The rule, embedded in the state constitution, requires local governments to turn to their voters for approval if they want to build public housing. Californians voted to add it to the constitution in 1950 and it’s been making it harder to build affordable housing since.

 

“There's still people who don't know that Article 34 was a direct result of white backlash to civil rights victories and the attempt of President Truman to desegregate housing,”

 

 

Tenants are often at the mercy of private landlords who conduct criminal background checks. Regulations restrict people from accessing federally subsidized housing if they’ve been convicted of certain crimes, including drug and sex offenses.

globest.com

 

By Paul Bergeron | July 19, 2022 at 08:24 AM

 

Affordability for market-rate apartments is not a major concern for owners as income wage growth is moving along with rent increases, according to the 2022 Market-Rate Apartment Affordability Report issued Monday by RealPage at its RealWorld Conference in Las Vegas.

 

The report showed that market-rate residents nationwide are spending 23.2% of their income, well below the oft-quoted 33% affordability ceiling. The 23.2% measure is modestly higher than pre-pandemic norms.

 

By Paul Bergeron | July 14, 2022 at 08:37 AM

 

It is becoming almost unanimous among apartment rent forecasters that what has been a strong rent growth run across most of the country in the past two years is starting to  moderate. To name one example, CoStar just predicted that demand will cool over the next six months, noting that rent growth rose 9.2% in Q2, down from 11.4% in the first quarter.

 

Yet rent growth is still far higher than it was pre-pandemic, with new benchmarks continuing to be set. The latest example comes from Yardi Matrix, which reports that average US rents rose above $1,700 for the first time in June after adding another $19 since May.

 

 

By Les Shaver | June 17, 2021

GlobeSt.com

 

With vaccinations increasing, the rental market is taking off.

 

Monthly rents jumped 5.5% year-over-year to an average of $1,527 in May, according to the Realtor.com Monthly Rental Report.

Matthew Rothstein, Bisnow East Coast

 

Though it isn't remotely the top-line item, President Joe Biden's infrastructure bill includes a provision that encourages the use of zoning reform to aid housing affordability.

Dan Walters

dan@calmatters.org

 

In summary

While Gov. Gavin Newsom renews his pledge to attack California’s housing crisis, a bureaucratic mess and labor union demands are impediments to construction.

New research from Fitch Ratings raises questions about the extent to which rental assistance under the American Rescue Plan will keep apartment delinquencies low.

 

Fitch analysts say it’s tough to estimate the amount of unpaid back rent despite current mortgage delinquency levels for affordable housing providers being low and only slightly up from pre-COVID levels.

[California] Assemblymember Todd Gloria is co-authoring a bill to bring back redevelopment agencies in California in an effort to build more affordable housing.

 

SALINAS, Calif. - A proposed ordinance in Salinas could affect the many farm workers who get housing by renting rooms in neighborhoods...

 

Eden Housing is using the new income-averaging option in the low-income housing tax credit program to help preserve and rehabilitate the Charles Apartments in Marina, Calif.

 

 

Salinas — known as "Salad Bowl of the World" — is one of America's least affordable places to live, exemplifying a housing crisis that plagues California's rural and urban areas alike. Salinas families earn a median income of $69,000, while the region's 90,000 farmworkers bring in far less. They face a median home price of nearly $550,000 and two-bedroom apartments costing roughly $1,800 a month, according to Zillow.

 

Two years after voters approved billions of dollars to fund low-income homes around California, affordable-housing advocates are upping the ante big-time — with two statewide bond measures on the Nov. 6 ballot to raise a record-breaking $6 billion for housing for struggling families, veterans and severely mentally ill people.

 

 

Yesterday, vice president and chief innovation officer of the Urban Institute, Erika Poethig, testified before members of the US House of Representatives to share evidence on the impact of regulations on the development of affordable multifamily rental housing. Poethig noted that many housing regulations stem from efforts to protect public health and well-being, and she highlighted research illustrating that while reducing regulations can lower costs and address economic and racial segregation, nothing can substitute for rental subsidies to close the gap for extremely low–income households.

