CHC Policy Context & Objectives

Together with education and job creation, safe, decent and affordable housing is critical to fostering vibrant communities as the backbone to a healthy California economy.  Because the cost of housing is so expensive in California, housing choice is increasingly constrained: over half of renters and one-third of homeowners pay more than 30 percent of their monthly income for housing. With the highest home prices in the nation, a significant number of Californians are denied the opportunity for home ownership -- the state ranks second to last in the rate of homeownership. Even more alarming, the dearth of affordable multi-family rental product means that working families increasingly live further away from jobs – putting a strain on our transportation, education, and health, and enabling development patterns that are not at all environmentally sustainable.  

With over 3 million new jobs and 6 million new residents -- largely homegrown -- projected over the next ten years, affordable housing choices proximate to jobs and transit are elemental requirements.  Whereas the State's Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) estimates an annual need of 225,000-250,000 new housing units each year, on overage over the past decade only 155,000 units have been created annually. In addition to accumulating a deficit of 650,000 units, with the majority of new housing units being single-family detached product heading east to the Sierra Foothills instead of multi-family housing near jobs and transit, we are embarked on an unsustainable development pattern that threatens California's environment and indeed our economic future.  Increasingly, our children are being displaced by virtue of insurmountable housing costs -- causing a drain in our educated workforce and putting the state's economic future in doubt.

With California's jobs-housing imbalance exacerbated each year by overlooking opportunities for infill development convenient to job centers and transportation services, CHC efforts are all about increasing housing choice in the state.  In advocating comprehensive land use planning and catalytic public funding to address the steady growth of 500,000 new people every year, CHC is also committed to encouraging environmentally sustainable building practices and energy efficient solutions to enhancing housing affordability. 

CHC Education and Advocacy Efforts

Given the complexity of the California housing need, a multi-phase and multi-year approach is necessary to begin to change the housing landscape within our great state. The following policy approaches are recommended to help improve the development environment and boost affordable housing production in California.

1. Create Rental Housing Solutions

• Expand multifamily housing in all communities. State fiscal policies and housing efforts should promote a full range of housing, including multi- family rental housing in all communities.
• Ensure that affordable housing remains affordable. Increase efforts at the state level to preserve the existing stock of federally subsidized housing

 2. Promote California’s Homeownership Rate

• Raise California’s homeownership rate. California has the second lowest homeownership rate in the nation. Low interest rates present favorable conditions for helping more households become homeowners.
• Efforts to expand homeownership should focus on private sector partnerships. State leadership can play a key role by convening financial institutions and major employers to urge them to participate in successful homeownership approaches.

3. Give Families a Chance

• Pledge investment in people and their homes with a state investment of at least $500-600 million per year in housing production stimulus. Redirect state funding sources to affordable housing. A permanent housing subsidy source could be linked to housing-related revenues.
• Expanding successful housing programs. While the state-allocated tax-exempt bond and low-income housing tax credit programs have been expanded they are still heavily oversubscribed and should be targeted for further expansion.

4. Housing Alone is Not Enough

• Integrate child care and job training at home by making funds available so that affordable housing developments include space for necessary on-site social supports, including child care and job training.
• Foster stable, self-sufficient living through more supportive housing.

5. Focus on a Fundamental Need for Californians

• Set shared state housing priorities through increased coordination by all of the state’s housing finance agencies. Reduce red tape in programs.
• Communicate successes by having the State play a highly visible role in promoting housing solutions.