September 2021 Newsletter |
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A message from Generation Housing Executive Director |
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Celebrating Opportunity and Gearing Up for Work Ahead
There is lots of housing news to celebrate right now. Although, more accurately, there is lots of potential to celebrate. We’ll have to get to work to turn that potential into more, more kinds, and more affordable homes.
News from D.C.:
The House Ways & Means committee, on which Congressman Mike Thompson sits, passed a bill that includes more Low Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTC), the primarily funding stream for affordable housing development, and the House Committee on Financial Services passed a bill with significant investments in affordable housing development, housing trust funds, down payment and rental assistance funds, and in modular housing facilities’ innovation and capacity building. The modular housing facility investment provision was added as a result of local collaborative effort led by Generation Housing and Congressman Mike Thompson and his staff. (Read more about modular housing, and send a letter to Senators Feinstein and Padilla to urge them to stand strong on the bills in their current form, below.)
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Sign up for ACTION ALERTS! |
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In this month’s update we'll talk about Modular Housing, their importance, and their key advantages. |
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Sonoma County continues to struggle with housing scarcity, but thanks to new housing materials and construction modalities, such as Modular Housing,
we have an opportunity to more rapidly scale the
rate of our housing production. Generation Housing advocates for more, more kinds, and more
affordable housing in Sonoma County; this is
one approach that could offer a more expedient
path towards those endgoals.
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Stephen
Stephen’s family owns a small winery in Southern Sonoma. So when Stephen graduated from college in May of last year and landed a job as a financial advisor at Merrill Lynch, he moved in with his family to save on rent for a bit.
After a couple months, Stephen and his girlfriend, who is still a student at Sonoma State, decided to look for an apartment together in Sonoma -- that way, they split the commute between school and work. But the search for an affordable apartment proved to be challenging, even for someone with a solid job like Stephen.
Help Generation Housing ensure housing availability for people like Stephen by joining #WeAreGenH now!
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We are teachers, first responders, farm workers. We are grocers, we are artists. |
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Together, each of you, all of us, and all residents of Sonoma County. We Are Gen H, and we all need affordable places to live.
The “We Are Gen H” pro-housing campaign lifts up the experiences of workers, artists, and students in the community and organizes community members to take action and show support for more construction of more types of housing in Sonoma County.
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Calum Weeks | Policy Director |
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Calum (Cal) Weeks is an energetic, passionate, community-minded professional that brings over 5 years of experience building partnerships among diverse stakeholders in order to help deliver holistic policy solutions. Most recently, he worked for the Bank Information Center (BIC) in Washington D.C. as an Administrative & Research Assistant. In this capacity, he conducted research which sought to identify innovative solutions that would limit the harm multilateral development banks (MDBs) programs and policies have on people and the planet. Prior to that, he served as a Field Representative for a North Bay State Assemblymember, amassing substantive knowledge around an array of critical issues impacting community health, including: transportation, housing, small business, and K-12 education.
Read Cal's Full Bio Here
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Sign up to volunteer at community events to meet people, talk housing, and engage them in our work. |
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Read our latests reports: |
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The housing affordability crisis in California has prompted interest in zoning reform to unlock higher density residential development. Much of the energy in the last decade has focused on increasing density near transit and job-rich areas. Most recently, greater focus has shed light on the potential promise of legalizing plexes within existing single family only residential zoned neighborhoods. Single family zoning accounts for the majority of residential land in Sonoma County with some cities like Healdsburg and Windsor having 90 percent of their neighborhoods zoned for only single-family homes. |
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Sonoma County is facing a much drier future. The problem requires serious and sustained action. But it’s no excuse for failing to tackle Sonoma County’s housing crisis with new residential development that’s much more water-efficient than much of our existing housing. To build or not to build in the face of drought is a false dichotomy. There is a third option: build for water conservation anenvironmental sustainability, and enact policies that promote both. The best means of reducing water use is conservation. Home appliances are now far more efficient than in the past... |
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Support Bold Housing Solutions |
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Please join us and seize this opportunity to help advance housing solutions! Show your support by submitting a letter to our Senators using our quick and easy email tool. It takes less than 5 minutes: |
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The Governor's staff made it very clear: |
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After signing bipartisan bills SB9 and SB10, SB10: an opportunity for cities to create an easier, cheaper, and faster path to multi-family, transit oriented development; and SB9, which increases property owners’ options to build on their single family home parcels, increasing the number of small, multi-family units allowed in more of our neighborhoods, Generation Housing's ED, Jen Klose, had the chance to chat with the Governor (pictured above). |
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Generation Housing Members' Monthly House Party | October 21st 5:30 - 6:30PM
Being a Generation Housing member comes with its perks, and one of them is free admission to members-only educational, networking, and advocacy events.
