This week in the top housing news, Governor Gavin Newsom announced today that the state is suing the City of Huntington Beach over their willful refusal to meet state mandates to provide affordable housing for low-income people, as reported by the San Francisco Chronicle. This is the first time AB 72, a bill CHC co-sponsored in 2017, will be applied to address enforcement of state housing laws.

A guest writer in CALmatters helps the public understand why the free market can’t ease the housing affordability crisis and this is why developers who specialize in affordable homes for low-income families are vital for California. KPCC looks at how the city of Los Angeles is preparing for its annual homelessness count, a challenging effort that impacts funding and policy decision on the local and state levels.

STATE HOUSING POLICIES

California to sue Huntington Beach to force it to plan low-income housing
San Francisco Chronicle
Gov. Gavin Newsom has authorized the state to sue Huntington Beach to force the Orange County coastal city to plan more affordable housing, saying cities that refuse to try to meet construction targets “will be held to account.” Newsom, who announced the lawsuit Friday, said Huntington Beach has willfully refused to meet a state mandate to provide new housing for low-income people.

Newsom touches nerve by connecting gas tax funds to housing targets
San Francisco Chronicle
During his first budget speech, Gov. Gavin Newsom extended his palms as if balancing a scale, a theatrical gesture meant to underscore a theme. “Transportation is housing,” he said, “and housing is transportation.” To that end, Newsom announced an ambitious and controversial plan: He would withdraw gas tax money from cities if they don’t meet regional housing targets that are set by the state but seldom enforced.

Controversial Bay Area Housing Plan Heads to State Legislature
KQED
An ambitious plan to tackle the Bay Area’s housing crisis is making its way to the state Capitol, where lawmakers could advance a wide-ranging set of compromises drafted by a coalition of often divergent local interests. Seeking a nine-county solution to a seemingly intractable problem, a broad coalition of developers, tenant advocates, elected officials, business leaders and labor interests created a 10-point plan to address regional housing affordability.

Editorial: Gavin Newsom’s housing hammer
San Francisco Chronicle
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s threat to deny transportation funds to cities that don’t produce sufficient housing has upset local officials from Lafayette to Los Angeles. It’s as sure a sign as any that the new governor is onto something. The governor said during his inaugural address that revenue from the state’s recent gas tax increase should be withheld from cities that aren’t doing their part to address California’s ruinous housing shortage.

Op-Ed: The Housing Crisis Requires Bold Solutions — and There’s One on the Table
Voice of San Diego
The severity of California’s housing crisis hardly needs further documentation. There simply is not enough housing, especially for very low-income households. An emergent YIMBYism, or Yes In My Backyard movement, advocates building more homes in more neighborhoods to combat the housing affordability crisis. The progressive wing of the movement believes that new home construction should be focused on filling in vacant or underutilized properties, and improving transit and affordability.  

AFFORDABLE HOUSING

My turn: We must shelter the people the ‘free market’ leaves behind
CALmatters
Where the free market has failed, California voters and their top elected official have taken the lead on the state’s housing and homelessness crisis. Voters did their part in November when they approved $6 billion in affordable housing bonds, and Gov. Gavin Newsom followed up in his first budget proposal. It contained $2.25 billion to help shelter the homeless and assist working people pushed to poverty’s doorstep by high housing costs.

My turn: The missing ingredient to solve California’s housing affordability crisis
CALmatters
In California’s quest to produce affordable housing, much has been said about project streamlining, permitting, zoning and other regulatory reforms. Comparatively little has been said about workers. And to be clear, that’s the elephant in the room. To increase affordability by boosting supply, Gov. Gavin Newsom has established a goal of 3.5 million new housing units by 2025, production levels California has not seen for 30 years or more. The most conservative estimates suggest that California will need upward of 500,000 new residential construction workers to realize such an ambition.

HOMELESSNESS

To Count All The Homeless People In LA, You Need To Ask Homeless People For Help
KPCC
At the end of every January, thousands of volunteers try to count how many homeless people there are in Southern California. Getting an exact number is virtually impossible, but organizers of the massive effort have some expert helpers — people who are homeless, or who used to be. KPCC’s housing reporter Matt Tinoco has the story.

Homelessness on campus
CBS News
College senior Jasmine Bigham can almost taste graduation. Like most students at Humboldt State University, nestled in the shade of the California Redwoods, finals are coming, and she’s studying hard. But it’s her life outside her college classroom that may be the toughest test of all. “The hardest thing was just not being able to find housing, and so that was, like, the big issue that stood in my way,” Bigham said. “So, what did you do?” asked correspondent Lee Cowan. “I lived in my car, and then I kind of couched surfed. After that I moved into this big trailer, and then the trailer roof collapsed a little bit!”

CALIFORNIA POLITICS

With a ballot fight looming, Gov. Gavin Newsom suggests dealmaking to revamp California’s tax system
Los Angeles Times Gov. Gavin Newsom has the next four years to make his mark as California’s most powerful politician but significantly less time — more like 15 months — to broker a deal that would stave off a galactic clash of political heavyweights while also making public policy history. The deal he has in mind would result in a sweeping overhaul of the state’s tax system. The incentive, he told reporters earlier this month, is a looming ballot measure that would raise commercial property taxes by a total of up to $11 billion a year.