Mercury News: On a roll: Affordable housing advocates pack a San Francisco hotel and say they’re winning the battle

With all the persistent ranting about the housing crisis — how intractable it is, how it’s driving middle class and poor people from the Bay Area, and how there are no solutions in sight — one might think an affordable housing conference would collapse under the weight of all that collective pessimism. “Standing Together” — the title of Friday’s 38th annual conference sponsored by the Non-Profit Housing Association of Northern California (NPH) — was the biggest one of these events yet. Fueled by Gov. Jerry Brown’s signing last week of a dozen bills aimed at addressing the state’s affordable housing crisis, about 850 affordable housing advocates — policy wonks, finance wizards, architects, grassroots organizers, contractors, tenants, public office holders — crowded lobbies and conference rooms at the Hilton San Francisco Union Square hotel.