Stay tuned for location details. Gates Open at 5:00 P.M. Free for members and their guest. $10 at entrance for non-members or become a member here! Food & drinks provided. Outdoors, Live & In PERSON!
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Sonoma County Housing News Digest
In case you missed some of the key news items of the last few weeks on local housing, Generation Housing has procured a bevy of news articles from around Sonoma County.
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How a workforce rent program aims to plug ‘missing middle’ affordable housing gap | Mercury News
Workforce housing programs, where rent is based on income. What do you think?
“We can’t have fully functioning communities if we can’t house our workforce anywhere near the communities they serve.”
"Governor Newsom’s California Comeback Plan will lead to over 84,000 new housing units and exits from homelessness, including today’s announcement of $1.75 billion in affordable housing funding for the new California Housing Accelerator. SB 8 extends the Housing Crisis Act of 2019 to jumpstart more housing production. SB 9 gives homeowners additional tools to add critically needed new housing and help ease California’s housing shortage . SB 10 establishes voluntary, streamlined process for cities to zone for multi-unit housing — making it easier and faster to construct housing."
Is it sustainable for Sonoma County to build new homes during an ongoing water crisis? | The Press Democrat
Yes! We have enough water for housing! “Laura Feinstein, an environmental policy expert at Bay Area think tank SPUR, stressed the need for denser housing, such as apartments and townhomes, which tend to have shared yards and use much less water than single-family homes.”
“...housing assistance programs for the homeless can indeed reduce future homelessness, in addition to improving other socioeconomic outcomes that contribute to improved likelihood of successful rehabilitation and reintegration to society.”
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Demystifying Housing Policy:
Five Housing Terms Everyone Should Know
Housing affects all of us, yet the terminology used to discuss housing can be fraught with insider lingo and it can be difficult to fully grasp. So we’ve compiled a brief list of some of the most common terms used in the housing policy world to help everyone better understand and engage in the housing conversation.
HOUSING ELEMENT
A required element of all California city general plans, housing elements identify and analyze housing needs and include goals, objectives, policies, and programs for providing a city’s fair share of affordable housing needs. Although state law mandates that jurisdictions rezone enough land to meet their regional housing needs allocation and each jurisdiction is required to have an approved housing element, jurisdictions retain local land use control and Housing Elements are only plans for housing. Advocates then push for implementation of these plans and work tirelessly to get these cities and counties to produce the homes their communities desperately need.
INFILL DEVELOPMENT
A strategy for accommodating growth and preventing sprawl through greater density and efficiency in land use development within existing urban boundaries.
LAND TRUST
In the strictest sense, a nonprofit organization that sells affordable homes but retains ownership of the land under them in order to control, through the lease, the long-term affordability of the homes. The lease ensures that the home is resold to a low-income family, sold at a below-market price, and/or sold with a share of the appreciated value going to the nonprofit. The term is used more loosely to describe programs that subsidize fee simple homeownership for low-income families and impose similar kinds of long-term affordability controls.
MODERATE INCOME
A person or household with gross household income between 80% and 120% of Area Median Income, adjusted for household size, often including registered nurses and police officers. This housing, also called Work Force Housing, is typically built by for-profit developers in exchange for incentives offered by local jurisdictions (density bonuses, etc.)
Visit our website to learn more housing terms at our Publications and Resources page and check out our Housing Glossary.
INCLUSIONARY ZONING
A requirement that developers of new housing include a certain percentage of below market rate homes. Inclusionary Zoning is a local law and each city that passes this law decides how
many units must be affordable, and what price is considered affordable. Often developers
can pay the city an “in-lieu fee” instead of including affordable units, which allows the city to
use the money to build new affordable homes. In California, there is a legal challenge to
Inclusionary Zoning’s application to rental housing, which is now being debated at the
California State Supreme Court.
HOUSING ELEMENT
A required element of all California city general plans, housing elements identify and analyze housing needs and include goals, objectives, policies and programs for providing a city’s fair share of affordable housing needs. Although state law mandates that jurisdictions rezone enough land to meet their regional housing needs allocation and each jurisdiction is required to have an approved housing element, jurisdictions retain local land use control and Housing Elements are only plans for housing. Advocates then push for implementation of these plans and work tirelessly to get these cities and counties to produce the homes their communities desperately need.
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