This week in affordable housing news, voters appear poised to reject a $9 billion statewide school bond that included several provisions aimed at boosting affordable housing development. According to the Los Angeles Times, the measure is currently trailing with only 44% of voters in support. The bond, which would fund school construction projects statewide, requires a simple majority to pass. “It’s certainly one of the big surprises of last night that a state bond on a ballot in … the Democratic presidential primary with Bernie Sanders leading all the other candidates failed to reach majority support,” said Mark Baldassare, president of the Public Policy Institute of California. The LAT attributes the outcome to potential voter confusion about the measure’s relationship to the “original” Prop 13 and a separate split-roll initiative on the November ballot. “Confusion is the friend of the ‘no’ vote,” said Jeff Vincent, a director at the Center for Cities and Schools at UC Berkeley.

Two other noteworthy Bay Area housing measures seem headed for victory: San Jose Measure E, which would raise $73 million annually for affordable housing and homeless services through a new real estate transfer tax, is leading with 54% of the vote, according to the San Jose Mercury News. A San Francisco initiative, Proposition E, is also leading with 55% of voters in support, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. That measure would tie allowable office construction to the amount of affordable housing built in the city. Finally, with the Democratic presidential field shrinking dramatically this week, the New York Times takes a closer look at the housing plans of the remaining contenders: Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders. Senator Sanders has proposed nearly $1.5 trillion in funding over 10 years for the National Housing Trust Fund, $400 billion for the National Affordable Housing Trust Fund, $500 million for affordable housing in rural areas, and another $15 billion “to purchase and revitalize abandoned properties” on behalf of historically disadvantaged groups. Senator Biden would create a new $100 billion Affordable Housing Fund to construct and upgrade affordable housing, paired with $5 billion for the HOME program, a $20 billion allocation to the HTF, an expansion of the LIHTC, and $5 billion per year for renters whose rent and utilities exceed 30% of their income.

HOUSING CRISIS

How the Democratic Candidates Would Tackle the Housing Crisis
New York Times
More than 550,000 people in the United States are homeless on any given night. More than 18 million spend more than half of their income on housing. And there is no state in which the number of affordable homes matches the number of low-income households. Affordable housing, or the lack thereof, is a crisis no matter which way you slice it, and has been for many years.

Bay Area Voters Support Housing and Homeless Funding Measures
KQED
San Francisco voters chose to limit office development, while voters in other Bay Area cities approved taxes to pay for affordable housing, park maintenance, homeless services and child care subsidies. And in Mountain View, voters rejected a measure that could have allowed for higher annual rent increases.

SF’s Proposition E, new limits on office development, has sizable lead
San Francisco Chronicle
A San Francisco ballot measure to put new limits on office development was holding a hefty lead Tuesday night. Proposition E, which would tie allowable office construction to the amount of affordable housing built in the city, was ahead 55% to 45% with 100% of precincts reporting. The measure needs a simple majority to pass, but an unknown number of mail-in ballots were still outstanding.

San Jose tax measure meant for affordable housing holds lead
San Jose Mercury News
Voters are backing a new San Jose tax aimed at raising tens of millions of dollars to ease the chronic shortage of affordable housing and address the homeless crisis in the nation’s 10th largest city. For months, affordable housing advocates and San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo have campaigned hard for Measure E — a tax on the sale of San Jose properties worth $2 million or more — which was commanding nearly 54 percent of the vote early Wednesday.

Contra Costa County tax meant to tame traffic appears headed for defeat
San Jose Mercury News
A Contra Costa County sales tax measure that would raise money for transportation projects appeared headed for defeat Tuesday night, falling well short of the two-thirds majority it needs to pass. Marin and Sonoma counties had quarter-cent sales taxes on their ballots that would extend funding for the fledgling SMART rail line. But those measures were also far short Tuesday night of the two-thirds support they needed. The races could offer an early indication of how voters will receive a Bay Area-wide “mega-measure” to fund big transportation projects around the region, which backers are hoping to put on the November ballot.

Podcast: ‘The Governator’ on housing, homelessness and Gold’s Gym
CalMatters
On this episode of “Gimme Shelter: The California Housing Crisis Podcast,” CalMatters’ Matt Levin and The Los Angeles Times’ Liam Dillon interview former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on how he’d terminate California’s housing shortage. Schwarzenegger says the crisis goes back to laws limiting growth and construction in the 1980s. That restriction of supply was good for the housing market, but “bad for the people.”

LOCAL HOUSING INITIATIVES

Nonprofit seeks developers to take first bites of Apple’s $2.5B housing commitment
San Jose Spotlight
Nearly four months to the day after Apple Inc. promised $2.5 billion to spur housing and address homelessness in the Bay Area, the first $150 million of that commitment is up for grabs by developers. Cupertino-based Apple in November granted San Jose-based nonprofit Housing Trust Silicon Valley the $150 million to use for low-interest loans for hard-to-fund affordable housing developments.

‘We are fed up:’ New surge of housing activism forces change in Oakland
East Bay Times
The evidence is everywhere — from people squatting in a house they don’t own, to tenants refusing to pay rent, to shouts of “housing is a human right” ringing across the city. Oaklanders have had enough. Pushed to the breaking point by the city’s staggering rent and housing prices, Oakland residents are responding in ways that are increasingly bold, desperate — and sometimes illegal.

HOMELESSNESS

L.A. officials are getting serious about overhauling this top homeless services agency
Los Angeles Times
Given its name, it’s not surprising that many view the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority as a one-stop shop for solving the county’s homelessness crisis. Yet it’s the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services that tends to people on the streets with physical ailments and the Department of Mental Health that serves mentally ill homeless people. And it’s the city that has taken the responsibility of building permanent supportive housing, and it’s the county that funds the services.

Editorial: Housing units are sitting empty while L.A.’s homeless languish on the streets
Los Angeles Times
The effort to house homeless people in the Los Angeles area is beset by many problems — the difficulty finding sites for new housing projects, the resistance from neighbors, the slow pace of construction, the high cost. One thing that shouldn’t be difficult, though, is keeping track of what housing is available for unsheltered people to move into and when it’s available.