This week in affordable housing news:

State Update:

• This Tuesday, the Housing Action Coalition held its 20th Annual Housing Heroes Award and awarded CHC a Housing Hero Award. CHC’s VP of Government Affairs, Marina Wiant gave a speech along with other notable members of the State Assembly and Senate. The full list of awardees included State Attorney General Bob Bonta, CHC, Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, former Assemblymember David Chiu, Senator Scott Wiener, and student advocates. 

• The way Los Angeles is trying to solve homelessness is “absolutely insane.” That was the headline of an opinion piece this week by Ezra Klein of the New York Times, who set out to understand how affordable housing issues like Measure HHH were impacting the LA mayors’ race—and ended up writing a deeply reported story on the complexities of building housing in California. “I wish I could tell you that, in reporting this story, I came across easy solutions,” says Klein, whose piece explores how substantial progress in the Legislature in recent years to accelerate development and fund new housing is colliding at the local level with complex regulations, rising construction costs, and NIMBY opposition. “This is the paradox of housing development in Los Angeles and so many other cities. The politics of the affordable housing crisis are terrible. The politics of what you’d need to do to solve it are even worse.” 

• With more than 100 cities across Southern California now out of compliance with state housing laws, the Los Angeles Times published a story on the potential of a little-known provision in state law known as the “builder’s remedy” that could allow developers in jurisdictions failing to meet their housing targets to move much more quickly to build new homes, provided 20% of the units are affordable. The story focuses on a developer trying to use the law, a 30-year-old, largely untested provision of the state Housing Accountability Act, to build a 2,000-unit apartment complex in Santa Monica—over widespread local opposition. As state support for new housing continues to grow, the Times reports other builders are considering a similar approach to completing their projects. “Some developers are like, ‘Well, I no longer need to be friends with the city council. I just need to know my rights,’” said Chris Elmendorf, a law professor at UC Davis. “So they can do things that otherwise would have been a death wish for their business.” The Times notes that the “remedy” remains untested in court and could still be vulnerable to CEQA lawsuits. 

• The California Association of Realtors apologized this month for its role in pushing policies in the past that contributed to racial segregation across the state—including funding the 1950 campaign that created Article 34 of the state constitution, a provision requiring voter approval before public housing is built in any community. “The Association was wrong. We not only apologize for those actions, we strongly condemn them, and we will continue working to address the legacy of these discriminatory policies and practices,” President Otto Catrina said in a statement. “As an organization that deeply values inclusion, we can’t change the actions of the past, but we are taking bold action now to help build a more equitable and just future.” This year, the Realtors co-sponsored a bill, SCA 2, that would amend the constitution and repeal Article 34. The Legislature voted this summer to put the measure on the 2024 ballot. In the meantime, Article 34 ballot measures will go before voters this November in cities including Berkeley, Oakland, South San Francisco, and Los Angeles. 

ICYMI – Other top news stories: 

The US has an affordable housing shortage. Here’s what Congress can do to fix it. 
The Hill – Oped by Rachel Fee, New York Housing Conference 
Despite signature legislative achievements and a bipartisan effort to lower inflation, the White House and Congress have neglected to address an issue affecting Americans of all backgrounds: A devastating shortage of affordable housing. Housing costs are a major factor in core inflation and a threat to long-term American growth—and the federal government needs to step up and address it now. Congress could act today, by making one small but powerful change to the law that could more than double affordable housing production in states like New York and California: Exempting affordable housing projects from the federal volume cap on state’s private activity bonds (PABs) issuances.  

Which of two dueling S.F. housing measures on the ballot will kick-start construction? Maybe neither. 
San Francisco Chronicle 
In November, San Francisco voters will be asked to decide between two competing ballot measures that have become a proxy battle between political progressives and moderates over how to address the housing-affordability crisis. The backers of both Propositions D and E say that their measure will ease the crisis by encouraging and quickening construction—and that their opponent’s offering would take the city in the wrong direction. But how much impact will they have? That’s anything but clear. The stakes couldn’t be higher. San Francisco must plan to build 82,000 homes by 2030 or risk the loss of state funding. Meanwhile, this year is on track to be one of the slowest for construction in recent memory.  

More L.A. Latinos falling into homelessness, shaking communities in ‘a moment of crisis’ 
Los Angeles Times 
Miguel Meneses and his wife were struggling to get by when the pandemic hit. They lost their rent-controlled apartment in Boyle Heights and moved with their three children to a rental house in Pomona that cost four times as much. In summer 2020, Meneses, an Uber driver, fell ill with long COVID symptoms and couldn’t work for months. His wife, Sandra Torres, lost the last of the eight cleaning service clients she had left. “It was all downhill from there,” said Meneses, 49. Unaware of the eviction protections and financial programs available, the couple borrowed $12,000 from family and friends. In February, broke and out of favors, they moved into a van along an industrial street off Olympic Boulevard. The family’s descent into homelessness reflects a growing problem in Los Angeles County, where in the last two years homelessness among Latinos has outpaced other demographic groups as COVID-19 and the housing shortage hammered the working class.