Policy Update August 2022

At the State Level

Legislative

Eight of Housing California’s ten sponsored bills passed through their house of origin and are headed to the Appropriations Committee in the second house. To learn more about our legislative priorities and review sample letters of support, visit our 2022 Policy Agenda. The bills headed to Appropriations include:

  • AB 1685 (Bryan) Parking Ticket Relief Programs
  • AB 1816 (Bryan) Reentry Housing and Workforce Development Program
  • AB 1961 (Gabriel) Statewide Affordable Housing Database
  • AB 2817 (Reyes) House California Challenge Program
  • AB 2094 (R. Rivas) General plan: Annual report: Extremely low income Housing 
  • AB 2334 (Wicks) Density Bonus – Low Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) Areas
  • SB 490 (Caballero) Technical Assistance Program
  • SB 948 (Becker) Transition Reserves Pool

Housing CA is continuing to oppose CARE Courts, currently moving through the legislature as SB 1338 (Umberg). With coalition partners, we developed a counter proposal that offers a different paradigm of how to support people experiencing homelessness with serious mental illnesses through housing vouchers, robust support services, and fully-funded mental health services, which can be viewed here.

Coalition Building & Partnerships

The Bring California Home coalition – a broad coalition of homelessness service providers, advocates, local jurisdictions, and people impacted by homelessness that Housing California helps co-lead along with our partners – is updating its coalition structure to continue to build the movement needed to secure an ongoing source of funding to end homelessness through housing and services. All of our partners are invited to join as an endorsing organization or participate in a Committee to support BCH’s important work moving forward. For more information or to pitch in to BCH, see our Coalition Structure Framework and sign up for BCH’s email list.

Administrative

Housing California participated in the launch of a new effort by the Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) that aims to develop a comprehensive policy framework for Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) in California. Through a series of stakeholder engagement sessions, the Opportunity Framework project will consider topics such as community development strategies and preventing displacement of low-income residents in gentrifying neighborhoods. Their lessons learned will inform HCD’s plans to update TCAC/HCD Opportunity Maps and create online tools that support the policy framework.

At the Federal Level

The Build Back Better Act has stalled for over a year, but negotiations between Senator Manchin and the Administration have resumed, and are reportedly progressing. Housing CA continues to voice support for Build Back Better housing provisions in any final reconciliation bill to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senator Padilla, and Senator Feinstein. Housing CA has also advocated for the inclusion of the Affordable Housing Credit Improvement Act provisions. 

Our partners at the National Low Income Housing Coalition released its 2022 Out of Reach which highlights the mismatch between the wages people earn and the price of decent rental housing in every state, metropolitan area, and county in the U.S. The report calculates the “Housing Wage” a full-time worker must earn to afford a rental home without spending more than 30% of their income on housing costs.