This week in affordable housing news, the Sacramento Bee offers two big-picture takes on the state’s response to the housing crisis—tracking Governor Newsom’s progress on 10 campaign promises (including his pledge to produce 3.5 million new housing units) and comparing Democratic and Republican plans for addressing the issue.

On the governor’s progress, the Bee notes Newsom is “still far from achieving” his goal, but acknowledges important steps in the right direction, including major new funding in this year’s budget ($2 billion for affordable housing) as well as the passage of a legislative package that outlaws “downzoning,” protects renters, and accelerates affordable development on surplus public land.

The Bee also takes a closer look at the two parties’ plans for tackling the homelessness crisis—finding widespread agreement on many solutions, in spite of all the rhetoric to the contrary. The Bee highlights example after example of Democrats and Republicans championing new investments in affordable housing for lower-income Californians—as well as proposals aimed at “cutting local regulations that slow housing construction and drive up costs.” The Democratic governor’s homelessness commissioners have visited Modesto to review successful programs in the Republican-led Stanislaus County, while the Republican mayor of San Diego has pushed for new funding for affordable housing. “The same day Newsom signed the ‘downzoning’ law,” the Bee notes, “the city of San Diego unveiled a new homelessness action plan…[calling] for $1.9 billion worth of investment over a decade to expand access to supportive housing, services and rental assistance for homeless people.”

“Despite some of the partisan sniping going on…it looks like people are really trying to make some progress,” Steve Berg, vice president of programs and policy at the National Alliance to End Homelessness, told the Bee: “If you have more people than you have places for people to live a bunch of the people are not going to have places to live, it’s that simple.”

STATE HOUSING POLICIES

Update: Here’s how Newsom is doing on 10 campaign promises after his first year of lawmaking
Sacramento Bee
From phasing out private prisons to signing a new cap on rent increases, Gov. Gavin Newsom used his first year in office to make progress on many of the promises he made while campaigning for the job. He’s still far from achieving many of his long-term goals, like building 3.5 million new homes and creating half a million apprenticeships to boost California’s workforce. And he’s backtracked on some of his promises, like appointing a cabinet secretary to focus on homelessness.

Bills Attempt to Reach California Housing Goals Through Accessory Dwelling Units
KQED
California leaders want the state to build half a million new homes each year until 2025 — a rate of housing construction that has never happened before. Some legislators think we could help reach this goal by easing the path for single-family homeowners to build accessory dwelling units, often called “in-law” or “granny flats,” on their property. To that end, the state just approved a number of bills that allow construction of backyard units and garage conversions.

Newsom rejects California housing bill that would have raised billions for projects
Sacramento Bee
Gov. Gavin Newsom announced on Sunday that he’d vetoed a bill to authorize up to $2 billion in annual state funding for affordable housing projects in California. Days before he vetoed Senate Bill 5, Newsom indicated he wasn’t likely to sign off on expensive measures due to the budget’s financial limitations. “The one thing that concerns me and should concern everybody is our ability to balance the books, balance the budget,” Newsom said to reporters last week.

New California law sets path for more farmworker housing
Mercury News
As the state’s housing shortage spreads into rural communities, farmers will have new tools to address the chronic dearth of worker housing under a law signed Sunday by Gov. Gavin Newsom. The measure, AB 1783, streamlines construction of new worker units on surplus farm land and provides incentives for the apartments. As a safeguard, the new apartments must be managed by a nonprofit third party.

Empty Garages: The Answer to California’s Housing Shortage?
New York Times
A dream Los Angeles rental listing? At 20 percent below market, in a neighborhood where the alternative is a 70-year-old building with a coin-operated laundry? It’s not reality yet, but it will be soon. Construction will begin this month on 20 to 30 units fitting this description through an innovative development effort that focuses on converting detached two-car garages — of which there are 250,000 in Los Angeles County — into subsidized studio apartments.

Column: Single-family homes become central to housing-crisis debate
San Diego Union Tribune
Emerging housing policies have become enmeshed in disputes over the preservation, exploitation and possible destruction of the single-family home neighborhood. The future of single-family homes and who owns them is a growing political topic amid efforts to address not only California’s affordable housing crisis, but housing needs nationwide. The trend of corporations buying homes and turning them into rentals has raised concern among people in high places.

SB 5 Vetoed for All the Wrong Reasons
Fox & Hounds Daily
Over the weekend, Governor Newsom finished signing and vetoing the final batch of bills that made it to his desk this year.  Among the bills he acted upon was SB 5 (Beall), legislation to reestablish redevelopment authority in California. He vetoed it.  That’s the good news. The bad news is why he did. The bill was hailed as a repair to the Legislature’s and former Governor Brown’s decision several years ago to end the successful, decades-old redevelopment law. 

