This week in housing news, Governor Newsom completed his 100th day in office, prompting several progress reviews on some of his major campaign commitments, including his proposal to build 3.5 million homes by 2025.
After spring recess, the legislative session resumes on Monday, with policy committees reviewing dozens of housing bills before they move in May to the full Assembly and Senate. Many of the Governor’s budget proposals, including plans to build affordable housing on surplus public land and expand the state’s Low-Income Housing Tax Credit, also continue to advance ahead of the June budget deadline.
Underscoring the urgency for state action, a new series by EdSource shows how rising rents and stagnating wages are making it difficult for teachers to pay for housing and live in the communities where they work. The Mercury News urges the state to follow the lead of the City of San Jose, where the city council unanimously voted in April to allocate at least 45 percent of available affordable housing funding toward extremely low-income residents most at risk of becoming homeless.
STATE HOUSING POLICIES
Gavin Newsom plays to a bigger audience as California’s problems await action
San Francisco Chronicle
Housing: Seeking to build 3.5 million homes in California by 2025, Newsom has proposed $1.75 billion worth of tax credits, grants and incentives to spur development. He sent a warning to reluctant cities in January by suing Huntington Beach in Orange County for not planning enough affordable housing to meet a state mandate. And he is pursuing legislation to withhold transportation funding from communities that fall short of their housing targets. Newsom wants to give cities $500 million to open emergency shelters and Navigation Centers, which connect homeless people with drug treatment, counseling and permanent housing, and waive environmental rules to ease their construction.
What a new California bill could mean for San Diego housing
San Diego Union-Tribune
A state senate bill making its way through Sacramento could mean high density housing gets built along transit stops throughout San Diego County. That could mean new apartment buildings along the Coaster commuter train in North County, or all the way down to the border next to the San Diego Trolley. The way the bill is written, it would prevent communities from doing too much to stop zoning changes. Senate Bill 50, from state Sen. Scott Weiner (D-San Francisco), has passed its first legislative hurdle by moving out of the state’s housing committee. But, it faces much opposition from communities dominated by single-family homes and tenants rights groups worried about displacement.
LA takes a stand against SB 50
Curbed
The city of Los Angeles is siding against Senate Bill 50, with elected leaders arguing not against density—but market rate housing. On a 12-0 vote, the City Council adopted a resolution opposing the bill, which seeks to allow apartment and condo buildings up to five stories tall near some bus stops and train stations, even in areas zoned strictly for single-family homes. The goal is to increase the supply of housing and drive down prices for both renters and buyers. But councilmembers argued the bill would encourage more market rate housing that Los Angeles does not need, without protecting existing affordable housing and promoting more of it.
Editorial: California should follow SJ’s lead on affordable housing
Mercury News
San Jose is showing the way on fighting homelessness. The City Council on Tuesday unanimously approved what national housing experts believe is a first-in-the-nation effort, devoting 45 percent of its available affordable-housing funding toward the extremely low-income residents, who are the most at risk of becoming homeless. The move builds on Santa Clara County’s 2016 Measure A bond that allocates $700 million for extremely low-income housing. It’s a model that should be emulated by cities and counties throughout the Bay Area. Gov. Gavin Newsom should jump on board and offer additional state allocations for cities providing more affordable housing funds for their lowest-income residents.
HOUSING CRISIS
California’s Teacher Housing Crunch
EdSource
Many teachers at the bottom of the pay scale are getting shut out of housing they can afford. Even teachers earning average or the highest salaries face struggles paying the rent, especially in the high-cost coastal and metro areas. An EdSource analysis of teacher salaries and rents reveals just how crushing California’s housing crisis has become for many teachers. They are coping by sharing homes with others, making do with less space, and, as occurred this year in Los Angeles and Oakland, by striking for high salaries. But, as some teachers have found, even a hefty raise won’t help them find housing they can afford.
How could California solve the housing crisis? We asked the experts
Sacramento Bee
California’s housing crisis has reached epic proportions. The state’s median home value has increased almost 80 percent in just the last eight years, and is now more than half a million dollars. Fewer than one-third of Californians can now afford a median-priced home, while a majority of renters spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing. The housing shortage means that more than half a million California workers now have one-way commutes of more than 90 minutes. Gov. Gavin Newsom has called for an unprecedented increase in the amount of housing construction, promising to build half a million houses every year for the next seven years.
TENANT PROTECTION
Rent Control Policies Gaining Momentum Across America
Next City
Rent control is once again gaining momentum in America. A long-held economic theory about rent control is that the approach actually hurts affordability over the long term by constricting supply, for example by incentivizing landlords to convert rental units into condos. Across the United States, there’s evidence that the economic arguments against rent control are no longer as compelling to as many people as they once were. In February, Oregon became the first state in the U.S. to adopt a statewide policy limiting annual rent increases. In March, lawmakers in Sacramento introduced a package of bills aimed at easing California’s affordability crisis, including measures to cap annual rent increases and allow cities to expand their rent control laws.
L.A. City Council moves to outlaw discrimination against Section 8 tenants
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday moved forward with a law that would bar landlords from refusing to consider tenants with Section 8 vouchers. In a 12-0 vote, the council instructed the city attorney to draft an ordinance that would extend protections against so-called source-of-income discrimination to people who pay with vouchers. Housing advocates say the law is needed because Section 8 bans are often used as a proxy to discriminate by race or class, and research has shown landlord acceptance rates are higher in places with the ordinances.
San Jose housing developers voice concern with Ellis Act
San Jose Spotlight
Ramon Navarro Johnson lost his rent-controlled apartment in 2015 when his landlord decided to charge market rate. “I was abruptly displaced from my home, could not find other affordable housing options (and) ended up homeless for a year and a half,” he said. Johnson now has stable housing, but said he still suffers the effects of his displacement, which took a hit on his health and has moved him farther from his support system. For the last few months, he’s been advocating that the San Jose City Council not weaken protections to its rent control law. Earlier this year, Mayor Sam Liccardo and Vice Mayor Chappie Jones requested that city officials study whether the current Ellis Act law was impeding development. The pair claimed they had heard “anecdotal evidence” that it was making it harder for developers to build housing.
AFFORDABLE HOUSING CONSTRUCTION
Opinion: California must invest in workforce to meet housing goals
Mercury News
Burdensome regulations and exclusionary zoning are not the only barriers to solving California’s persistent housing crisis. Even under the rosiest of regulatory scenarios, California’s residential construction industry needs at least 200,000 new workers to produce enough new housing to improve affordability. But it is struggling to compete for them. Industry leaders often claim it’s because “Young people don’t want to get their hands dirty;” “Parents are pushing college instead of vocational training;” or because “Schools have abandoned shop classes.” Actually, research shows that the seeds for today’s housing construction labor shortage were planted by the homebuilding industry itself — more than three decades ago.
HOMELESSNESS
Gov. Gavin Newsom talks homelessness with San Bernardino County officials
San Bernardino Sun
San Bernardino County’s work converting hotels and motels into housing for the homeless was among several initiatives that grabbed the attention of Gov. Gavin Newsom, who was in town Tuesday, April 16 to learn more about the county’s efforts to combat homelessness. Newsom, who met with county leaders and formerly homeless people and service providers at the Arrowhead McKee Family Health Center, said he heard some big ideas to take back to Sacramento. “There are a lot of wonderful things happening at the local level,” Newsom said, while sitting next to Philip Mangano, chief executive of the American Roundtable to Abolish Homelessness, and Gary McBride, chief executive of San Bernardino County.