31,821 Affordable Homes at Risk in California
To inform affordable housing preservation efforts across the state, the California Housing Partnership annually assesses the historical loss and conversion risk of federally- and state-subsidized affordable rental properties. Our 2020 report,
Affordable Homes at Risk,
finds that California has already lost 15,004 affordable rental homes and that another 31,821 affordable rental homes are currently at risk of market rate conversion in the next decade. These homes house thousands of low-income seniors, families and individuals.
Given the magnitude of the current statewide housing crisis, preventing the loss of any affordable homes should be a high priority for state and local policymakers.
"At a time when the state is confronting a housing crisis of historic proportions and a shortfall of 1.4 million affordable homes for our lowest income renters, it is clear that failing to preserve California's affordable homes should not be an acceptable public policy option and that further state and local actions are needed," says Matt Schwartz, President and CEO of the California Housing Partnership.
At-risk homes are concentrated in Los Angeles County (34 percent), Orange County (11 percent), Santa Clara County (seven percent), San Diego County (six percent), and San Francisco County (five percent). When considering the number of at-risk homes relative to each county's total stock of affordable homes, Trinity County has the largest proportion of affordable homes at risk of conversion -- 68 percent of the county's total affordable homes.
The report concludes by offering the following recommendations for state policymakers:
- Pass legislation to authorize the creation of a new Affordable Housing Preservation Tax Credit -- AB 2058 (Gabriel and Friedman) to incentivize the preservation of existing affordable homes by experienced affordable housing entities.
- Make permanent the $500 million annual increase to the California Low Income Housing Tax Credit Program authorized by AB 101 in 2019 so that affordable housing developers can plan to consistently ramp up their capacity, and allocate an additional $100 million specifically for affordable housing preservation as intended by the underlying legislation (AB 10, Chiu).
- Aggressively enforce the State Preservation Notice Law as expanded by AB 1521 (2017).
View the Partnership's full statewide lost and at-risk affordable homes assessment:
To learn more about the data
contained in this report, please
contact Danielle M. Mazzella
(dmazzella@chpc.net), Preservation
and Data Manager at the California
Housing Partnership.
To learn more about the policy
recommendations contained in
this report, contact Mark Stivers
(mstivers@chpc.net), Director
of Legislative and Regulatory
Advocacy at the California Housing
Partnership.
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About the California Housing Partnership
State-founded to serve as California's non-profit housing finance and policy experts, the California Housing Partnership combines on-the-ground technical assistance with applied research and legislative leadership at the state and national levels to increase the supply of affordable, sustainable homes in California. The Partnership has provided technical assistance to hundreds of affordable housing partners for over 30 years, leveraging more than $18 billion in public and private financing for the creation and preservation of 70,000 affordable homes.
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