CHC History

 
The California Housing Consortium (CHC) was founded in 1997 to complement the efforts of established regional associations of non-profit housing developers and service providers by bringing together the private, non-profit, and public sectors in a non-partison effort to greatly enhance the delivery of affordable housing in California.  CHC was originally formed as a 501(c)6 membership organization dedicated to building consensus across the diverse housing industry on issues ranging from expanding and making permanent the low-income housing tax credit program and increasing the tax exempt bond cap to stabilizing Section 8 funding and advancing state general obligation bonds to spur more private sector lending and investment in affordable housign production. 

In 2004 the CHC Institute was approved by the IRS as a 501(c)3 tax-exempt education and advocacy organization. In an effort to champion housing policies in California, the CHC/CHC Institute advocates for practical improvements impacting housing production, such as sustaining catalytic public funding, imporoving land use planning, and pursuing prudent regulatory reforms.

To the extent that CHC/CHC Institute becomes involved in legislative campaigning, such as promoting the $2.85 billion general obligation bond initiative passed by California voters in 2006, we have done so within the parameters of a 501(c)4 campaign entity known as HOMES4CA.ORG.  In January 2006 CHC entered into a joint venture agreement with Housing California, a Sacramento-based housing advocacy organization comprised of non-profit housing development and social services organizations.  In addition to participating in the development of required enabling legislation in 2007 for over $1 billion in PROP 1C funding for infill- and transit-oriented development, the HOMES4CA.ORG entity will serve as a catylst for building a broad coalition within the housing industry to advance a so-called 'permanent source' -- the establishment of a 'pay-as-we-go' state housing trust fund to obviate the need for periodic general

obligation bonds to address California's affordable housing crisis.