Of the more than 200 housing bills introduced this year, only a few dozen are still moving. But with less than two weeks to go in the session, I’m proud to say CHC’s affordable housing package is still largely intact.

After our successful campaign to secure major new affordable housing investments in this year’s budget, yesterday the Senate approved AB 1763 (Chiu), the only remaining legislation this year that will reduce barriers to affordable developments near transit. The Legislature is also continuing to advance several other key CHC priorities—including legislation that will help affordable developers build more cost-effectively, along with bills to strengthen renter protections, promote affordable development on surplus public land, and prohibit local governments from adding new obstacles to affordable housing.

For every step forward on affordable housing, though, there is sometimes an occasional step back—with important lessons to be learned from it. And this year has been no different.

We saw one example last week with AB 10 (Chiu), a bill to make permanent this year’s $500 million expansion of the state’s successful low-income housing tax credit program. CHC worked closely with the Governor and Legislature to secure this new funding, and its inclusion in the budget was a major victory. But we remain concerned that while the budget’s one-time appropriation can help address California’s huge backlog of affordable housing, it won’t be as useful for developers who need reliable, ongoing funding to support new projects in the years ahead. The Senate Appropriations Committee declined to advance the bill last week, and we’ll begin working to include the proposal in next year’s budget.

It wasn’t a surprise, but another disappointment was the failure of ACA 1 (Aguiar-Curry), a bill seeking to lower the vote threshold from two-thirds to 55% for local housing bonds. The state has similar rules for school bonds, and housing advocates have been trying for years to extend this option to affordable housing—making it a little easier for communities that want to support affordable development to do it. Once again, to no avail: When the bill came up for a vote in the Assembly a few weeks ago, it fell 10 votes short of the 54 votes it needed.

In both of cases, I get it. There are tough politics at play here: Permanent funding can be a tough sell, and it’s always difficult for members representing moderate districts to cast a vote on issues like this.

But I also see some important lessons here for the rest of this session and the next.

As an association, we’ve made some undeniable progress toward protecting and promoting affordable housing this year, and with your support, I hope we’ll be celebrating the passage of more much-needed legislation over the next two weeks.

I also recognize that there are more—many more—useful housing ideas out there, from new ways to finance affordable development and bring costs down to innovative approaches to training the construction workforce we need to build it.

To make them a reality, we are going to have to work with our partners to keep expanding our comfort zone. That will mean more tough votes ahead, more occasional steps backward, and more commitment than ever to providing every Californian a safe, affordable place to call home.

Sincerely,

Ray Pearl
CHC Executive Director