Another Announcement

The past three months have been a wild time. I don’t just mean that in the global sense, although both the United States and the world as a whole certainly feel more volatile than at any point in my lifetime. Times have also been personally wild: I became a father a little over three months ago, and shortly afterward signed a book deal with Island Press.

Needless to say, all of this—including national and geopolitical events, but especially the birth of my daughter—has shifted my priorities. And reflecting on that change in priorities over the past few months has led me to a difficult decision: I am leaving my job at California YIMBY.

Here’s the thing. California YIMBY was something of a dream job for me. I care deeply about the organization’s mission, and I adore the people I worked with there. The staff of California YIMBY is the most uniformly brilliant and driven group I’ve ever had the privilege of calling my colleagues. We’re lucky that they’re giving so much of themselves to the project of ending California’s housing crisis.

But that’s why I decided to leave: Because I’m no longer at a stage in my life where I can give as much as my coworkers. I need more time in the mornings and evenings with my daughter, and I need more time during the day to work on my book. Especially at certain points on the legislative calendar, I simply can’t balance those responsibilities with the role of policy director—not if I want to do right by my colleagues and California YIMBY’s mission.

That said, I do still need to earn a living. And I can’t bring myself to drop out of the fight entirely. There’s a lot of work to do—both to end the housing crisis and resist the encroachment of American fascism—and I would like to contribute in a way that is sustainable for me and my family.

So here’s what I’m going to do, on top of parenting and writing my book. First, I’m honored to join the Roosevelt Institute as a housing policy fellow. For the next couple of years, I’ll be publishing the occasional white paper and essay through Roosevelt, and hopefully contributing in some small way to the national policy conversation around housing abundance.

Second, I’m going to be advising nonprofit organizations and public agencies around the country. Through my new LLC—the creatively named Resnikoff Consulting—I’ll carry on some of the work I did as policy director for California YIMBY, but for a wider pool of organizations and on a part-time, contractual basis. As part of my consulting work, I’ve also joined a great group of other independent consultants called the EQ Collaborative. When I have clients that need more capacity than I can provide on my own, members of the collaborative will be there to contribute (and vice versa).

Third, as time allows, I will continue to write in various venues for a general audience. (Stay tuned for a forthcoming piece from Business Inside on the tremendous upzoning just passed in Cambridge, Massachusetts.)

You may be wondering where that leaves this newsletter. Honestly, I haven’t decided yet. One option is for me to keep it as is: a place for me to drop a short essay every month or two, usually because it’s a bit too woolly for me to pitch it to a respectable publication. Another option, now that I’m officially self-employed, is to start publishing here more frequently and introduce a paid subscriber tier.

Of course, publishing enough to make paid subscriptions worth anyone’s while is a lot of work. So if I’m going to do it, it would also need to be worth my while. I don’t yet know what it would look like for this newsletter to generate enough income to justify the work I put into it.

So I’m asking for your input. If you’re interested in a paid subscription tier—and have thoughts about what you’d like to see out of it—then please drop me a line. And if you or your organization is interested in retaining my consulting services, then definitely hit me up. You can find my contact form here and more information about the services I offer here.

Given the volatility of, well, everything right now—and especially given the fact that I’m a new dad—quitting a good job and going into business for myself feels like one of the most reckless things I’ve ever done. But I’ve thought about it a lot, and discussed it at length with my wife, and we both agree that it’s worth a shot. I’m pretty nervous about this next chapter, but excited too.