The United Voice for Affordable Housing 

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

• The Assembly held a Joint Hearing on Health and Housing and Community Development Committee this week. The hearing was intended to evaluate the Governor's Behavioral Health Modernization Proposal and the proposed bond to fund behavioral health and veterans housing. Panelists included field experts and agency staff who provided a number of considerations and recommendations to the Legislature. To view the hearing click here.



• The National Leased Housing Association has launched a survey to produce data for policymakers on the issue of rising insurance costs. NLHA is seeking responses from all owners of Section 8 project-based rental assistance and project-based vouchers (including RAD); Housing Credit; Section 202/811; HOME assisted; and naturally occurring affordable housing. The survey is detailed and may require input from risk management teams, but the completion is estimated to take less than an hour. The deadline for completion is September 15, 2023. Please use this link to complete the survey.  

• CalMatters published a detailed profile on the ongoing campaign to lower local vote thresholds for affordable housing bonds, an issue that could appear on the ballot next year. CHC continues to support a measure moving through the Legislature, ACA 1 (Aguiar-Curry), that would amend the constitution to allow 55% of voters to approve local bonds for housing and other public infrastructure, instead of the two-thirds required today.

• SB 35 has become “the streamlining method of choice” among affordable housing developers since its passage five years ago, a newly released report by the UC Berkeley Terner Center for Housing Innovation confirms. Between 2018 and 2021, the law has led to more than 150 pending or approved housing projects—totaling more than 18,000 units—two-thirds of which are 100% affordable.

LEGISLATIVE ROUNDUP

The Legislature reconvened from summer recess on August 14 and now has less than a month to pass all remaining bills out of the appropriations committees and off the Assembly and Senate floors.

SB 423 (Wiener) will extend and strengthen SB 35’s streamlining provisions and remove the sunset on SB 35 (Wiener). The bill will be heard in the next few weeks in Assembly Appropriations.

SB 439 (Skinner) will strengthen existing protections for affordable housing projects by providing additional remedies to curtail non-meritorious litigation that can delay or kill projects even after they secure local approval. The bill is headed to the Senate Floor.



SB 440 (Skinner) will empower local governments to join forces to create regional housing finance agencies to address the unique affordable housing needs in their communities. The bill will be heard in the next few weeks in Assembly Appropriations.

AB 1307 (Wicks) will reverse a troubling, recent court decision relating to unamplified human noise under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). The bill passed out of the Senate Floor 38-0.

AB 1449 (Alvarez) will facilitate the development of affordable housing by exempting from CEQA certain 100% affordable housing projects throughout California. The bill is headed to the Senate Floor.

CHC is supporting other priority housing bills, view our bill tracker to see real time updates.

SAVE THE DATE!

Join us in-person for networking, a wide range of exciting industry discussions and a celebration of the three California Housing Hall of Fame honorees. To register click here.

September 7, 2023, 8:30am-2:00pm

Westin Anaheim Resort

Policy Forum Panels

Panel 1: Streamlining Multifamily Housing Production in CA: Progress Implementing SB 35

• Terner Center for Housing Innovation

Panel 2: Further Together -- Leveraging Private Dollars for Positive Public Outcomes

• Jamboree
• Orange County Business Council

Panel 3: Unpacking the Affordable Housing Bridge Program

• Project Destined
• Housing Partnership Network
• Eden Housing
• U.S. Bank

California Housing Hall of Fame Awards

All of the 2023 Hall of Fame honorees have taken a leadership role in advancing affordable housing development, financing and advocacy.

Rob Wiener

Lisa Gutierrez

Jacky Morales Ferrand

AFFORDABLE HOUSING NEWS OF THE MONTH

A California housing law led to thousands of new homes, report says. Why that’s not enough. (Los Angeles Times)

California could borrow a record-breaking $35 billion to tackle the housing crisis. Will voters go along? (CalMatters)

Newsom says California’s anti-housing environmental law is ‘broken.’ So why won’t he fix it? (Los Angeles Times)

Making borrowing easier: Amendment to state constitution could unlock billions of dollars for California housing (CalMatters)

How California’s rising insurance premiums threaten affordable housing (KQED)

EDITORIAL: California has to rethink building homes in climate-threatened areas (Los Angeles Times)

FEDERAL UPDATE FROM DAVID GASSON

As summer begins to wane, kids return to school and in a similar vein, Congress returns to Washington from their month-long summer work period, there are several pending issues on their agenda and ours.

First, we are very pleased with the continued strong bipartisan, bicameral support for the AHCIA.  As of August 22nd the House bill (HR.3238) has 160 bipartisan cosponsors evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats and the Senate bill (S.1557) has 28 cosponsors also evenly divided between the parties. This is significant progress as we work toward a bipartisan majority (218) in the House which will help us position provisions of the AHCIA for inclusion in a tax vehicle sometime this year.  When you view the legislative calendar for Congress, you see that there are not a lot of legislative days left in 2023. The House is only scheduled to be in session another 40 days once they return on September 12^th, so it is important we focus on getting the House cosponsorship of the AHCIA to 218 Members expeditiously.

As part of our advocacy efforts for the AHCIA through the ACTION campaign, we are teaming up with the National League of Cities, the National Association of Counties, and Mayors & CEO’s for U.S. Housing Investment to produce a letter to Congressional leadership urging action on the AHCIA this year. We hope you will join in this effort by getting your local mayors and elected officials to sign-on to the letter by September 7^th.