 

 

Fifty-six percent of Central Coast workers are struggling with poverty, PRRI found, higher than the state average but tied with the Sacramento Valley and behind only the San Joaquin Valley. Census data found close to one in five Salinas residents are actually in poverty.

 

The housing secretary wants to encourage mixed-income, multifamily development as a way of making housing more affordable. But it’s a notion homeowners of all political leanings tend to oppose.

Across the nation, there are just 35 homes affordable and available to every 100 extremely low income families. Due to chronic underfunding of critical affordable housing programs, three out of four low income households in need are turned away from receiving assistance. Most of these families pay more than half of their incomes on rent with little left for other basic necessities like food, medicines, daycare, and transportation. They live on the cusp of homelessness or are one of the half-million people who have no homes.

 

 

 

California’s cities and counties make most decisions about when, where, and to what
extent housing will be built. For decades, many California communities—particularly coastal
communities—have used this control to limit home building. As a result, too little housing has been
built to accommodate all those who wish to live here. This lack of home building has driven a rapid
rise in housing costs.

 

 

California’s Department of Housing and Community Development has issued a new assessment of the state’s housing challenges, reporting that California families face a harder time finding a place to live than at any point in our history and that homeownership rates in California are at their lowest since the 1940s.

 

 

 

 

A measure ... to expand affordable housing options for teachers was signed by Governor Brown today. SB 1413 will help California retain quality educators by allowing school districts to establish housing for teachers and employees on district-owned property.

 

 

... atypical living conditions have become the new normal in portions of Salinas, where there are a myriad of stories of people sleeping under leaky roofs and in homes with broken smoke and carbon monoxide detectors. Another concern is the growing network of people forced to share homes with drug users and gang members, or that become victims of landlord exploitation.

 

 

 

Gov. Jerry Brown recently proposed reforming the state’s California Environmental Quality Act by allowing new housing projects with at least 20 percent on-site affordable housing to bypass the law’s cumbersome environmental impact process and be approved “as of right.”

...

One would think that California’s labor unions would be quick to hail Gov. Brown’s reform. After all, construction means employment for many unions...

...

...however, some unions chose political self-interest over the general welfare of their members and came out against Gov. Brown’s reform...

 

 

This year the national two-bedroom Housing Wage, the hourly wage a full-time worker must earn to afford a modest two-bedroom apartment while spending no more than 30% of household income on rent and utilities, is $20.30 per hour.

 

 

A recent study... reported that the percentage of seniors who need affordable housing is rising faster than the increase in the elderly U.S. population. Between 2005 and 2014, the overall population of seniors aged 65 and older increased by 25 percent nationwide, from 22.5 million to 28.1 million, while the number of seniors paying more than half of their household income, before taxes, toward rent and utilities shot up by 34 percent, from 1.4 million to 1.8 million.

Salinas posted the strongest year-over-year increase of California cities with the fastest growing rents at 15.1 percent over December 2014. The national figure is 2.6 percent and it is 4.9 percent for the state.
 

Housing for all Californians is critical to our state’s economy and accessibility....Recently, California’s highly respected Legislative Analyst’s Office issued a report that found the state’s average housing costs are 150 percent higher than the national average and that we need to build 100,000 more units more per year to help control rising costs in home affordability.

 

For the complete text of this article press here.

There are 39 categories in Salinas that fail to earn a livable wage, compared to 82 categories that do.

 

For more of this Californian article, press here

Access to decent, affordable housing is so fundamental to the health and well-being of
people and the smooth functioning of economies that it is imbedded in the United Nations
Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Yet in developing and advanced economies alike,
cities struggle with the dual challenges of housing their poorest citizens and providing
housing at a reasonable cost for low- and middle-income populations.

Housing costs in Monterey County are notoriously out of synch with income levels, but for the most vulnerable populations, the problem is reaching crisis proportions, say those working to keep people in their homes.
 

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has threatened to make the city repay about $1.34 million granted the city in 2001 and 2002 to buy five parcels in the 600 block of Van Buren Street for a low-and moderate-income senior apartment project.