This week in the news, a study out from Next 10 says the state’s primary policy for encouraging housing growth has failed in its goal, and it would take until after the year 3000 for Santa Clara, Irvine, Burbank and many other cities to achieve their low-income housing targets, as reported by the Los Angeles Times.

KQED reports that legislators across three key committees voiced concerns over Governor Newsom’s plan to tie SB 1 money to cities’ progress on housing development. Among the concerns that legislators raised were the expectations by voters that the SB 1 money would be used as promised, especially as voters rejected an attempt to repeal SB 1 last November.

Finally, the Los Angeles Times Editorial Board looks at Oregon’s adoption of the nation’s first statewide rent control law and what other states may learn from this move.

STATE HOUSING POLICIES

California’s housing supply law fails to spur enough construction, study says
Los Angeles Times
California’s housing supply law has failed in its goal of spurring enough new home building to meet demand, especially for low-income residents, according to a new report from public policy think tank Next 10. The law, which requires cities and counties to plan for development, is the state’s primary policy for encouraging growth. But the report concludes that the law fails to ensure enough land is set aside for new homes statewide, doesn’t force cities with booming employment to accept sufficient home building to accommodate population increases and doesn’t facilitate construction.

Legislators Push Back Against Newsom Housing Plan
KQED
A proposal from Gov. Gavin Newsom to encourage more housing development landed with a thud in a state legislative committee hearing on Tuesday, signaling a tough road ahead for one piece of the governor’s ambitious housing agenda. The plan, loosely articulated in Newsom’s January budget proposal, would link new road repair funding that California cities receive from the state to the progress those cities are making on housing development.

Editorial: Fighting a phony emergency, California should recognize a real one
San Francisco Chronicle
Proudly engaged in a legal battle with the Trump administration over its phony border emergency, California has a real crisis that it has rarely treated as such. It’s the housing shortage, which has given the state the nation’s highest poverty rate and nearly a quarter of its homeless population. Legislation introduced this week by state Sen. Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, would begin to treat the housing crisis as the emergency that it is.

Our view: To succeed at housing, California first must stop failing repeatedly
San Francisco Business Times
It’s no secret that many communities in the Bay Area and across California are failing — sometimes failing miserably — to meet state-assigned housing targets. What’s less known is that even those targets themselves may seriously understate the scale of housing need in California. The consistent, continuing failure to meet targets is laid out in painstaking detail in a comprehensive new report by think tank Next 10 and research firm Beacon Economics.

HOUSING CRISIS

California housing crisis podcast: Will a boom in building make housing more affordable?
Los Angeles Times
The solution to California’s housing affordability problem promoted by Gov. Gavin Newsom and many state lawmakers is straightforward: The state needs lots more new homes. But the governor’s idea and other policies that aim to promote more building have come under scrutiny, including from local activists worried about the effects of new development on gentrification and displacement in existing communities.

RENT CONTROL

Editorial: Oregon is charting a new path on rent control. Will California and other states follow?
Los Angeles Times
In an attempt to slow displacement and upheaval in communities where rents are rising faster than incomes, Oregon has just adopted the nation’s first statewide rent control law, capping the annual increase landlords may impose on tenants. Sounds dramatic? Well, it could happen in California too, where Gov. Gavin Newsom and California lawmakers are discussing similar efforts to stabilize rents amid a long-term, crisis-level housing shortage.

LOCAL HOUSING ISSUES

500 years: That’s how long it could take some Bay Area cities to meet housing goals
Mercury News
Housing construction in California is lagging so badly, it would take some towns and cities centuries at their current construction pace to meet state goals to build homes for low- and middle-income families, according to a new analysis. But in some Bay Area cities, new construction for high earners is way ahead of schedule. The analysis comes at the mid-point of the state’s eight-year planning cycle, known as the Regional Housing Need Allocation or RHNA, and shows municipalities are just one-quarter of the way toward meeting their state-mandated goals in the midst of a long-running housing shortage.

Central Coast Voices: The impact of housing policy on the Central Coast
KCBX
While all of California is experiencing a housing crisis, the Central Coast may be feeling some of the worst impacts. Two recent studies ranked San Luis Obispo County fifth and seventh for being the least affordable housing market in the nation. The most recent ACTION Vital Signs report found fifty-nine percent of San Luis Obispo County residents reported spending one-third or more of their household income on housing costs in 2016.

FEDERAL HOUSING ISSUES

Here’s how presidential candidates want to help solve the housing crisis
Mercury News
In the race for the White House, housing seldom gets much attention — but that could be about to change. As California and other states face dramatically rising rents and home prices, three of the top Democratic contenders in 2020 — Sens. Kamala Harris, Cory Booker and Elizabeth Warren — have already introduced major proposals in the Senate that would reshape affordable housing in America.

HOMELESSNESS

What has California Gov. Gavin Newsom done so far for the homeless?
PolitiFact
During his run for governor, Gavin Newsom said California needed state leadership “laser-focused” on its homeless crisis. “We’ve been managing this problem for too long; it’s time to solve it,” Newsom wrote on his campaign website. “I want to be held accountable on this issue, and I want to be disruptive of the status quo,” Newsom added in an interview with the Sacramento Bee last July, while touring San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood, where many of the city’s homeless live. “I’m willing to take risks. I’m not here to be loved. What’s going on is unacceptable, and it is inhumane.”

A Groundbreaking Report Goes Deep On Black Homelessness In Los Angeles
LAist
Homelessness disproportionately affects black people in Los Angeles. Though about nine percent of Los Angeles County’s total population is black-identifying, black people make up about 36 percent of the county’s homeless population, according to the 2018 homeless count. It’s an overrepresentation born out of a deep history of institutionalized racism in America, and is the focus of a groundbreaking report formally released this week by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA).