California Housing Hopes and Dreams 2024 Edition
A new leader, a mega election, a terrible budget, and lots of room for ideas and new coalitions
Welcome to our 3rd Annual California Housing Hopes and Dreams list, which I think makes it a tradition. My 2022 list launched this newsletter, and was more or less a gauntlet of ideas that I threw down for myself to write that year (I mostly made it). My 2023 list was a smorgasbord of hopes, dreams, and reflections, a chance to double down on core housing ideas which drive this Substack, and reflect a bit on what I missed in year 1.
For 2024, here are twelve interconnected areas where I hope California can make progress.
Getting our Housing Politics Right Starting Now
Number 1. Let’s welcome Tomiquia Moss with appreciation and a thank you - before coming with the ask.
Like a lot of Northern California housers, I was very excited when Tomiquia Moss was named the new Secretary of BCSH. I’ve been honored to work a bit with AllHome, and to have hosted her at SJSU to talk about Social Housing (Episode 4 of Housing After Dark). She brings a vital combination of experience in “little p” housing politics and “big P” party Politics, and understands how large bureaucracies work. She also has the moral courage and leadership skills we need. Now it’s up to those of us in the housing community - those who will work with her at BCSH and those of us who will work outside the public sector - to help support her in this incredibly challenging mission. That starts with appreciation first and foremost.
Number 2. Let’s build a mega coalition around the ballot and the bonds.
The most important work in housing politics in 2024 won’t happen in the legislature. It will happen in November. Campaigns for billions in statewide bonds: ACA1 to reduce the voter threshold for local housing bonds to 55%, SCA2 to repeal the racist stain that is Article 34 of the California Constitution and Regional campaigns in the Bay Area to fund BAHFA will hopefully unite housers and citizens alike to take an important step forward in how we fund housing production. There may be other important campaigns in Los Angeles and in localities around the state as the ballot comes together around an AC1 campaign.
This will be a hard grind, and we owe a debt of thanks to all the folks who have been grinding to get us to this historic moment. But as we gear up for full campaign mode, we need to remind ourselves that winning isn’t just determined by what happens on November 5th. Winning must also be defined by whether our housing coalition is bigger, stronger, and more diverse after the campaign, and whether the campaigns leave us with lasting political infrastructure that can keep going no matter what happens at the ballot. We need to set ourselves up to implement these measures successfully, and that means building real bridges outside of our housing tents.
Housing for Low and Moderate Income Californians
Number 3. Let’s keep pushing on protection and support for the most vulnerable.
Last year was a mixed session, with important loopholes closed in the fabric of statewide tenant protections. But we still have a long way to go, including recognizing that no amount of success pulling people off the streets can compete with the current rate we put folks out of their houses. This means both stronger policies, and more attention to the infrastructure of tenant protections - everything from having enough legal aid attorneys to training local governments to establishing rent registries and solving data issues. And it especially means having the most important conversation of all - how to increase direct assistance for housing costs, whether rent or a mortgage. Until we help the lowest income Californians pay less for their housing, we will never solve our housing problem. (You may even get me to write a piece on Federal housing policy because ultimately Washington has to be the center of this part of the housing solution)
Number 4. Let’s focus more on the growing challenges inside our existing Affordable Housing system.
A dedicated reader said it better than I could:
“One thing that is under the radar but that is a growing concern is the precarity that many LIHTC [and other Affordable] buildings now find themselves in. While most were able to take advantage of the COVID rent relief to some degree, many are still falling short, have a lot of rent debt owed to them and are housing residents who still haven't returned to paying rent. They are also faced with calls from advocates to not increase rents (a not insignificant fracture point in the big tent we know we need), older units needing rehab, and if they are running PSH housing, there is not a clear path to covering the costs of services for those residents. This is on top of the 35,000+ units whose covenant is set to expire in the next handful of years. It's worth paying attention because unless there is huge public investment, this is a problem that will only grow and could result in losing more affordable housing than we can make up through building new.”
Number 5. Let’s do something to help lower and moderate income Californians own their homes.
Homeownership has been a major theme here, and will continue to be until housers across the board realize that who owns homes is central to the housing question. Multifamily homeownership strategies, which include everything from condos to community land trusts to extended families and friend groups owning a single family home together, are key to this (rich folks have shown that the secret to owning things is often owning them together). There are so many things that we can do in the state to support the production of these opportunities, including construction defect reform, better enabling pre-sales of future units, technical assistance to regular folks, and more California Dream for All. While the budget will make some things hard, there is much work that can be done policy-wise, and especially coalition-wise. Resident-controlled housing - including forms of homeownership where the resident has zero equity - is a central pillar around which much of the housing community can and should rally.
