A message from Generation Housing Executive Director |
|
We need 58,000 new homes, and together, Sonoma County can get it done. |
|
You may have seen signs around town that say: “healthcare workers need affordable places to live,” or “farmworkers need affordable places to live” or “my granddaughters need affordable places to live.” We can all agree on the basic premise that everyone, no matter their income, should have a home that meets their needs.
But for nearly two decades, we simply haven’t built enough homes for the people in Sonoma County, making housing scarce and unaffordable for many. This is not news to most of us. After the 2017 wildfires that destroyed over 5,000 homes, there was a collective urgency to rebuild AND address our existing housing shortage. Now, as we emerge from the pandemic, it’s time to put housing back on top of our collective priority list.
A recent Generation Housing report concluded that we are 38,000 housing units behind and that we’ll need 20,000 more by 2030. That’s a total of 58,000 homes. This must include housing that serves people at all income levels, with a mix of housing types. We need to increase our housing production rate to a little over 6,000 homes per year to achieve that. We should not be daunted by this number. They’re building at this rate or greater, per capita, in lots of places, including Greeley, Colorado; St. George, Utah; Austin, Texas; Boise, Idaho; and Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. In Sonoma County we built at this rate in the 1980s. We can do this.
We must build the housing we need for the people who love it here and want to stay. Generation Housing’s call for 58,000 new homes is not sounding the doom and gloom alarm, it is a rallying cry, a call to action. We can do this.
Learn more about why this work is so important and how we will accomplish this goal without sacrificing local environment and culture by reading the full message.
|
|
Add your signature to these petitions in support for bills that promote affordability and inclusivity in housing for Sonoma County and California! Tell your representatives that you support these pro-housing measures!
|
|
How Much Housing Do We Need? Sonoma County’s Housing Shortfall and Future Needs |
|
Sonoma County’s housing affordability has been a barrier for thousands of local households who have struggled to make rent or purchase a home over the last two decades. Despite homebuilding peaking in the middle of the 1980’s with nearly 6,000 homes annually, homebuilding rates in the last twenty years have plummeted as median rents and home prices skyrocketed, and fewer homes were affordable to fewer households. This report answers two questions: 1) how much housing did we need but didn’t build in the last 20 years, and 2) how much housing do we still need to meet future growth? |
|
Nathan
After working in the air force for nine years, Nathan moved to Sonoma County to start his post-military life. Because of the steep housing prices, he opted for renting a semi-converted garage in Sonoma that was less than ideal -- the garage had no heat, no running water, and no plumbing. When the electricity would go out and he couldn’t use his hotplate, Nathan resorted to making PB&Js. Winters were freezing, summers were way too hot, and critters often found their way into his home.
Read more about Nathan and other housing stories here.
Help Generation Housing ensure housing availability for people like Nathan by joining #WeAreGenH now!
|
|
We are teachers, first responders, farm workers. We are grocers, we are artists. |
|
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.
|
|
Lots of Potential: Homes for People, Not Cars |
Luke Lindenbusch | June 2021 |
Earlier this month, the Santa Rosa City Council unanimously approved the sale of Parking Lot 2 at 410 B Street to Cornerstone Properties. Cornerstone plans to replace the surface lot with a mixed-use, high-rise development, 15 percent of which will be affordable homes. Councilmember Victoria Fleming described the sale as “a pivotal turning point for the development of our downtown,” as the City of Santa Rosa has considered how to replace an excess of parking with housing for decades.
“It seems so easy now just to read the resolution, and it’s easily forgotten how much work went into this, and how many years of effort,” reflected Councilmember John Sawyer. “This is a catalyst project, and something we’ve been waiting for.”
|
|
|
|
Sign up for ACTION ALERTS! |
|
Project Endorsements | 2021 |
|
As part of Generation Housing's project advocacy work we endorse and support projects that earn our endorsement through a review and scoring process driven by our Guiding Principles in order to bring more housing for people of all income levels.
Recent projects endorsed by Generation Housing are summarized here.
|
|
If you’ve been following local or regional housing discussions, you may have heard the term RHNA (pronounced “ree-nah”). RHNA stands for Regional Housing Needs Assessment. Every eight years, the State of California provides the Bay Area region with the number of housing units that local cities and counties will need to plan for and accommodate over an eight-year period.
