In affordable housing news this week, the Los Angeles Times covers a UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll finding half of registered voters have considered leaving the state—with housing costs cited as the number one reason. That includes 80% or more of the state’s 18-to-39 year-olds. While many older Californians are also suffering from the limited supply of affordable housing, the LAT highlights the potential economic consequences of an entire generation of workers struggling to stay in the state—at the same time millions of Baby Boomers are retiring. “People in their 20s and 30s who are also citing a housing problem, we have to take them a little more seriously,” says USC demographer Dowell Myers. “At least relative to the other age groups, those are the ones you have to worry about.”

KPBS reports that longtime affordable champion Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins says she will continue to be “really involved” in ongoing legislative efforts to promote housing production—including revisiting SB 50 (Wiener), a bill likely to be taken up next year that seeks to increase housing density in areas suffering from affordable housing shortages. “There will be changes to (SB 50), obviously, and I’ll be really involved in helping make that happen,” Senator Atkins told KPBS. “This is a key issue, but we’ve got to do it right, and we’ve got to have people who support us moving forward.” A CHC-sponsored bill, AB 1763 (Chiu), which would significantly increase density options for 100% affordable housing projects, is now on the governor’s desk.

Lastly, Governor Newsom this week signed a package of 13 bills aimed at alleviating the state’s growing homelessness crisis. “Homelessness is a national emergency that demands more than just words, it demands action,” the governor said in a statement that seemed to allude to President Trump’s criticism of the state during a recent visit to California. “State government is now doing more than ever before to help local governments fight homelessness, expand proven programs, and speed up rehousing. And just this month, the Legislature passed the strongest package of statewide renter and anti-eviction protections in the country—a top priority for this Administration that will protect Californians from unfair evictions and rent gouging that have contributed to this crisis.”

STATE HOUSING POLICIES

Local cities oppose newly passed housing legislation, ask Newsom to veto
Ventura County Star
Cities in Ventura County are opposing newly passed housing legislation, requesting Gov. Gavin Newsom to veto several housing bills. Cities cite concerns over loss of local control and avoiding a “one-size-fits-all” approach for housing as reasons for opposition. Ventura County cities aren’t alone — cities across the state are opposing several housing bills. The League of California Cities, which represents almost all of the state’s 482 cities, is opposing bills related to accessory dwelling units, housing height and density, and development fees. 

Atkins Will Be ‘Really Involved’ In Resurrection Of Housing Density Bill
KPBS
California Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins (D-San Diego) said Monday she would take a more active role in reviving one of the most closely watched and controversial housing bills that stalled earlier this year. Senate Bill 50, authored by Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), would require cities and counties to allow denser and taller apartment buildings in areas with access to good public transit, jobs and schools. It was shelved in May by Sen. Anthony Portantino (D-La Cañada Flintridge), who chairs a key committee that the bill had to pass through.

Can lawmaking really fix the housing problem?
Chico Enterprise Record
There were smiles all around and a lot of back-slapping the other day, when Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a package of bills he firmly believes will work quickly toward ending California’s undeniable housing problems of high prices and low availability. The package imposes rent controls statewide, despite last year’s vote on Proposition 10 which saw the majority in 56 of 58 California counties oppose similar controls for fear they would discourage building of enough new apartments to seriously dent the availability shortage. There are also new limits on single-family zoning, designed to encourage building of backyard “grandma” units, and provisions that may encourage some companies to buy up existing homes, then install new partitions to create a dozen or more rental units in one house.

Thoughts on the Recent Legislative Session; The Housing Crisis Unresolved
Fox & Hounds
While the legislature and Gov. Gavin Newsom had some solid accomplishments in the recent session, they fell short in dealing with California’s great curse of homelessness and the related shortage of housing affordable enough for working people. This is not a surprise. Homelessness and the housing shortage have so far proved immune to any solution.  Personally, I remain bewildered by the problem after years of following homelessness on the streets of Los Angeles as a reporter and an editor for the L.A. Times and later as a writer for Truthdig and LA Observed.

Sacramento’s Housing War on SoCal
Fox & Hounds
Many normal Californians may not be familiar with the acronyms RHNA or the more mellifluous SCAG, and why should they? In an ideal world with a rational and well-working government, they might very well have no reason to be concerned with a Regional Housing Needs Assessment or even the Southern California Association of Governments. But unfortunately, we live in a country and state in which corporations are people and in which money is speech.  And those facts alone can turn left into right, right into wrong, and wrong into state policy.

Opinion: Bringing back redevelopment would be the wrong move for California
Los Angeles Daily News
California’s high housing prices are fundamentally a supply problem. Of course, that hasn’t prevented statewide rent control—a counter-productive idea that will lead to still lower housing turnover, reduced investment in maintenance, and far less new construction. To this bad idea we should add yet another: the revival of local redevelopment authorities. Though it’s being pushed in Sacramento in the name of public financing for “affordable” housing, the approach is both expensive and wrong-headed.

HOUSING CRISIS

Who wants to leave California? Young voters can’t afford housing, and conservatives feel alienated
Los Angeles Times
Just over half of California’s registered voters have considered leaving the state, with soaring housing costs cited as the most common reason for wanting to move, according to a new poll. Young voters were especially likely to cite unaffordable housing as a reason for leaving, according to the latest UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll conducted for the Los Angeles Times. But a different group, conservatives, also frequently suggested they wanted to leave — and for a very different reason: They feel alienated from the state’s political culture.

Critics challenge new Bay Area housing calculus
Mercury News
Critics are raising questions about a new methodology used to project how much new housing will need to be built in the Bay Area by 2050. At a public hearing Thursday in San Francisco, Susan Kirsch of Mill Valley, founder of the slow-growth group Livable California, was among about a dozen people concerned about the change in procedure used by the Association of Bay Area Governments. Kirsch said she fears it will result in higher estimates, and ultimately, denser housing.

