This week in affordable housing news…:

State update:

• This week marked an “inflection point” in California’s response to the pandemic, reports CalMatters—as the state moves away from some of its highest-profile COVID-era safety net initiatives (including longstanding eviction moratoria, expanded unemployment benefits, and extensive paid sick leave programs) to a new phase of vaccination requirements and accelerated renter relief. The state’s eviction ban and paid sick leave program both expired on Thursday, a few weeks after the federal government ended a series of unemployment programs that will cause about 2.2 million of the 3 million Californians currently receiving some form of unemployment insurance to lose their benefits. The state is ramping up its efforts to distribute $5.2 billion in relief to renters impacted by the pandemic—announcing this week that it has paid out $649 million thus far to a total of 55,000 households. CalMatters has a helpful explainer on what you need to know about California’s eviction rules and financial relief programs.

• Governor Newsom signed more than two dozen housing bills this week that, paired with this year’s state budget investments, he says will lead to the creation of more than 84,000 new affordable homes. “The acute affordability crisis we are experiencing in California was decades in the making, and now we’re taking the necessary steps to fix it,” said the Governor. “This package of smart, bipartisan legislation boosts housing production in California—more streamlining, more local accountability, more affordability, more density.” Among the bills signed this week was AB 215 (Chiu), CHC-sponsored legislation that will expand the state’s ability to enforce local housing laws. “CHC was pleased to sponsor this bill, and we are proud to see it signed into law,” Ray Pearl said in a statement. “It’s another important step toward helping all jurisdictions support affordable housing.”

• Asm. Tim Grayson (D-Concord) and Asm. Robert Rivas (D-Salinas) have launched a series of regional housing roundtables hosted by a newly formed Assembly Housing Working Group that will be coming soon to your part of California. The roundtables are intended to examine barriers and explore solutions to the state’s housing production and affordability crisis. Several CHC members attended the first event in the Bay Area on September 27, hosted by Asm. Grayson and Asm. Buffy Wicks (D-Richmond). Upcoming times and locations include: Oct. 4-5 – Central Coast (Host:  Asm. Rivas)
  Oct. 7 – Central Valley (Host: Asm. Arambula)
  Oct. 11 – Los Angeles (Host:  Asm. Friedman)
  Oct. 12 – Inland Empire (Host: Majority Leader Reyes)
  Oct. 13 – Orange County (Host:  Asm. Quirk-Silva)
  Oct. 14 – San Diego, (Host:  Asm. Ward)
  If you are interested in attending on behalf of CHC, please email mwiant@calhsng.org.

• Asm. David Chiu (D- San Francisco), a longtime champion of affordable housing in the Capitol and chair of the Assembly Housing & Community Development Committee, announced this week that he would be vacating his seat to serve as the San Francisco City Attorney. Chiu, who was scheduled to term out of the Assembly in 2022, was appointed to serve in this new role by San Francisco Mayor London Breed. He tentatively plans to vacate his seat on October 31, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. Chiu’s departure will open up several races to watch in the Assembly—including a campaign among progressives to win his seat in a special election. Jockeying is expected in the Capitol as well among Assemblymembers seeking to replace Chiu as chair of the housing committee. “While we all wish David success in his new job and with his political future, his loss in Sacramento will be significant,” Ray Pearl wrote this week in a note to CHC members. “We will definitely miss him!”

ICYMI – Top news stories:

Editorial: What Gov. Newsom is doing right on homelessness—and how he could do better
Los Angeles Times
More than any of his recent predecessors as governor, Gavin Newsom has approached the state’s homelessness crisis with the seriousness it deserves—and has taken the right approach by embracing the Housing First concept that people should be in stable housing before they tackle their substance abuse needs. He has also, smartly, prioritized building permanent housing over shelter. Since Newsom took office in 2019, he has injected a much-needed infusion of billions of state and federal dollars into homelessness services and housing. In the current budget, $10.3 billion has been set aside for affordable housing, which will help keep more low-income Californians from falling into homelessness. That’s the largest sum the state has ever spent on homeless housing and services in that period of time.

Why this potential solution to Sacramento’s housing crisis has made little progress
Sacramento Bee
State and city leaders have touted ADUs, also known as granny flats or in-law units, as mechanisms to help alleviate California’s housing crisis. But not many homeowners in Sacramento are building them. Last year, the city issued 76 building permits for ADUs—only about 2% of all housing units permitted that year. Some cities have seen a higher interest: Oakland, which has a smaller population than Sacramento, approved 359 ADUs from 2016 through 2018. In Los Angeles, ADUs account for 22% of all newly permitted housing units, and 6,747 ADU permits were issued in 2019. Meanwhile, some cities are building fewer ADUs than Sacramento. In Fresno, which has a higher population than Sacramento, only seven ADUs were built from 2018 through August 2020.

It shouldn’t take 50 meetings to build some apartments
New York Times
Who should be in charge of housing? Should it be local homeowners who organize themselves into neighborhood organizations to protect their interests? How about local elected officials, who presumably were put in office to think about the needs of their constituents, especially when it comes to making sure they actually get to stay in their homes and don’t get displaced by hordes of newcomers? Or should it be the federal government, which, when it has stepped in on housing issues in the past, has done so mostly to protect poor and minority homeowners from housing discrimination? I spoke to California State Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) about the role state governments can play in alleviating housing crises and why we should care so much about a wonky issue like zoning.