The California Housing Partnership and the nonprofit and local government housing agencies we work with are among the biggest users of the state’s affordable housing finance programs and know all too well the delays, costs, and inefficiencies of the current fractured system. New research by the Partnership has now put a price tag to those inefficiencies. Using a comprehensive multiple Read More
In early January, multiple wildfires erupted across Los Angeles County causing devastating losses. More than 50,000 acres of land have burned, thousands of homes and businesses have been damaged or completely destroyed, and at least 29 people have lost their lives to these fires, with more than 180,000 people forced to evacuate. As communities continue on the long path towards Read More
Proposition 5 on California’s November 2024 statewide ballot would set the voter threshold to approve local general obligation (GO) bonds for public infrastructure and affordable housing investments at 55%, provided those bonds include strong accountability and transparency requirements. The same was done for school bonds when voters approved Proposition 39 in 2000. The California Housing Partnership cares about this measure Read More
Proponents of California Proposition 36, which would undo many of the reforms brought by voter approval of Proposition 47 in 2014, are claiming that voter approval of this new measure would reduce homelessness in our state. As a Sociologist with the California Housing Partnership, I can tell you these claims are patently false. Here’s why: What Did Proposition 47 Do Read More
Housing advocates, agencies, policymakers, and developers in California understand that we need to build more – much more – to meet current and future housing needs, particularly affordable homes for those with low incomes. At the same time, the State’s housing production goals can feel so large and daunting that they stand apart from the day-to-day practices of housers working Read More
This blog post and related research were prepared for the California Housing Partnership by undergraduate students at Stanford University as part of the Program on Urban Studies community engaged learning course “Gentrification.” Students learn about this complicated topic in class and through engaging in a real-world project with partner organizations including Faith in Action Bay Area, Silicon Valley at Home Read More
Earlier this month, California’s Department of Housing & Community Development (HCD) released the final Neighborhood Change Map, which is intended to inform statewide policy for affordable housing and advance affirmatively furthering fair housing (AFFH) objectives. The Neighborhood Change Map identifies low- and moderate-income communities of color that have undergone substantial racial/ethnic and economic changes. This map signals that the State Read More
Discussion about the State of California’s efforts to advance the affirmatively furthering fair housing (AFFH) objective of increasing access to opportunity have typically framed neighborhood opportunity broadly, in terms of higher and lower levels of “resources,” rather than in terms of the specific characteristics of those neighborhoods. This framing is helpful in the context of policy design and also understandable Read More
As California’s housing crisis has deepened in recent years, more and more families have been affected, leading some state and local leaders to consider investing scarce resources to help the households earning at (or even above) the area median income (AMI). But what does the data show concerning the ability of households at each income level to afford market rents Read More
Advocates and experts have gone on the record to say that inflation is exacerbating the housing affordability crisis in the Bay Area as families do not have as much disposable income to cover cost-of-living increases. An article in the SF Chronicle discussed how, “inflation means a Bay Area resident will spend $4,400 more the same stuff this year” compared to Read More