This week in affordable housing news…:
Top news stories:
Governor Newsom announces awards of more than $825 million to build affordable housing through accelerated approval process
Governor’s Office – Press Release
Governor Gavin Newsom announced the first funding awards under a new streamlined application process aimed at accelerating the development of new projects while saving time and money at the local level. Approximately 58 communities across California were awarded more than $825.5 million to build 9,550 homes as part of a new funding approval process made possible by AB 434 (Daly), which allowed for multiple housing applications to be narrowed down into a single award process. The first round of the SuperNOFA received more than $3.5 billion in developer requests.
Hearing on homelessness, housing leaves California lawmakers with more questions than answers
KCRA
California lawmakers on Monday kicked off the first of what’s expected to be several oversight hearings this year on the state’s growing homelessness problem and lack of affordable housing. Over the last six budget years, the state Legislature and governor have agreed to spend about $20 billion, spread across dozens of different programs. This year, Newsom has proposed earmarking an additional $1 billion toward homelessness. Now, as the state faces a projected budget shortfall, state spending this year is under extra scrutiny. “People are going to want to know how many people are getting served by this, and is it successful? Are there numbers that are really proving it in a way that we can guide whatever the budget investment is?” asked Sen. John Laird, D-Santa Cruz. The short answer from the Administration: Not yet.
Two Sacramento-area communities can fast-track affordable housing with new state designation
Sacramento Bee
Sacramento and Placer counties gained an advantage in securing state funding for affordable housing on Friday when the Newsom Administration announced that they received a planning designation intended to speed up those projects. “The Prohousing Designation is the result of communities stepping up and being proactive when it comes to their commitment to build more housing, faster in California,” Newsom said in a statement. Newsom’s office said Sacramento County stood out in the applications because it had modified standards to promote density, created development impact fee reductions for residential housing and used “holistic” planning to reduce commuting. Placer County received the designation after streamlining the process for zoning and development.
YIMBYs are about to sue the daylights out of cities across the Bay Area. Here’s why.
San Francisco Chronicle
Housing advocates are about to deliver a message to the Bay Area: Comply with state housing law or face the consequences. The message is being delivered in the form of 12 lawsuits by three pro-housing legal nonprofits: YIMBY Law, the California Housing Defense Fund and Californians for Homeownership, which was founded and is financially supported by the California Association of Realtors. The three groups are suing Belvedere, Burlingame, Cupertino, Daly City, Fairfax, Martinez, Novato, Palo Alto, Pinole, Pleasant Hill, Richmond and Santa Clara County for failing to follow state law, which required them to adopt by Jan. 31 a blueprint — called a housing element — outlining how they plan to accommodate their share of the 2.5 million homes California is asking cities to prepare for by 2030.
One of skid row’s largest housing providers faces financial implosion
Los Angeles Times
Skid row’s flagship owner and operator of subsidized housing is on the verge of financial collapse and seeking a lifeline to keep its doors open for more than a thousand low-income tenants. Skid Row Housing Trust, a pioneer in the decades-old movement to revive aging downtown real estate as homeless housing, has been working with other housing providers to take over its 29 buildings. Interim chief executive Joanne Cordero sought to assure the 165 employees that other philanthropic and housing organizations are stepping in to ensure that their work will continue and that no one will lose their home.
Why a California housing lawsuit is about more than income discrimination
CalMatters
Families and individuals, particularly those with low incomes, are increasingly being left behind in a housing marketplace where racial and income discrimination run rampant. Last month, the state of California filed a lawsuit that might just pave the way for ensuring equitable access to housing for all Americans. Earlier in January, California’s Civil Rights Department filed its first-ever lawsuit under the state’s 2020 prohibition against what’s known as source of income discrimination: the practice of refusing to rent to a tenant just because they use a housing voucher or other form of nontraditional income to pay rent.