This week in affordable housing news, Governor Newsom used almost the entirety of his State of the State address to highlight California’s challenges of affordable housing and homelessness. “We will tackle the underproduction of affordable housing in California,” the governor said, pledging to “eliminate roadblocks to housing and shelter” and calling housing “the fundamental building block” of the solution to homelessness. Governor also highlighted his support for the statewide expansion of a new law exempting shelters and homeless housing from environmental reviews in Los Angeles. These provisions are included in a new CHC-sponsored bill, AB 1907 (Santiago, Gipson, Quirk-Silva).

After the defeat in January of the high-profile housing production bill, SB 50, the Los Angeles Times reports that Los Angeles business groups are “exploring their own plan” for taking on Southern California’s housing shortages. The Times reports that the LA Chamber of Commerce is considering a measure that would “double the density of residential buildings allowed on commercial streets and in areas zoned for apartments”in exchange for new affordable housing requirements. Maria Salinas, the group’s president, said to move ahead with a measure the chamber would need to build a coalition with community leaders, elected officials, and others. “We are still vetting this. There are still questions. By no means is it close to a recommendation,” she said. To earn a place on the ballot, an LA initiative would need to submit 65,000 signatures by April 22.

In some positive news, the New York Times this week highlights the success of a Los Angeles program to reduce homelessness among military veterans. While homelessness numbers are climbing across the state, the Times reports, “last year in the Los Angeles area, 3,878 homeless veterans were identified, a 60 percent decrease from 2009.” The Times credits a “housing first” approach that includes a new 400-acre campus with more than 1,600 units of new housing and a “carefully coordinated” partnership between federal/local governments and nonprofit groups to match funding, housing, and services. The Times calls the program “one of the country’s most ambitious plans to address veteran homelessness.”

STATE HOUSING POLICIES

How much does California really spend on homelessness? Democrat wants a final answer
Sacramento Bee
A California Democrat is calling for a statewide assessment of every dollar cities and agencies spend on homelessness so the Legislature and Gov. Gavin Newsom can calibrate a new strategy to fight the crisis. Assemblyman David Chiu, D-San Francisco, said the Legislature and Newsom lack insight into how cities, counties and agencies are using the state’s budget to shelter and care for the 151,000 homeless Californians.

Housing, Health Care, Homelessness: After A Year, Where Does Gov. Gavin Newsom Stand On His Key Promises For California?
Capital Public Radio
On the campaign trail, Gavin Newsom made bold promises: He would boost California’s housing supply by millions of units, solve the state’s homelessness crisis and create universal health care financed through a single-payer system.  After one year as governor, PolitiFact California found Newsom has taken significant initial action through executive orders, record financial investments and pushing through new laws. But on homelessness and housing especially, the on-the-ground results have been limited at best.

San Diego’s Affordable Housing Program Inspires Statewide Bill
KPBS
Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez on Monday unveiled two bills aimed at tackling different aspects of the state’s housing crisis. One bill would take a program credited with boosting home building in the city of San Diego and make it apply statewide. The program, approved by the City Council in 2016, gives developers a break on certain regulations if they set aside a higher portion of their homes for low-income households.

HOUSING CRISIS

Why Does It Cost $750,000 to Build Affordable Housing in San Francisco?
New York Times
The average home in the United States costs around $240,000. But in San Francisco, the world’s most expensive place for construction, a two-bedroom apartment of what passes for affordable housing costs around $750,000 just to build. California’s staggering housing costs have become the most significant driver of inequality in the state.

Amid Climate And Housing Crises, Cities Struggle To Place Housing Near Transit
NPR
Redlands, Calif., is known for its orange groves, its Victorian homes, and its small-town feel. Sixty miles east of Los Angeles, the city is home to about 75,000 people. But that number is expected to get a lot bigger. “Redlands is already changing,” says Mayor Paul Foster, “and this is just more of the future that’s coming.”

LOCAL HOUSING INITIATIVES

A housing bill died in Sacramento. Now L.A. business leaders are exploring their own plan
Los Angeles Times
One of the region’s largest business groups is exploring a new strategy for tackling Southern California’s housing crisis: asking Los Angeles voters to upzone sections of the city, allowing larger and taller residential buildings on commercial boulevards and in other areas. Policy experts at the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce have spent weeks poring over ballot language to double the density of residential buildings allowed on commercial streets and in areas zoned for apartments.

