This week in affordable housing news…

State policy activity:

• The Legislature completed its regular session this week, but failed to advance a wide range of affordable housing bills before the midnight deadline on Monday—due to a variety of factors, including political challenges, tight timelines due to COVID-19, and tensions between the Assembly and Senate.
• “I’m not going to sugarcoat it,” said Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) on a panel this week co-presented by CHC and Housing California. “The Legislature failed on housing this year. We had the opportunity to have a very strong and robust housing year…but the Legislature did not do what it needs to do on some really good bills that should be on the Governor’s desk right now.”
• Several affordable housing bills supported by CHC did make it to the Governor, including AB 2345 (Gonzalez), a bill to increase density bonuses for developments with higher percentages of units for low-income and extremely-low-income households, and AB 434 (Daly), a bill to create a single application for programs within the state’s Multifamily Housing Program. A major new renter protection bill, AB 3088 (Chiu), has already been signed by the Governor.
• Among the bills that did not move to the Governor’s desk this year: All five bills in the Senate housing package, including SB 902 (Wiener), SB 995 (Atkins), SB 1085 (Skinner), SB 1120 (Atkins), and SB 1385 (Caballero).
• Several other major bills to open new sites to affordable housing and accelerate production also did not make it to the final weekend of the session, including among others: AB 3107 (Bloom), AB 1907 (Santiago), AB 1279 (Bloom), AB 2988 (Chu), and SB 899 (Wiener).

Federal update:

• The Senate is scheduled to return on September 9 and the House on September 15, when negotiations may begin again on the next phase of federal stimulus. The $600-a-week unemployment benefits included in the first phase of stimulus, which helped millions of tenants pay rent, expired at the end of July.

ICYMI – Top news stories:

California renters to receive COVID-19 eviction protections under bill signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom
Los Angeles Times
Gov. Gavin Newsom and the state Legislature acted Monday to avert a housing crisis by approving legislation to extend protections against evictions by five months for California renters facing financial hardship because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Newsom signed the bill just before midnight, hours after it was approved in two-thirds votes of both houses of the state Legislature on Monday, the last day of this year’s session.

Major housing, police bills died when squabbling California lawmakers ran out of time
San Francisco Chronicle
Leaders at the California Capitol tried desperately this year to keep business on track and set lofty policy goals despite the interruptions of a global pandemic. But in the end, 2020 had the last word. The California Legislature adjourned at 1:29 a.m. Tuesday, ending a session that was repeatedly thrown off course by the coronavirus. Many of the biggest policy issues died without final votes.

Fatal final day: Why major California proposals died
CalMatters
Gov. Gavin Newsom made his 2020 priorities for California very clear in his February State of the State speech: Address homelessness and pass a major housing production bill. But the state’s highest-profile housing bill died minutes before the legislative session ended Monday amid political infighting. Other ambitious legislation met a similar fate.