While we wait for Governor Brown’s signature on the housing package, it is not too early to reflect on the past year and the legislative votes that took place on September 14th and 15th. We have ended many years lamenting a near miss or celebrating small victories or being frustrated by a gubernatorial veto. This year, however, is a much different story. In often tense (the SB 2 vote stayed open for an hour, 3 votes short) and dramatic (Assemblyman Maienschein’s aye vote on SB 2, giving us the 54 votes we needed) fashion, the Legislature passed our key housing bills and took significant steps that will help begin to turn the tide on California’s housing catastrophe. It took an amazing team effort, collaboration with important partners, and the work of key elected leaders to make all this happen. Every legislator is now on record, one way or another, on affordable housing. We thank those who have emerged as true champions and we will continue to educate those who let us down. Regardless, the work that you all do to provide affordable housing to those who need it was finally recognized as critical to California’s future.
Many of you have reached out to me and shared how gratifying it is to see the decades of advocacy work of the affordable housing industry, and CHC’s specific efforts as well, pay off in such a momentous way. Emphasizing advocacy, education and collaboration with our important partners, we not only achieved passage of our key funding bills, SB 2 (Atkins) and SB 3 (Beall) , but we also secured AB 72 (Santiago and Chiu) , AB 1397 (Low) and AB 1505 (Bloom, Chiu and Gloria) , measures that achieve enforcement of local planning obligations and provide tools for local governments to build inclusive communities.
I want to congratulate and thank each one of you. It is because of your commitment to CHC’s mission and your collaboration toward solutions to put affordable homes in reach for low- and moderate-income Californians that the housing package includes our key bills. Every call and email, visit to a legislator, story that you shared about a family whose life was improved – it all added up and made a difference in pushing our elected leaders to act on the housing crisis.
We started this legislative year knowing we faced steep hurdles in making housing a priority, for many reasons. But together, we leveraged our expertise and relationships and created a rallying cry that could not be ignored – relentlessly pushing, as CHC’s mission states, for every Californian to have a safe, affordable place to call home.
Legislators are home in their districts on recess until January so please take time to sincerely thank our elected leaders who worked with us help struggling Californians have affordable homes. Give them a call, say thank you on Twitter, visit their offices and invite them to your next project groundbreaking or a program at one of your sites. Congratulations again to all of you for a job well done in 2017.
Sincerely,
Ray Pearl
CHC Executive Director
