Dear Governor: An Open Letter from Affordable Housing and Homelessness Leaders around the State

This letter was signed by representatives from Housing California, California Housing Consortium, California Housing Partnership, the Non-Profit Housing Association of Northern California, Southern California Alliance of Non Profit Housing, the Sacramento Housing Alliance, and the Kennedy Commission, representing tens of thousands of affordable housing and homelessness advocacy organizations, members, and supporters around the state of California.

Thriving communities require stable, affordable homes for all Californians, no matter their race or income

“It’s not just about production. It’s not just preservation. It is equally about prevention. Those Three P’s have to be front and center of this debate.” — Governor Newsom, housing roundtable, August 2019, Los Angeles

Dear Governor Newsom,

Your leadership was instrumental in bringing a legislative housing package forward that embraced a comprehensive new strategy to create inclusive neighborhoods and to advance housing access and opportunity for all Californians, and especially our neighbors of color.

Now, as affordable housing and homelessness leaders from around the state, we call on you to uphold your commitment by swiftly signing this package into law, so we can come together to deliver urgently needed relief and opportunity for California seniors, veterans, working families, and vulnerable community members who need a safe, stable, affordable place to live.

This year’s legislative session delivered a package of bold affordable housing and housing justice solutions to your desk. Lawmakers took a new, holistic approach in their investigation of how to truly create change for Californians and our housing crisis, and moved forward a series of bills under the “3Ps” framework. This framework dictates that an equitable, successful approach to our housing challenges must incorporate three key elements: production of new homes, preservation of existing housing affordability, and protection of tenants.

Housing experts and advocates have long promoted this framework as the state’s best opportunity to make significant progress on our housing and homeless emergencies, and this three-pronged approach to housing solutions has picked up steam as more elected and community leaders learned about the strategy. A broad, multi-sector coalition of supporters now includes labor, business, tenant rights, and housing, homeless, and economic justice advocates, who understand that this comprehensive approach is the pathway to new solutions and progress.

Many critical bills now awaiting your signature would move forward the vision of this joint approach. Those bills include:

• AB 1482, the Tenant Protections bill, which keeps families in their homes by limiting extreme or unreasonable rent increases and protects against discriminatory and retaliatory evictions.
• AB 1486, which strengthens our Surplus Land Act to transform unused public land into a public good. This bill builds on your State Surplus Land Executive Order by making more local surplus public land available for affordable homes and open spaces that benefit our communities across racial and economic lines.
• SB 330, which creates more affordable housing opportunities for California families and workers by ensuring local governments each maintain consistent rules and regulations, and establishes reasonable time periods for processing housing permits.
• SB 329, which stops housing discrimination by prohibiting landlords from rejecting prospective renters just because they get government assistance to pay their rent.
• SB 5, which creates an innovative state-local partnership to drive housing production in California and provide powerful counter-cyclical job creation.
• AB 1763, which reduces obstacles to building affordable housing developments near transit — a key strategy for addressing California’s affordable housing crisis, while also meeting our state’s environment goals.
• And, specifically for the Bay Area, AB 1487 allows new regional funding and programs to present production, preservation, and protections strategies in a comprehensive regional approach.

Together, these bills represent a significant step in your administration’s pledge to develop a bold plan to end homelessness and increase affordability with the construction of 3.5 million homes by 2025. They move forward the vision that there is a pathway for California where we have strong, healthy, affordable communities around the state. They prioritize California’s families and working people who need a place to live, sleep, play, and raise their families.

We urge you to reaffirm your commitment to Californians, advance your vision on housing and homelessness, and offer relief today: Sign these bills and move them forward!

We look forward to your signature on this package, and we look forward to continuing to work with you, your administration, and our elected leaders on additional critical policies for 2020.

Sincerely,

Lisa Hershey, Housing California
Ray Pearl, California Housing Consortium
Matt Schwartz, California Housing Partnership
Amie Fishman, Non-Profit Housing Association of Northern California
Alan Greenlee, Southern California Association of Non Profit Housing
Rachel Iskow, Sacramento Housing Alliance
Cesar Covarrubias, The Kennedy Commission