This week in affordable housing news…:

State update:

• CHC submitted comments on the MHP Draft Guidelines last week. While we appreciate the effort made by the Department to quickly release regulation updates and NOFAs for the program and to begin implementation of AB 434, we are concerned that these draft Guidelines are overly prescriptive in the type of project that will be funded. With MHP serving as the standard ranking criteria for all AB 434 programs, it is even more important that this program produce critically needed affordable housing in all opportunity areas across a variety housing needs. It’s unclear how this scoring system will work with the other AB 434 housing programs and we feel strongly that specific state policy priorities, like PSH, AFFH or BIPOC projects, should be actualized through the tie breaker or a setaside and not by making specific types of project be an automatic winners.
  
  
• The Los Angeles City Council voted this week to set a goal of building 25,000 units of new housing for homeless people by 2025, according to the Los Angeles Times. The proposal was introduced by Councilmember Kevin de León, who said the city needs a “north star” goal to house more than 40,000 homeless people living within the city limits. The Times noted that the De León’s proposal is still lacking details on how the city would expand housing production—or what the cost would be. “The time for studying the crisis and hearing from experts, I believe, is over,” De León said. “Now is the time for action and delivering tangible results. Now is the time to get a roof over the heads of our unhoused neighbors, and give them an opportunity to regain their lives and restore the pride of a great city.”

• Affordable housing projects will be the beneficiary of a decision by CDLAC this week to reallocate $200 million in tax-exempt private activity bonds that had been reserved for a high-speed train running between Las Vegas and Rancho Cucamonga. Last year, CDLAC allocated $600 million of the state’s private activity bond volume to Fortress Investment Group, the private equity firm behind the train proposal, but the state pulled those resources and redirected the bonds to affordable housing when Fortress was unable to get enough investors on board, according to Bloomberg. This week, CDLAC once again reallocated resources away from the train project, when Fortress’s Brightline Holdings said it could not use the bonds this year. “The venture said…it will seek an undisclosed amount of debt next year,” says Bloomberg.

Federal update:

• The Senate passed a bipartisan $1 trillion infrastructure bill this week, a “generational investment” the Brookings Institution called “easily the biggest infrastructure package in decades.” The bill does not include money for affordable housing, but would invest $65 billion in broadband infrastructure.  

• The bill now moves to the House, where it has been immediately caught up in Democratic efforts to push forward a much larger $3.5 trillion budget bill, including billions of dollars for affordable housing.

• Speaker Pelosi is now being pushed by different factions within the caucus on how to proceed—either by moving the infrastructure bill quickly to the President’s desk (as a group of moderates have proposed) or by holding the bill until a bigger budget deal can be reached (as progressives have called for). Affordable housing advocates in Washington say these issues are likely to be worked on until December.

ICYMI – Top news stories:

‘Gimme Shelter’: Why it’s so hard to pass major housing bills in California
Los Angeles Times
California’s housing problems are well-known and straightforward: There are not enough homes, especially for low-income families. For years, California’s Legislature has tried to pass big bills that address these problems, but they’ve mostly failed. Measures that would have boosted homebuilding or substantially increased funding to build low-income housing all have bitten the dust in the face of opposition from powerful interest groups, such as the construction workers and Realtor lobbies. On this episode of “Gimme Shelter: The California Housing Crisis Podcast,” we discuss why it’s so hard to pass transformative housing legislation in Sacramento. Our guest is Annie Fryman, a former staff member for state Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco).

Editorial: Millions facing eviction need money, not moratoriums
Bloomberg
President Joe Biden has made a show of trying to rescue millions of American renters, pushing through yet another national eviction ban. What struggling families and landlords need is money, not moratoriums. The right solution is to expand federal rental assistance, and fast. Congress has allocated a total of $46 billion to emergency programs covering rent and arrears, typically with direct payments to landlords—but the help is taking far too long to arrive. In the five months through June, only about $3 billion had been disbursed. Many who are eligible don’t know the money is available, and navigating the ill-equipped state and local bureaucracies tasked with delivering it is absurdly difficult. Ultimately, what’s required is an overhaul of the punitively complex federal-state hybrid system of housing support. But that won’t happen in a matter of weeks. Given the urgency, the Biden administration will have to pull other levers, preferably without breaking the law.

Senate passes $1 trillion infrastructure bill, handing Biden a bipartisan win
New York Times
The Senate gave overwhelming bipartisan approval on Tuesday to a $1 trillion infrastructure bill to rebuild the nation’s deteriorating roads and bridges and fund new climate resilience and broadband initiatives, delivering a key component of President Biden’s agenda. The vote, 69 to 30, was uncommonly bipartisan. The yes votes included Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, and 18 others from his party who shrugged off increasingly shrill efforts by former President Donald J. Trump to derail it. “This historic investment in infrastructure is what I believe you, the American people, want, what you’ve been asking for for a long, long time,” Mr. Biden said from the White House as he thanked Republicans for showing “a lot of courage.”