As we near completion of the current fifth cycle that ends in 2023 and the start of the sixth cycle, which runs from 2023 to 2031, the State of California has provided the region, and the rest of the state, with our next allocation of housing units that we’ll need to plan for and accommodate.
|
|
Upcoming Events
Generation Housing Members' Monthly House Party | July 15th 4:30 - 5:30PM
Generation Housing membership comes with its perks, and one of them is access to members-only educational, networking, and advocacy events.
Visit generationhousing.org/events for more information and to register!
|
|
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.
|
|
|
California wants to make it easier to turn empty malls into affordable housing | Marketplace
“But the mall-to-housing flip can be harder than it sounds. Even if the Macy’s is well past its prime and the Cinnabon line no longer wraps around the food court, a fading mall will often have a powerful defender: “Cities who don’t really want to let go of that sales tax revenue,” said David Garcia, a housing researcher at the University of California, Berkeley.”
Is there a housing bubble? | Vox
“What’s in a name? That which we call a housing bubble by any other name would be an absolute dumpster fire. Whether we call it a housing bubble or not, the current situation is untenable. Prices are rising, homeownership is increasingly out of the reach of many Americans, and the alternative (renting) is also increasingly expensive, especially in the most job-rich parts of the country. This is an unhealthy, unstable, and unacceptable state of affairs. And it was entirely preventable.”
California homes cost more than ever. What are Gov. Newsom and lawmakers doing about it? | The Sacramento Bee
“The median single-family home in the Golden State sold for 23.9% more in March 2021 than it did a year ago, and 5.7% more since December, according to the state Department of Finance. The numbers underscore an increasingly exclusive housing market that’s squeezing middle- and low-income families out of California.”
Measuring California’s progress on income inequality | CalMatters
“As the pandemic exacerbates a pre-existing wealth gap that has disproportionately hurt women and people of color, the California Divide’s five-newsroom team has found renters bracing for an eviction tsunami, residents saddled by water bills, parents put in lifelong debt by child support, and students unable to access stable broadband for learning. Expectations are high for a turnaround. Already, experts have speculated that the federal relief alone could be enough to cut California’s child poverty in half.”
What happened to the $45 billion in rent relief? | Vox
The process of receiving rent relief has proven to be harder than it should, especially for the most vulnerable. Despite to the billions of dollars allocated for #RentRelief, only $20M has been paid to CA tenants. “I’m terrified. I’m so terrified to spend money,” the 31-year-old Floridian told me as she shopped at Walmart for household supplies. “I literally donated eggs to [make rent]. I’m selling off body parts.”
Sonoma County’s hot housing market hits price record in March, indicating banner 2021 | The Press Democrat
Record rising housing costs in Sonoma County exacerbates our already existing local housing crisis. As our ED puts it, “When you pay too much for housing, what are you not paying for?...That’s the most critical thing.” Read Ethan Varians’ piece on the PD to learn more.
|
|
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.
AFFORDABLE HOUSING
A home is generally considered affordable if the household pays 30% or less of their gross income (before taxes are taken out) towards rent/mortgage payments. The term usually refers to homes affordable to people with low, very low and extremely low income, including low-wage working families, seniors on fixed incomes, veterans, people with disabilities and the homeless. There are different kinds of affordable homes, including public housing (owned by the local housing authority), Section 8 vouchers that help people rent privately owned homes, and privately-owned housing developments with restricted rents. In the Bay Area, many affordable homes are built and managed by nonprofit organizations.
REGIONAL HOUSING NEEDS ASSESSMENT (RHNA)
Association of Bay Area Government (ABAG) assessment that produces regional, sub-regional and local targets for the amount and type of homes needed over a seven-year period, based on new growth. RHNA takes into account anticipated housing demand generated by employment growth and population increase, however is not enforceable, which has led to the Bay Area vastly under-producing housing for lower income individuals and families. RHNA also does not take into account prior unmet housing needs, which leads to the Bay Area falling farther and farther into a housing deficit.
HOUSING AUTHORITY
A federally recognized public corporation with boards appointed by the local government. Their mission is to provide affordable housing to low- and moderate-income people. In addition to public housing, housing authorities also provide other types of subsidized housing for seniors or others with special needs and via housing vouchers such as Section 8, Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing (VASH) or Family Unification Program (FUP).
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.
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.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
