Thursday, June 25, 2020

Action Alert:
Support AB 434 to Reduce Housing Costs


What contributes to heightened costs and delays in affordable housing development? 

In order to fully fund and bring a new affordable housing community to fruition in California, affordable housing providers must weave together a patchwork quilt of funding sources.  While the Multifamily Housing Program (MHP) was created in 1999 to serve as the California Department of Housing and Community Development's (HCD) omnibus affordable rental housing finance program, the Legislature has since created at least nine separate programs to provide rental housing for specific purposes and populations: 
  • Transit-Oriented Development Housing Program
  • Joe Serna, Jr. Farmworker Housing Grant Program
  • SB 2 Farmworker Program
  • Veterans Housing and Homelessness Prevention Program
  • Infill Infrastructure Grant Program
  • Housing for a Healthy California
  • SB 2 Permanent Local Housing Allocation competitive funds
  • Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities Program
  • No Place Like Home Program
The plethora of programs is both a blessing and a curse. According to a  recent study by the Terner Center for Housing Innovation  at UC Berkeley, 89% of new affordable developments built with 9% Low-Income Housing Tax Credits rely on four or more  sources of funding, and each additional source of funding is associated with an average increase of $6,450 (2%) in total development costs of each affordable home. This siloed funding process creates significant additional cost for HCD as well as the housing organizations managing each project timeline. 

It's time to streamline the system with AB 434.

This year, the California Housing Partnership, along with  the California Housing Consortium, is proud to co-sponsor Assemblymember Daly's AB 434, which will streamline most of HCD's  rental housing programs into a single application, underwriting and award process. 

  • AB 434 CA.gov Legislative Information
  • AB 434 Fact Sheet (PDF)

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    By harmonizing the statutes relating to the MHP and the special purpose rental housing programs, AB 434 will authorize HCD to use a single application, scoring and underwriting system to make coordinated awards for MHP and the first seven programs bulleted above at one time, while maintaining the special intent of each original program and effectively distributing resources. Streamlining the HCD funding process in this way will decrease the number of duplicative competitive applications affordable housing providers must submit separately, thereby increasing certainty and reducing or eliminating these administrative delays and associated costs from the development timeline.  

    You can help enact this bill into law by providing a letter of support by July 8th before committee hearings begin. 

    Please act today to put the sample letter for the bill onto your letterhead, upload the letter to the  Legislature's Position Letter Portal, and send a copy to  mstivers@chpc.net.  

     
    The California Housing Partnership greatly appreciates your support on this important measure. Feel free to contact Mark Stivers, Director of Legislative and Regulatory Advocacy, with any questions at  mstivers@chpc.net.  


    Mark Stivers

    Mark Stivers
    Director of Legislative & Regulatory Advocacy
    California Housing Partnership


    Learn more about the Partnership's advocacy work by visiting our Legislative & Regulatory Advocacy webpage.