“It’s time for California to say yes to housing. We cannot wait,” Governor Newsom said in his State of the State address last week devoted almost exclusively to California’s twin challenges of affordable housing and homelessness. With more than 150,000 people now living on the streets—and millions more unable to afford a place to live—the governor said the time has come to act: “We must replace California’s scattershot approach with a coordinated crisis-level response.” Calling housing the “fundamental building block” of any statewide solution, he said, “we will tackle the underproduction of affordable housing in California.”

We have spent years working in Sacramento to hear a governor say these words. Governor Newsom clearly gets it, and in last week’s address, he noted exactly what it will take to get more affordable housing built: “This means 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.”

As affordable housing advocates, we recognize the unique opportunity of this moment. And with the state facing a continuing shortfall of 1.4 million affordable homes, we are eager to work with the Governor and Legislature to take the steps needed to dramatically accelerate affordable housing production.

CHC’s statewide network of housing experts has already helped lay the foundation for this renewed affordable housing push. Just last week, the City of San Mateo became the first community to take advantage of the new density bonuses created by AB 1763, a CHC-sponsored bill authored last year by Asm. David Chiu. The new law will allow one of our members, MidPen Housing, to expand a 164-unit, 5-story development near CalTrain and transit to include 225 units and seven stories. The project is now moving toward a vote by the City Council, and there are many more high quality affordable developments just like it on the way.

In his State of the State, the governor also focused on some of the other tools we need to do this job—highlighting in particular the importance of “eliminating roadblocks to housing and shelter” to ensure more “units planned” become “units built.”

Once again, CHC is right there with him—promoting legislation this year that will streamline affordable production and expand the number of sites available for housing.

We’re proud to co-sponsor a bill authored by Asm. Miguel Santiago, AB 1907, that will expand statewide new rules that exempt emergency shelters and supportive housing projects in Los Angeles from environmental review. The governor highlighted this approach last week—and the Los Angeles Times recently called the legislation a “no-brainer.” Another CHC-sponsored bill, AB 2988 (Chu), will modify the provisions of AB 2162 (2018) to ensure more communities can accelerate development of permanent supportive housing.

Last week, Asm. Richard Bloom announced another important CHC-sponsored bill, AB 3107, which will dramatically increase the number of sites available for affordable development by making affordable housing an allowable use on commercial land.

We have a lot more ideas for addressing California’s housing crisis—from directing more reliable funding to affordable housing to reducing fees and simplifying the state’s funding application system.

We look forward to working with all of you this year to ensure every community can build the affordable housing Californians need.

Sincerely,

Ray Pearl
CHC Executive Director