State of the State

This morning, Governor Newsom delivered his State of the State address, the bulk of which was focused on housing and homelessness. View the entire speech online.

We were particularly pleased to see the Governor urge the Legislature to make “a commitment—right now, this year—to major reform that will eliminate red tape and delays for building critically needed housing, like affordable, multifamily homes, especially near transit and downtowns.” The Governor also endorsed the idea of exempting all homeless shelters and supportive housing from environmental review.

These statements all line-up with CHC’s top priorities for 2020: CHC is currently co-sponsoring, AB 1907 (Santiago, Gipson, Quirk-Silva), a bill that would expand statewide a new law that exempts emergency shelters and supportive housing projects in Los Angeles from environmental review. CHC is also working on additional legislation this year to expand production of affordable housing by identifying additional sites for development, reducing fees, and simplifying the state’s funding application system.Read our statement in response to the State of the State.

CDLAC/CTCAC Update

Over the past few months, there has been a lot of confusion over how CDLAC should handle a competitive bond process and its interaction with state tax credits. After the CDLAC meeting on February 12 recessed, CHC submitted this letter outlining our position to Committee members. On Tuesday, the Committee resumed its discussion on the allocation of bonds for Qualified Residential Rental Projects. After significant discussion, the Committee voted to allocate bonds per the CDLAC scoring guidelines up to the previously allocated amount of $650 million in the general pool and $173 million in the mixed-income pool.