HOUSING CRISIS

Santa Cruz, The Least Affordable Place For Teachers, Is Trying To Make It More Livable
Capital Public Radio
The Santa Cruz area is among a handful of California school districts considering creative solutions to a teacher shortage,  including building affordable housing on school district property to keep their teachers from leaving. At least three of 10 school districts in Santa Cruz County are exploring the option of building below-market homes for teachers and staff on school district property.

Op-Ed: California’s housing crisis will get worse when the ‘Big One’ hits
San Francisco Chronicle
Thirty years ago, on Oct. 17, Californians were shaken by the magnitude 6.9 “World Series Earthquake” — the largest earthquake the region had experienced since 1906. It rattled residents as far away as Los Angeles and Nevada and is forever seared into the memories of those who lived through the violent shaking, as well as millions of others who were watching as the San Francisco Giants and Oakland A’s were warming up to play Game 3 at Candlestick Park.

TENANT PROTECTION

Rent control is making a comeback. Does it work?
Curbed
With housing shortages and rising rents plaguing major cities across the United States, housing costs are an election issue for the first time in decades, as eight Democratic candidates for president have released concrete housing plans. But while the debate over the appropriate federal response to the problem plays out, state and local governments have turned to a policy prescription that’s popular among constituents—rent control.

Anti-rent control group sues Long Beach, Gov. Newsom over recent tenant protection laws
Long Beach Press Telegram
An anti-rent control group in Long Beach is suing the city and Gov. Gavin Newsom, claiming recently passed tenant protection laws are unconstitutional. Better Housing for Long Beach filed a federal complaint this week, alleging Long Beach’s tenant relocation ordinance and California’s AB 1482 are both unconstitutional because, according to the complaint, they allow the government to unlawfully seize private property.

FEDERAL HOUSING POLICIES

Moderate Democrats Back 4 Bills Aimed at Making Housing More Affordable
TIME
Millions of Americans find themselves in a “Catch-22” when it comes to being able to afford the most basic of needs—a roof over their heads. A group of moderate Congressional Democrats is endorsing four bills to address affordable housing on Friday, the group, New Democrat Coalition (NDC), tells TIME.

HOMELESSNESS

How Does Homelessness in California Compare With Other States?
New York Times
Californians often cite homelessness as the top issue facing their state. Our readers echoed that. Carol Northrup wrote, “I live in Oakland and am heartbroken at how many people are living in squalor on the streets.” Nancy Cuesta, a reader in Walnut Creek, said: “I’m befuddled by our ever growing homeless population. I love my home state, but the tragedy of these people’s lives has shadowed my pride in it.”

Newsom talks to SF homeless. Some say they met him on the street when he was mayor
San Francisco Chronicle
Gov. Gavin Newsom came back to the popular homeless fair he founded nearly 15 years ago as San Francisco mayor to do a victory lap of sorts Wednesday, speechifying, as a governor is wont to do. But his favorite part wasn’t rolling out the accomplishments and plans — like how his Project Homeless Connect continues to help thousands of street people a year, how it’s been replicated in 250 cities around the world and how he hopes to pressure localities around the state next year to do more on the street crisis.

Moderators urged to ask about homelessness at Democratic presidential debate
San Francisco Chronicle
One of the most important issues to Californians has barely been mentioned in the presidential debates: homelessness. That may change in Tuesday’s Democratic primary debate on CNN, which starts at 5 p.m. PDT. Housing activists are pressuring the moderators online to ask about housing issues. Most of the 12 candidates on the debate stage have detailed housing plans, but questioners haven’t asked them about the top issue to those most likely to vote, according to a nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California survey out this month.

Housing, human dignity and a ‘state of emergency’
Los Angeles Daily News
The push by Los Angeles officials to get Governor Newsom to declare a State of Emergency over homelessness is like a warning light flashing. It draws our attention to a massive problem that people closed their eyes to for too long.  But like any flashing light, the “State of Emergency” idea only helps us see part of the problem but not the whole—and ultimately it would deepen the quagmire and probably result in bigger and worse emergencies later.

Affordable housing is disappearing. So cities are designating parking lots to sleep in.
Vox
The housing affordability crisis — most acute in the Bay Area, but stretching up and down the West Coast — has helped exacerbate a homelessness crisis in states like California, Oregon, and Washington. Many people who are no longer able to afford or find stable housing are now forced to spend their nights sleeping in the one major asset they have left: their cars.

Is it Time for a Homelessness Czar?
Fox & Hounds Daily
The recent PPIC poll lists homelessness as the number one concern among Californians. No surprise, frustration dealing with the problem is growing not only for those who suffer homelessness but also for residents and business owners who are unhappy about the growing problem in their neighborhoods.