This week in the news, Governor Newsom announced his support of the Opportunity Zone programs as a way to spur economic investment and provide funding for housing, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. The Governor noted that if California uses the program, which was included in President Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, it has to be focused on helping Californians, not just investors: “We don’t just believe in growth. We believe in inclusion. You can’t have one without the other.”
Capital Public Radio reports Governor Newsom is working on adjusting his proposed state budget for emergency homelessness aid after feedback from mayors of California’s largest cities. He’s specifically looking at the request for more funds and flexibility on how to invest in building new facilities.
Finally, The Sacramento Bee discusses a new report from our partners at California Housing Partnership that affirms the need for our advocacy and on-the-ground work: California still needs 1.4 million more affordable rental units. The report also notes the state offer more tax deductions for homeowners than for renters – $14 on homeowners in the form of real property and mortgage interest tax deductions for every $1 it spends on renters. And highlights that lowest income household are disproportionately and severely cost burdened.
STATE HOUSING POLICIES
Bay Area leads charge on fixing housing crisis. Will it work for the rest of California?
Los Angeles Times
California lawmakers have unveiled a far-reaching package to stem the state’s housing affordability crisis, from new protections against surging rents and evictions to more apartments near public transit and in coastal communities. The proposals could reshape the state’s housing landscape — and they all come from Bay Area politicians. The chairmen of the Legislature’s two housing committees, Democrats Sen. Scott Wiener and Assemblyman David Chiu, are both from San Francisco.
Gov. Newsom says Trump-backed investment program could boost California
San Francisco Chronicle
Gov. Gavin Newsom said Monday that a Trump administration program that provides tax breaks meant to spur investment in low-income areas could boost California’s economy. Newsom said the Opportunity Zones program could help address two of the state’s major challenges: promoting energy investment to meet its climate change goals and providing funding for housing amid a shortage that has exacerbated income inequality.
‘The Budget Just Changed’: Governor Gavin Newsom Responds To Big City Mayors’ Call For More Homelessness Funding
Capital Public Radio
Gov. Gavin Newsom says the mayors of California’s largest cities have persuaded him to rework his budget proposal for emergency homelessness aid. “We need to step up our game,” the governor of the state said after meeting with mayors of its 13 largest cities. “We haven’t been doing enough to support cities,” he said. “And that means we need to invest more resources — and we need to provide the resourcefulness that is the spirit of innovation that drives this state.”
From the Golden State to the Lone Star State: California’s affordable housing crisis and its effect on the job market
KPCC
California’s economy may be booming, but if it doesn’t solve its affordable housing crisis soon, some employers could leave the state altogether. According to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, businesses in industries such as as finance, manufacturing, biotech, and food and beverage are leaving California for states like Texas due to lower taxes and lighter regulation. Companies are struggling to recruit or promote employees to stay in California due to increasing home prices and rents which are higher on average than anywhere else in the country.
HOUSING CRISIS
With renters struggling, California still needs 1.4 million more affordable units, report finds
Sacramento Bee
Despite recent laws and new funding to boost housing construction, California still needs 1.4 million more affordable rental units, according to a report out Thursday. Of more than 2 million very low-income renter households in California, roughly two-thirds are severely cost burdened, meaning they spend more than half their income on rent, according to a report by the California Housing Partnership. That news comes two years after the Legislature passed a slate of bills to expedite construction and subsidize affordable housing.
Our View: The reckless and the feckless have housing caught in the middle
San Francisco Business Times
If cities that aren’t doing their part to address the housing crisis feel the heat, will they finally see the light? Gov. Gavin Newsom apparently thinks so. He’s already demonstrated a willingness to put down the carrots and pick up the stick to deal with housing-recalcitrant cities, suing the southern California enclave of Huntington Beach over its failure to plan for affordable housing. This week he unveiled plans to increase the financial consequences for communities that want to remain part of the problem rather the solution.
RENT CONTROL/BALLOT INITIATIVES
Editorial: California renters need relief. That means weakening Costa-Hawkins
Los Angeles Times
Over the last few years, California’s elected officials have finally gotten serious about fixing the housing shortage that is eroding the quality of life here. Lawmakers have passed bills to streamline the development of housing in urban areas and to make it harder for cities to block much-needed housing construction. Voters have approved billions of dollars in new spending to subsidize affordable homes. And there are more bills pending in Sacramento to boost the supply of housing, which is absolutely essential after many years during which the state failed to build enough units to keep up with population growth.
Editorial: Rent control still can’t solve California’s housing crisis
San Francisco Chronicle
Proponents of rent control, which is threatening to make a comeback in the California Legislature, often portray the opposition as consisting entirely of landlords and developers. The implication is that the unbridled greed of real estate interests is all that stands in their way. What they omit is the consensus against the policy that persists among experts and the public. Last fall, despite the depredations of the housing shortage and its proverbial too-damn-high rents, Californians roundly rejected Proposition 10, a ballot measure that would have cleared the way for more rent control.
Editorial: Rent control, again: When will California politicians get that it makes housing crisis worse?
San Diego Union Tribune
California voters decisively rejected Proposition 10 in November, wisely choosing not to invalidate a state law that bars local governments from imposing new types of rent control on single-family homes or apartments built after 1995. But to no one’s surprise, the state’s housing crisis is once again leading to a new push for rent control in the state Capitol. Two troubling measures have emerged.
FEDERAL HOUSING POLICIES
2020 Democrats Think The Rent Is Too Damn High
Huffington Post
The rising cost of housing has become an issue on the presidential campaign trail for one of the first times in living memory, thrilling advocates who are hopeful that tackling housing affordability can merit inclusion on a crowded 2020 Democratic policy agenda. Housing affordability is a major problem in the U.S., with nearly half of all renters paying more than a third of their income just to keep a roof over their heads. The median rent has risen 20 percent faster than inflation since 1990, according to Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, while the median home price has risen 41 percent faster.
STATE BUDGET
Slowing economy could hit state budget
CALmatters
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s first budget proposal, unveiled two months ago, took a surprisingly conservative approach, given his promises of high-dollar spending during his campaign for the governorship. While he proposed token appropriations to expand health insurance for the poor and pre-kindergarten care and education, his 2019-20 budget would devote most of the state’s hefty surpluses to reserves, one-time expenditures and paying down debt. It was, in brief, just the sort of cautious budget that outgoing Gov. Jerry Brown would have presented, along with his annual warning that recession may be just around the corner.