This week in affordable housing news, CHC’s sponsored bill, AB 1763 (Chiu), which creates an enhanced density bonus for affordable housing developments, passed the Assembly Housing Committee with bi-partisan support. The bill allows for taller and denser affordable housing developments. The Los Angeles Times covers Governor Newsom’s push for construction of low-income housing on state properties by working with affordable housing developers to identify available land. The first bid is expected to go out no later than September 30. The East Bay Times highlights how the housing crisis affects the emotional health of children. Experts share that housing insecurity leaves children wondering how soon until a rent increase will force them out of their homes and “prompt them to act out or cause them to fall behind in school.”

STATE HOUSING POLICIES

California Gov. Gavin Newsom pushes for low-income housing on state property
Los Angeles Times
In an effort to kick-start low-income housing construction, Gov. Gavin Newsom plans to solicit bids from developers by the end of this year to build homes on at least three state-owned properties. The proposal, announced Thursday, follows a January executive order to survey state lands to determine where housing could be constructed. State officials culled a list of nearly 45,000 state-owned parcels, finding 1,300 that could be viable for new homes. “My administration is using every tool at our disposal to combat the housing affordability crisis our families face,” Newsom said in a statement.

Everything you need to know about California’s other big transit-housing bill
Curbed
San Francisco-based State Sen. Scott Wiener’s transit-housing bill SB 50—which would eliminate low-density zoning within a quarter mile to half mile of major transit hubs in California—cleared its first big committee hurdle last week. Wiener now faces an even more difficult challenge in the former of a fellow Bay Area lawmaker from the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge. Healdsburg-based State Sen. Mike McGuire (D) has a housing bill of his own, Senate Bill 4, which, like Wiener’s legislation, aims to boost housing near mass transit but would take a more sparing approach to certain communities.

HOUSING CRISIS

The kids aren’t all right: How the housing crisis hurts the Bay Area’s youngest residents
East Bay Times
On a recent Wednesday evening, while her classmates were doing their homework, having dinner with their families or attending ballet and piano lessons, 13-year-old Frida Cassidy Schiesser was at City Hall, making an impassioned plea for rent control. After watching one friend after another move away because their families could no longer afford to live in the Bay Area, the 8th-grader, Girl Scout and drama enthusiast decided she’d had enough. Frida wanted her City Council members to understand the impact the housing crisis is having on her community, but from a perspective they don’t often hear — a kid’s point of view.

Capitol Weekly Podcast: Carl Guardino on housing, transportation
Capitol Weekly
Carl Guardino is president and CEO of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group and a member of the California Transportation Commission — which means he wears two very big hats. Carl, born and bred in San Jose,  sat down with Capitol Weekly’s John Howard and Tim Foster at K Street’s bustling Ambrosia Cafe (trust us, it gets quieter after a minute or two) to offer insight into the battles over new housing in the Bay Area (including SB50) and the fierce fights over improving California’s rail system, including the bullet rain, train electrification in the Peninsula and San Jose’s future subway.

Editorial: Unrealistic housing goals aren’t helping the Valley’s poor
Modesto Bee
After 50 years, California’s overarching housing law needs a major overhaul. The Housing Element Act requires every city and county in California to zone for all types of residential growth. Each agency is given a targeted number of units to plan for, in various income categories, based on forecasts from the state Department of Finance. The process is supposed to ensure Californians of every income level — from minimum-wage earners to millionaires — will be able to find housing they can afford. It hasn’t worked. Today, the housing shortage is the worst it’s been in recent history, especially for low-income renters and buyers.

Op-ed: For the Housing Crisis, Cities and States Need Each Other
Governing
The state of California is taking the reins to remedy its acute housing shortage with proposed zoning standards for housing construction near job and transit centers. But not everyone is on board. Some city leaders and housing activists call the effort a one-size-fits-all mandate that undermines local authority and allows developers to profit while doing little to meet affordable-housing goals. The tension in California, like places across the country, is as much about who leads — cities or the state — as it is about the solution itself.

LOCAL HOUSING INITIATIVES

Column: PHIMBYs add new dynamic to housing debate dominated by NIMBYs and YIMBYs
San Diego Union Tribune
It seems only a matter of time before the NIMBYs and YIMBYs will be joined by PHIMBYs in San Diego’s housing debate. “Public Housing In My Backyard” is not a readily identifiable term in San Diego as it is in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Sacramento, though groups locally for some time have been pushing for more public resources to create affordable housing. Public housing advocates have emerged as a growing voice in California to counter those favoring a market-driven approach who have organized “Yes In My Backyard” chapters across the state, including San Diego.

Editorial: With anti-housing vote, SF supervisors prepare to join California’s other exclusive enclaves
San Francisco Chronicle
In the long fight to keep California’s wealthy, homogeneous, exclusive suburbs just the way they are, Palo Alto and Beverly Hills have an ally they might not have expected: San Francisco. The city’s Board of Supervisors — thanks to its purportedly progressive faction, no less — is poised to reiterate its reactionary resistance to legislation that would legalize higher-density residential development near mass transit amid a crushing housing shortage.

FEDERAL HOUSING POLICIES

New version of Kamala Harris housing bill would give renters monthly tax credit
Mercury News
In a sign of how the affordable housing crisis has become a focus for presidential contenders, Sen. Kamala Harris will introduce a new version of her bill to give renters a tax credit on Tuesday. The new plan will give renters that spend more than 30 percent of their income on rent and utilities a credit depending on their income, and allow beneficiaries to receive monthly checks from the government instead of getting it once a year through a tax refund.

Opinion: How federal ‘opportunity zone’ tax incentive can help California build an inclusive economy
CALmatters
Judging by frequently quoted numbers, California’s economy is vibrant and its future is bright. In 2017, the state’s gross domestic product rose to nearly $2.8 trillion, making the California economy the fifth-largest in the world. But the impressive economic output hides shrinking opportunities for millions of residents. Although high-wage jobs are increasing in the tech and entertainment centers of the Bay Area and Los Angeles, a third of the state’s labor force make do with low-wage, and often low-skill, employment.

Bipartisan Bill Would Give Millions To Local Governments To Fight Homelessness
Capital Public Radio
California Sen. Dianne Feinstein is pushing a bill to award local governments $750 million a year for the next five years to combat homelessness. The Fighting Homelessness Through Services and Housing Act, introduced last week by Sens. Feinstein and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Reps. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) and Steve Stivers (R-Ohio), has bipartisan support. More than 550,000 people are homeless in the United States today, and 25 percent of them are in California, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Feinstein says it’s a national crisis. Murkowski says her state is an unforgiving place for homelessness.