This week in affordable housing news, all sectors are working on their response to control and mitigate the impacts of the coronavirus. CHC has put together a taskforce that is working on issues specifically related to challenges for affordable housing owner/managers, lenders/investors, and service providers. In the meantime, below are some general resources that may be helpful to our members.

Cities across California began to enact policies to protect renters in response to the coronavirus pandemic. The Los Angeles Times reports that Los Angeles, San Francisco, and San Jose are considering temporary bans on evictions, as more people struggle to pay rent and other bills due to loss of work, lack of childcare, onset of illness, or increased responsibilities to care for the elderly. The renter protection measure before the LA City Council is also expected to “provide relief for homeowners, small businesses and landlords,” according to the LAT. Assemblymember Phil Ting and Senator Scott Wiener told the Times they would introduce a similar measure in the Legislature next week. “What we need to do most critically is to ensure that our most vulnerable community members are not bearing the greatest brunt of harm,” said San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo.

As Congress prepares to move forward with a multi-billion-dollar Coronavirus Relief Bill, concerns have been raised by the National Low Income Housing Coalition about the lack of funding for affordable housing to provide for the urgent needs of extremely low-income renters and people experiencing homelessness. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senate Banking Committee Ranking Member Sherrod Brown have proposed amendments to the bill that would add emergency rental and eviction-prevention assistance, as well as financial assistance directly to homelessness service providers, housing authorities, and housing-assistance providers. More information on how to engage in federal action on coronavirus will be provided on a national call hosted by NLIHC on Monday, March 16. (To register, please click here.)

Homeless people and health workers are bracing for the virus to hit encampments across California, reports the San Francisco Chronicle—with many people living on the streets unable to take basic precautionary measures to protect their health. “They tell us all we’re supposed to wash our hands all the time and stay clean, but listen, we’re homeless,” one person told the Chronicle. “How are we supposed to do that out here?” As the state considers the governor’s budget proposal for a $750 million homelessness fund—as well as pending state and federal stimulus measures—the mayors of California’s 13 biggest cities called on Governor Newsom to direct these funds directly to them, instead of to the administration’s proposed new “regional administrators.” “This is the time to strike,” Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg said this week. “To make sure that we not only find that sustained source of funding, but that we invest it in a way that will lead towards the outcomes that we all so desperately want to see.”

Dealing with Covid-19 at Affordable Housing Developments

As noted above, CHC has a taskforce working on issues specifically related to potential challenges for affordable housing owner/managers, lenders/investors, and service providers. In the meantime, below are resources that may be helpful:
– Yesterday, HUD released guidance for multifamily housing stakeholders.
– The National Multifamily Housing Council has also released Guidance on how owners/managers can prepare for COVID-19.
– On Thursday, March 19, the National Housing Conference is hosting a webinar to discuss COVID-19 and housing. Hear from experts in epidemiology and public health on the COVID-19 outbreak, how to prevent spreading the disease, and appropriate precautions and contingency planning for property managers. Register here.

STATE HOUSING POLICIES

Bay Area mayors want to tax second homes to pay for homeless relief
Curbed San Francisco
San Francisco-based Assemblymember David Chiu wants to tax often-vacant second homes and vacation homes in California to help pay for the cost of homelessness—and the mayors of the Bay Area’s three largest cities are onboard. Backed by nine California mayors, Chiu’s office released a statement today for Assembly Bill 1905, a plan that would quash a major tax break for second (or more) homes in the state.

New state bill aims to soften closures of homes for mentally ill, homeless and drug addicted
San Francisco Chronicle
As San Francisco and the rest of California rapidly lose their board-and-care homes, a new state bill aims to lessen the blow of closing these long-term facilities for the homeless, mentally ill and drug-addicted. The bill, written by Assemblyman David Chiu, D-San Francisco, and sponsored by Mayor London Breed, outlines a protocol that adult residential facilities must follow when they decide to shut their doors.

Editorial: SB902 another sign of California’s resistance to housing
San Francisco Chronicle
State Sen. Scott Wiener has responded to the defeat of his legislation to dramatically boost California housing construction with a proposal that would settle for relaxing the most restrictive zoning. The San Francisco Democrat’s persistence is admirable, and his latest bill would be a substantial move in the right direction. But his diminished expectations are a dire sign of the Legislature’s intransigence in the face of the housing and homelessness crisis.

