This week in affordable housing news…:

State update:

• A Mercy Housing development under construction at 833 Bryant in San Francisco was profiled this week in the San Francisco Chronicle in a story highlighting the project’s remarkable speed (on track to completion in three years, compared to the more typical six years) and reduced cost (roughly $383,000 per unit, compared to the citywide average of $700,000 per unit). The project was also featured in a Terner Center for Housing Innovation study, which celebrated Mercy’s innovative use of modular construction and streamlined approvals under SB 35 (2017). The Chronicle also delves into some of the local political issues that could complicate more widespread adoption of this approach.

• CHC partners Housing California and the California Housing Partnership launched their Roadmap Home 2030 campaign this week, promoting a 10-year suite of policies that seek to create 1.2 million affordable homes, protect more than a million renters form losing their housing, and fund housing and services for people experiencing homelessness. Lisa Hershey and Matt Schwartz shared their vision for the Roadmap in a recent CalMatters oped. Follow the campaign @RoadmapHome2030.

• The Los Angeles Times editorialized this week on the issue of homelessness in LA County—highlighting the fact that while the number of homeless people remains “staggeringly high” (roughly 66,000 at last count), the county has also found housing for an almost equal number of people in the last three years. The problem? “The grim fact is that more people fall into homelessness each day than the county can permanently house,” writes the LAT, estimating that more than 200 people in the region become homeless each day. “The city and county invest a huge amount of money and effort into sheltering, housing and providing services to homeless people. And that should not stop; we need more permanent housing, and we need it faster,” the editorial concludes: “But the city and the county are not investing enough in prevention measures to keep people from falling into homelessness in the first place.”

Federal update:

• Significant new affordable housing funding could be included in a massive $3 trillion infrastructure and jobs package being considered by the White House as part of President Biden’s “Build Back Better” agenda, according to the Washington Post. Stressing that the planning for the package was still only in the preliminary stages, the Post shared estimates on a range of potential spending, including $200 billion for housing infrastructure—$100 billion of which could be targeted at expanding the supply of housing for low-income Americans.

• The Affordable Housing Tax Credit Coalition and more than a dozen other organizations testified this week at an IRS hearing on new income averaging regulations proposed during the final months of the Trump Administration. AHTCC and affordable housing advocates have urged the Treasury Department to reconsider the proposed rules, which would severely limit utilization of income averaging flexibility at tax credit properties. AHTCC proposed a detailed list of alternatives in this December letter to the IRS.

ICYMI – Top news stories:

Want to lower the number who are homeless? Prevent people from falling into homelessness
Los Angeles Times – Editorial
The grim fact is that more people fall into homelessness each day than the county can permanently house. Based on 2019 statistics from the Homeless Services Authority, 207 people make it out of homelessness each day. They get help from an agency or service provider or they manage on their own to resolve their problems and find housing. But a total of 227 people become homeless each day. For the last several years, the steady stream of newly homeless people has been an economic inevitability in a county with a severe shortage of affordable housing and where wages have not risen enough to cover escalating rents.

Legislature tries to eliminate single-family-home zoning, again
San Diego Union-Tribune
The battle over housing is back at the state Capitol. Once again, a package of bills is moving forward aimed at increasing housing density across California. In recent years, major housing legislation was brought forth with great fanfare only to fail, often amid disputes over whether the proposed policies would make homes more affordable and how they would affect people currently living where they would be built. Senate President Pro Tempore Toni Atkins, D-San Diego, is the lead author of what already has become one of the more contentious measures in this year’s chapter of the California housing wars.

Could these bills help California build more affordable housing?
CalMatters
California housing is crowded, expensive and difficult to find, but if a package of bills proposed by prominent Senate Democrats becomes law, some cities could look very different a decade from now. Duplexes and small apartment buildings would spring up from single-family lots. Public housing projects, effectively stifled since the 1950s, would dot the landscape of the state’s larger cities. Housing developments would emerge in the carcasses of vacant strip malls and abandoned big-box stores. What that means in practice is wresting more control of housing from cities and counties. Local officials don’t plan to go along quietly. This battle of wills stretches back years, but some of the most aggressive legislation to give the state more control will be taken up in this year’s session.