Don’t let Trump take the lead on housing
Politico
Walk through any major city today, and it’s easy to see why housing affordability and homelessness are top concerns across the country. Minimum wage workers are relying on food banks and overnight shelters. Unsheltered veterans, families and neighbors are living in desperate, unsanitary conditions. Students leaving school after the final bell meet their parents and siblings where they live together: in their cars, unable to find affordable homes. Too many families in cities like ours are now living in cars, vans or RVs.

In the name of the environment: California’s housing crisis
Los Angeles Daily News
While millions of families across California feel the housing pinch, we don’t need to look far beyond our own good intentions to understand why.  In the most populous state in America, we are simply not building enough housing to accommodate the people who live here, driving up prices and driving out those who can’t afford it. While private developers are vilified for trying to fill the housing gap, neighbors with a “Not In My Back Yard” bent (also known as NIMBY’s) abuse a variety of well-intentioned laws to maintain the status quo.

TENANT PROTECTION

Here’s how California’s rent control law would work
Curbed LA
Within the next few weeks, the governor is expected to enact rent control in California by signing Assembly Bill 1482. That means the state would begin to regulate how much your rent can increase every year, limiting it to 5 percent, plus the local rate of inflation. Once signed, the measure would take effect January 1 and expire in 2030 (unless lawmakers vote to extend it).

A real-world look at how rent control hurts tenants
Los Angeles Daily News
Every time we walk past lumber racks in a home-improvement store my wife or daughters start giggling about all the “fine pieces of wood.” It’s an inside joke that goes back to my first rental property in a small Mojave Desert town. I bought it “as is” in an online auction (although I saw it in person first), and remember the horrified look on the faces of my family when I took them to see it. Think of the term, “uneasy silence.” Half of the roof had blown off from vicious desert winds. The house had broken windows, broken everything, trash strewn everywhere. It looked like something out of the movie “Road Warrior,” given that it sat amid tumbleweeds, sand and cactus.

Would AOC’s National Rent Control Solve the Housing Crisis, or Make It Even Worse?
City Lab
A comprehensive anti-poverty bill proposed by New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez would authorize new protections for tenants, children, immigrants, and other categories of Americans who are increasingly vulnerable to the high costs of inequality. This legislation—really a suite of bills—would expand federal benefits to undocumented immigrants and people with past criminal convictions, introduce a workspace score for certifying federal contractors, and add nuance to federal poverty guidelines.

Editorial: The economists are right: Rent control is bad
Washington Post
RENT CONTROL is back. Economists have long criticized government price controls on apartments, a concept that had its first moment in the 1920s and that some cities reintroduced in a modified form in the 1970s. Now, decades later, California and Oregon are moving forward with statewide rent-control laws. Meanwhile, presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has made a national rent-control standard the centerpiece of his sprawling new housing plan.

HOMELESSNESS

Newsom signs bills to speed homeless shelters
Associated Press
California is giving cities and counties more power to speed up the building of supportive housing and shelters amid a homelessness crisis. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom signed 13 laws aimed at stemming the crisis Thursday. His action comes as Republican President Donald Trump criticizes California’s handling of the issue, most recently blaming homelessness for water pollution.

LA leaders call on Gov. Gavin Newsom to declare state of emergency on homelessness​
Los Angeles Daily News
Los Angeles City Councilman Joe Buscaino introduced a motion Wednesday calling on Gov. Gavin Newsom to declare California’s homelessness crisis a state of emergency. The motion, seconded by six other councilmembers, states that the declaration would bolster government efficiency and “enables state and local agencies to act quickly without normal constraints,” calling homelessness “a crisis of seismic proportions outside of the control of the City of Los Angeles.”

LA gearing up to spend $336M to build 2,998 apartments for homeless residents
Curbed Los Angeles
Los Angeles lawmakers are queuing up $335.8 million to help build nearly 3,000 affordable apartments across the city for homeless Angelenos—including contested plans for the first homeless housing in the northwest San Fernando Valley. The money will come from Measure HHH, a $1.2 billion bond that voters approved in 2016 to build 10,000 units of permanent supportive housing.

Julián Castro calls for compassion, resources in Oakland homeless camp tour
San Francisco Chronicle
Democratic presidential candidate Julián Castro toured a homeless camp in Oakland on Wednesday and said more affordable housing is needed to ease the crisis of people living on the streets. The former housing and urban development secretary proposed a plan in June that calls for $40 billion in annual funding for the national Housing Trust Fund. 

Editorial: How Gavin Newsom can stop NIMBYs from blocking homeless housing projects
Los Angeles Times
There are plenty of hurdles in the process of building housing for homeless people in the city of Los Angeles. Developers have to find the land, secure various sources of financing — because funding from the city or state is just part of the equation — and placate neighborhood groups nervous about what it means to have homeless people living in apartment buildings nearby. But one thing developers shouldn’t be forced to do is sink time and money into preparing a colossal environmental impact report when one isn’t necessary.

Editorial: Trump’s ‘help’ for the homeless is actually meant to stigmatize them
Washington Post
ONE OF the most serious and stubborn problems facing urban America is homelessness, and nowhere is the crisis more acute than in the California cities of Los Angeles and San Francisco. Local and state officials have struggled for years to find solutions to the complex issue. So an offer of help from the federal government normally would be welcomed and commended. Unfortunately, President Trump’s sudden interest in homelessness has little to do with helping California. Instead, he is using the liberal state as yet another foil in his bid for reelection.