HOUSING CRISIS

Column: Housing debate needs to get facts straight
San Diego Union Tribune
California needs more housing, no question. But how much housing the state actually needs is a big question. As a candidate and then governor, Gavin Newsom repeatedly said that the state needed 3.5 million additional homes by 2025. That figure became something of an article of faith and helped drive the debate over what the state needed to do to reach that goal.

TENANT PROTECTION

To protect renters from coronavirus fallout, L.A. and S.F. are pressing for eviction bans
Los Angeles Times
With cases of the novel coronavirus multiplying rapidly and the financial implications of the outbreak becoming increasingly clear for low-income workers, the city of Los Angeles will consider a temporary ban on evictions next week amid calls for a similar moratorium that would apply across California. Council President Nury Martinez and Councilmen Mike Bonin and Herb Wesson plan to introduce a measure that would prevent renters from being evicted throughout the city, as well as provide relief for homeowners, small businesses and landlords.

HOMELESSNESS

Chief justice says courts will help with homeless crisis
Associated Press
California’s chief justice said Tuesday that she will appoint an advisory panel on how the court system might better help the state address its growing homelessness crisis. That might involve transferring surplus properties to be used for shelters or housing, a process already underway for other state agencies, Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye said. The working group will report to her later this year.

Who should get homelessness funding? Mayors, state in tug-of-war
Mercury News
In a new twist on the old fight between Sacramento and local officials over housing solutions, the mayors of California’s 13 largest cities Monday called on Gov. Gavin Newsom to give $750 million in homelessness assistance to them — not regional administrators. Members of the Big City Mayors Coalition, which includes Oakland, San Jose and San Francisco, met with Newsom in Sacramento to discuss the governor’s plans to fight the state’s homelessness crisis.

California Municipalities Want Clarity On Plan To Address Homeless Crisis
NPR
Homelessness is a vexing national problem, but nearly half of the country’s unsheltered homeless live in one state: California. Gov. Gavin Newsom has vowed to make to make solutions his top priority, calling homelessness in the Golden State “a disgrace.” He’s proposed significantly boosting funds for shelters, housing and support services and building 3.5 million new affordable homes by 2025, among other measures.

When it comes to the homeless, the Bay Area’s compassion has a limit
Mercury News
Bay Area residents have come to believe that homelessness is the region’s biggest problem — extending far beyond the borders of its major cities — and that it’s only getting worse. But their compassion toward their homeless neighbors only goes so far. In a new five-county poll of registered voters, conducted for this news organization and the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, 89% of residents say homelessness is an extremely or very serious problem — up from 79% the year before.

‘I’m scared’: Homeless people and health workers brace for coronavirus to hit encampments
San Francisco Chronicle
Ann Martinez lay on a cot on the patch of grass in San Francisco where she’d be pitching her tent in a few hours, and pointed at her pals nearby. They were talking about the coronavirus crisis. The talk was a mixture of bravado, fear and resignation. “They tell us all we’re supposed to wash our hands all the time and stay clean, but listen — we’re homeless,” she said. “How are we supposed to do that out here? And look at us.

SF Mayor Breed back on homeless hot seat as efforts to keep tents off streets sink
San Francisco Chronicle
The decision to move homeless czar Jeff Kositsky over to the mayor’s office, where he’ll command San Francisco’s failing effort to reduce tent camps, underscores how halting the city’s progress has been on bringing down its homeless population. It also shows how any backsliding could blow up on Mayor London Breed, who has made cleaning up the streets her top priority.

California is its own worst enemy when it comes to homelessness. But here’s how the state can start to make real change
CalMatters
In his State of the State address, Gov. Gavin Newsom declared California’s homelessness crisis a disgrace and declared: “Health care and housing can no longer be divorced.”  Newly released data from the federal government unequivocally supports the governor’s assertion. In 2011-2013, there was an extraordinary shift in federal homelessness policy with the advent of Housing First, a one-size-fits-all approach that formally decoupled healthcare services from housing.

California can stem the tidal wave of senior citizen homelessness
CalMatters
A woman in her late 70s receives an eviction notice from her mobile home park.  She’s fallen victim to a financial scam and is several months behind on her rent. She’s unable to care for herself and living in squalor.  A neighbor calls county Adult Protective Services and the agency delivers exactly what is needed to prevent this senior from becoming homeless: a subsidy to help with rent until her financial situation is resolved, a home care worker to assist with daily living and a case manager who will look out for future signs she’s in trouble.