Number 6. Let’s talk more about middle income housing, and do so in a way that builds a coalition with lower income Californians.
I’m excited to be part of a report coming out in early 2024 that looks at Californians by income, specifically by the Area Median Income (AMI) bands that dominate housing policy. Who makes up moderate income (80-120% of AMI) California? The answer may surprise you, and I’m excited to be part of discussions throughout the year as the housing spotlight on ‘missing middle’ housing grows. But for those of us who are part of this conversation, we have to remember to build it in ways that also engage with Californians below 80% of AMI, i.e. lower-income California. I won’t spill the beans about how many lower or middle income Californians there are, or what percentage are BIPOC. But I can tell you that neither group is large enough and powerful enough to win critical changes to our housing system on their own. Only by working in coalition can we drive housing change.
Number 7. Let’s see SB555 for the opportunity it is to actually realize the social housing dream.
I was pleasantly surprised to see both of the social housing bills (AB309 and SB555) make it through the legislature, and even more surprised that one of them (SB555) got signed. Now it’s time to work. SB555 sets us on a course to build a social housing plan for the state by 2026. The good news is that 1) we have time, which is a blessing because this will be hard politically and technically, and 2) the person in charge of the agencies in charge of the plan is a great one (see item 1). The bad news is that too many folks on both sides of the social housing aisle are digging in on their narrow vision of what can be the most inclusive ideas in housing.
SB555 is the law of the land, and folks who supported AB309 now need to recognize this publicly and work towards shared goals. Supporters of SB555 need to avoid the temptation to see the AB309 veto as a sign that they have the ‘winning’ vision of social housing or that they are powerful enough politically to realize any social housing vision on their own - with or without a state plan. We need both sets of social housers working together, and working to convince the thousands of more powerful and more skeptical organizations out there that we can build a plan, or in reality, a series of plans only one of which will be the SB555 plan. Oh, and if you think our current Affordable Housing system just needs some tweaks or a few billion dollars, see above.
Building a Better Housing Development Industry
Number 8. Let’s make sure we pay attention to SB4 implementation.
Developing religious organization land as 100% Affordable could be a massive boon for lower-income people who need stable housing. It could be particularly game-changing for certain communities, and even enable a right-to-return for those who want it. It could help grow and sustain a new generation of BIPOC builders, and provide radically innovative opportunities for legit impact investing that isn’t equity washing. But it could also go wrong in so many ways, because if history has taught us anything, it’s that the sharks in the water come out every time there is a new program in housing. Let’s work together to build a healthy SB4 ecosystem, including one that learns from and collaborates with other institutional housing efforts like schools and universities.
Number 9. Let’s make progress on mega projects.
Linked to the above (these are really one wish divided in two), we need to realize that big projects like Concord Naval Weapons Station and the Oakland Coliseum need state support. These projects could have profound impacts on housing supply, affordable homeownership, permanent supportive housing, BIPOC developer pipelines, community-ownership, modular housing and more. But they will never pencil if it is just a local deal between developers, local jurisdictions, and groups that want the projects to provide affordable housing or living wages or environmental benefits. We need state action and state funding mechanisms to make this work.
Number 10. Let’s hope that regional and state housing organizations show some leadership around the folly that is California Forever.
It’s been nice to get words of support from various housers about my piece on New Towns and Solano County. Now it’s time for California organizations to raise their voice, even if their memberships are compromised by how many companies are billing hours on this project. This is a quagmire that team housing has helped foist upon the people of Solano, and on the rest of California. We have too much important work to do together this year that the political risk of a total shit show is incredible.
The Two Biggest Non-Housing Issues That Are at the Center of Our Housing Crisis
Number 11. Let’s all learn about insurance.
The crisis is wider and deeper than we want to admit. It’s about way more than homeowners getting policies canceled, and impacts every aspect of housing development. It’s also the subject of the next episode of Housing After Dark, stay tuned for more.
Number 12. Let’s talk more about fiscal issues, including redevelopment 2.0.
A post on what I call the Fiscal New Deal is now many years overdue, which is a synecdoche for the state as a whole. AB930 got the conversation going further than we had in years by proposing something that could more robustly replace redevelopment. Now we need to continue that momentum, and work to make housing pencil for local jurisdictions and developers alike by actually financing infrastructure.
Got other issues on you radar? Add them in the comments!
Happy 2024!