with the largest donation being $700 and the smallest  being $5, average donation $104.82. This money has been used to pay for legal fees, web hosting, filing fees, tabling supplies and printing costs. All labor is being donated by volunteers and we have no paid staff. YOUR DONATIONS are what allowed us to launch this community drive campaign and without your generosity we would have not ever made it off the ground!
• 58 of your neighbors have been out there collecting signatures either staffing tabling efforts or hitting up their friends and family. BIG THANKS to all who have been putting in the work by donating their time!

As you can see from the list above  there is a ground swell of momentum building for this straightforward effort to meet our communities call out for affordable housing. We definitely need to grow our efforts to ensure we have the valid signatures we need by the end of March 2022. Here is how you can help→

• We need money to keep the lights on…Ok not really the lights since we don’t have an office, but to pay for printing, supplies, web hosting, etc. If you can give please donate  and spread the link https://emptyhometax.org/support-yes-on-empty-home-tax-2022/ 
• We need more people power! We need you to take on whatever you are up for. We need Location Captains which coordinate volunteers for a certain location or event and Signature Gatherers who do the good work of getting signatures from our community. Both are super easy and fun, no experience needed, all training and supplies provided. Visit here  to sign up for a shift or email volunteer@emptyhometax.org and we will get you plugged in. 
• If you haven’t signed the petition and want to, email volunteer@emptyhometax.org and we will come to you!
• If you have signed the petition please CHECK THAT YOUR VOTER REGISTRATION IS UP TO DATE https://registertovote.ca.gov/ 

We look forward to seeing in the New Year and building the Santa Cruz we want together!

Thanks and we hope to see you soon!

The Empty Home Tax Team