This week in affordable housing news…:

• Governor Newsom signed a $7.6 billion economic stimulus package this week that will provide $600 payments to 5.7 million lower-income Californians, including people earning less than $30,000 a year, undocumented workers excluded from federal coronavirus relief, and low-income seniors and disabled residents who qualify for federal income support programs.
  “As millions of Californians are struggling to make ends meet amid the devastating impacts of this pandemic, we are taking immediate action in partnership with our legislative leadership to provide families and businesses the relief they need,” Newsom said in a statement.

• Multi-family housing permits declined by 18.5% across the state in 2020, contributing to an 8.8% overall decline in housing permitting compared to the prior year, according to a new economic update from the Department of Finance. Housing units authorized by building permits averaged 102,800 in 2020, including 44,300 multi-family units. This followed a 3.8% decline in housing permits in 2019.

• Tia Boatman Patterson, former executive director of the California Housing Finance Agency, has joined the White House Office of Management and Budget as associate director for Housing, Treasury and Commerce. Boatman Patterson had served as CalHFA director since 2014, developing a number of innovative programs and new collaborations between the state’s housing finance agencies—including a groundbreaking partnership with TCAC to create a joint application for developments seeking Low Income Housing Tax Credits and CalHFA financing. According to a release from CalHFA, Governor Newsom has named Don Cavier as Acting Executive Director until a permanent replacement is appointed. Since 2015, Cavier has served as CalHFA’s Chief Deputy Director.

Federal update:

• The House is on track to vote today on a $1.9 trillion federal stimulus package, one day after the Senate’s chief rulemaker determined that a major part of the bill—boosting the federal minimum to $15—could not be included in the legislation. Even without the minimum wage increase, the House bill includes $1,400-per-person stimulus checks and an extension of $400-per-week unemployment benefits through August, along with $129 billion for K-12 schools and $30 billion in rental assistance.

• The Senate is expected to take up the measure ahead of a March 14 deadline, when the December relief bill’s unemployment benefits expire.

ICYMI – Top news stories:

Editorial: California’s housing crisis darkens amid glimmers of progress in the Bay Area
San Francisco Chronicle
While the pandemic-induced downturn has eased stratospheric rents in San Francisco and other parts of the Bay Area, it has only exacerbated the underlying cause of unaffordable housing: a chronic shortage of homes and apartments. State statistics show 2020 marked yet another horrible year for housing construction in California, suggesting any immediate relief from the crisis will be fleeting at best. The continuing slump comes at a time of dramatically diminished attempts to address the shortage in the Legislature, which has struggled since 2017 to pass bills to boost the housing supply. Perhaps the best hope for turning around the state’s historical hostility to housing can be found in the most unlikely of places: the cities that have been hotbeds of housing obstruction.

California powerhouse Tia Boatman Patterson joins White House Office of Management and Budget
Yahoo News
Tia Boatman Patterson, former executive director of the California Housing Finance Agency and a vocal advocate for access to long-term housing for all, is joining the White House Office of Management and Budget as the associate director for Housing, Treasury and Commerce. With the Biden administration focusing on reforming discriminatory housing regulations and considering a $15,000 tax credit for families buying their first homes, Patterson—who will oversee “about $90 billion in discretionary resources and $3 trillion in loans and loan guarantees for numerous Federal agencies and essential functions, from affordable housing to tax collection to weather prediction and trade”—seems like a natural fit.

Berkeley to end single-family residential zoning, citing racist ties
San Jose Mercury News
The same city that was the birthplace of single-family zoning in the early 1900s has now voted to eliminate it by December 2022. The Berkeley City Council took the first step early Wednesday morning in a unanimous vote to undo “exclusionary zoning,” which would eliminate single-family residential zoning and allow for other types of housing such as apartments, duplexes and triplexes. Single-family residential zoning has roots that led to racial and economic segregation, according to city officials. Changing the zoning would allow, for example, an existing house, if large enough, to be turned into a duplex or even a triplex. It also would allow the construction of new buildings such as apartments or condos in neighborhoods where previously, only houses were allowed. Council members made it clear the resolution was intended to start the process to eliminate exclusionary housing. It would still, however, require vetting by the Planning Commission and a change to the city’s general plan.