Attainable Housing Spotlight: Siena Shaw
Siena’s connection to attainable housing comes from a deep history of working in built environments. In college, she studied environmental design at the University of Colorado Boulder and gained hands-on construction experience with a small residential design-build firm. Originally from Palo Alto, Siena has lived in Boulder, Madrid, and Brooklyn, and has called Santa Cruz home for the past eight years, where she currently works as an architect and runs a small architecture studio.
Siena joined the Regenerative California team last year as the Housing Engagement Stakeholder Lead. Her background in built environment allows her to understand the nuances of what it takes to get housing built and the importance of the collaboration between private and public sector professionals. “At its core, Regenerative California's attainable housing work is about building relationships and creating an ecosystem within Monterey County that makes attainable housing possible.”
Coming out of the two day Attainable Housing Forum in November 2025, Regenerative California created three sprint teams with the goal of implementing a design and scope for a capital fund for attainable housing, a land collective to help identify and accelerate opportunities for housing, and a master list of planning, permitting, and utility approval pain points to inform a proposal for streamlined, coordinated, and replicable processes..
As the Housing Stakeholder Engagement Lead, Siena works as a liaison for the sprint teams — connecting community stakeholders to one another in meaningful ways. She has found it very rewarding work, helping enable the conditions for the Forum to be a success by supporting the sprint teams this spring through collaborative meetings and sharing forums. “It is truly impressive to witness what is possible when people work together outside of traditional formats.”
The idea that housing design and construction must follow a status quo can make it difficult for some to see that innovative approaches are possible, but Siena believes that thinking outside the box can create a great outcome. “The most exciting opportunities emerge when aligned professionals collaborate to solve systemic problems in new ways.” Regenerative California celebrates doing things differently and pushing the boundaries to create real change in attainable housing.
For Siena, attainable housing in Monterey County looks like vibrant neighborhoods where residents can bike or walk to work because they live close to their jobs — reducing traffic and eliminating the long commutes many face today. It also looks like a variety of housing types in various locations, some that are currently underutilized.
She is hopeful that by connecting with those in the community and sharing Regenerative California’s Attainable Housing mission, we can reach our goal of activating a new pipeline of “missing middle” housing. “We all have value and can contribute to the attainable housing mission — sometimes simply by having a conversation with neighbors about their concerns, or listening with curiosity as someone shares what attainable housing means in the fabric of Monterey,” she shares. “Uncertainty can bring up resistance, but leaning in and learning can often help you understand what role you can play.”