Housing crisis fix? Proposed state law inspired by homeless Oakland moms aims to fill vacant homes
San Francisco Chronicle
State legislation introduced Wednesday aims to reduce the number of empty homes in California and give tenants the right of first refusal to buy foreclosed properties. The bill was inspired by the plight of a group of homeless mothers who recently took up residence in a vacant West Oakland home to call attention to California’s housing crisis.

SF ballot measure ties office growth to housing — and opponents say that’s a bad idea
San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco’s skyline is growing, and the economy is booming as developers prepare to build another wave of office projects. But a powerful, longtime South of Market activist wants to hit the brakes, and he’s asking voters to help. The March primary election will include Proposition E, sponsored by activist John Elberling and his nonprofit, Todco.

HOMELESSNESS

Homelessness in California must be ‘top of our agenda,’ Gavin Newsom says
San Francisco Chronicle
Gov. Gavin Newsom called Wednesday for California to strengthen conservatorship laws, exempt housing construction for homeless people from long-standing environmental regulations and redirect hundreds of millions of dollars for mental health services to tackle the “disgrace” of homelessness in the state. Newsom focused his second annual State of the State address almost entirely on one topic — homelessness — an unusual move that reflected his intention to move the issue to “the top of our agenda.”

Does California need ‘another cook in the kitchen’ to fix homelessness? Newsom says yes
Los Angeles Times
California lawmakers will gather Wednesday to hear Gov. Gavin Newsom deliver his annual State of the State address and will no doubt applaud any promise he makes to zero in on homelessness. But that doesn’t mean they’ll agree with him. There is a growing rift in Sacramento political circles over how best to address a crisis that has swelled so much in the past year that more than 151,000 people are now living on the streets and in shelters across the state.

New round of Trump budget cuts could force more Californians into homelessness, advocates say
Sacramento Bee
The Trump administration is proposing a cut in homeless assistance funding next year, frustrating advocates who say the crisis in Sacramento and other cities is worsening. The White House budget plan for fiscal 2021, which begins Oct. 1, proposes $2.773 billion for homeless assistance grants, slightly less than the current year. The administration also wants to cut funding for affordable housing programs as well as Community Development Block Grants, which help revive and improve neighborhoods.

As Homelessness Plagues Los Angeles, Success Comes for Veterans
New York Times
For nearly two decades, Bobby Shriver, the onetime mayor of nearby Santa Monica, would look at the sprawling Department of Veterans Affairs complex in the upscale neighborhood on the west side of Los Angeles and wonder why it could not house some of the homeless veterans who had been living in squalor in his beachside city for a generation. Many of the politicians, federal officials and wealthy residents he lobbied greeted the idea with derision.

Here’s where California is offering land for homeless housing
San Francisco Chronicle
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration has set aside nearly 300 state-owned properties that may be turned into emergency housing for homeless people, half of which are in the Bay Area. The inventory was completed under an executive order that Newsom signed in January, directing four state agencies to identify excess state land that could be made available for free to local governments for short-term homeless shelters.

Column: So Trump wants to solve California’s homeless crisis? Here are five things he can do
Los Angeles Times
That’s what we keep hearing from President Trump’s minions about California’s massive homelessness crisis. Trump’s homeless czar, Robert Marbut, was in town last week, and I got a chance to sit down with him. U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson was also in Los Angeles last week, though not talking to me. He was reportedly working on a deal — the details of which remain a mystery — with local officials.

How to ease California housing crisis in four easy steps, and four more that are a little harder
CalMatters
The Construction Industry Research Board Report should be a wakeup call to California lawmakers. The report shows that 110,218 housing unit permits were issued in 2019, a 7% decrease from the prior year. This decrease marks the first statistical drop in permit activity for new residential construction in California in 10 years,” the report says.

Editorial: Gavin Newsom tries to punch up California’s response to homelessness. Again
Los Angeles Times
It was refreshing to hear the urgency in Gov. Gavin Newsom’s voice Wednesday when he talked about how homelessness has engulfed the state of California. To show how seriously he took the issue, he let it take over almost all of his State of the State speech to a joint session of the Legislature. Newsom has already demonstrated that he gives homelessness high priority.

Editorial: Newsom’s answers aren’t equal to homelessness ‘disgrace’
San Francisco Chronicle
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s second State of the State address clearly acknowledged California’s homelessness crisis for “what it is, a disgrace,” the fundamental solution to which “has to be more housing.” What’s less clear is what the governor is willing to do about it. Even as Newsom judged the crisis severe enough to occupy much of his speech Wednesday, he dismissed the enforceable right to housing recommended by his own homelessness task force.