| | San Mateo County extends eviction moratorium through end of August KRON4 San Mateo County’s Board of Supervisors voted on Tuesday to extend the countywide moratorium on residential evictions from July 28 to Aug. 31. The temporary moratorium protects renters from eviction if they cannot pay rent due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It also suspends evictions in certain no-fault cases. At the end of the moratorium, tenants have up to 180 days to pay the owed rent. Residents around the county are struggling to pay rent, due to the high cost of living in the Bay Area and the negative economic impact of the pandemic. San Mateo County’s unemployment rate was 10.8 percent this June, compared to 2.2 percent in June 2019, according to data from California’s Employment Development Department. A San Mateo County staff report described many county residents as “rent-burdened”, as they spend up to 50 percent of their income on rent. Read More | | | | A note from Leora Tanjuatco Ross, Associate Director of HLC Last Monday, the San Mateo City Council voted to reject a landlord’s attempt to avoid paying financial assistance to 11 families who were living in overcrowded and "life-threatening conditions." Under the City’s ordinance, the landlord is required to make relocation payments to these families who were displaced because of code violations that were the landlord’s responsibility. Those violations were triggered by a near fire that prompted the Fire Department to inspect the building, and as a result we learned that there were a total of 22 people living on one single-family zoned parcel in the City of San Mateo. The pictures of their living conditions are horrifying. There were sleeping mats on bare concrete floors in the basement and garage, beds right next to gas heaters and electrical cords waiting to ignite into deadly fires. Adults and children were also living in two small shacks in the backyard. How does this happen in a community like San Mateo? When the City’s rules prevent the development of apartment buildings over 5 stories, people who need affordable housing will crowd into whatever is available. And in San Mateo, that is often single-family homes. Contrary to what some people believe and are even willing to say in public, refusing to build denser multi-family homes doesn't mean that low-income people will stay out of town. It just means that the solutions that they find will be more unsafe and more unhealthy. Having 22 people crammed into one lot during a pandemic is almost as horrifying as sleeping with your face inches away from a tank of flammable material. These families were doing both! Overcrowding is real, and it's happening in San Mateo. It is the family of 5 living in a one bedroom apartment, the small house with 8 roommates living together, and yes, a home in North Central with 22 residents living on a single property. This is why we must work together to increase production of both market rate and affordable housing in San Mateo. Height and density limits are exclusionary, unhealthy and short-sighted, and are a large part of why San Mateo has not built enough housing over the last thirty years. We need to repeal those limits for our families and for our future. To get involved in our work, email me at leora@hlcsmc.org.   | | | | | | Apple to spend $400 million this year to fight California's housing crisis CNBC Apple said on Monday it will spend $400 million this year to fight the California housing crisis in partnership with Housing Trust Silicon Valley and the California Housing Finance Agency. It’s part of a total $2.5 billion Apple says it will spend on the initiative over several years. Homes in many parts of California are too expensive for low-income and middle-income buyers, which has created a housing affordability crisis in the state. The problem is particularly acute in Silicon Valley, where Apple is located, as highly paid tech workers are able to pay more for limited housing stock, driving prices up. Some of Apple’s $400 million will be used to create a fund that aids first-time low-income and mid-income homebuyers. It will also be used to create new affordable housing units in California, including “more than 250 new units of affordable housing across the Bay Area,” Apple said. Some of those units will be reserved for people with developmental disabilities, the homeless, formerly homeless and veterans. Read More | | | | Google commits over $100 million of $1 billion affordable housing pledge San Francisco Chronicle Google has allocated $115 million out of a $250 million investment fund for affordable housing projects in the Bay Area. The Mountain View tech giant said that the $115 million commitment should help fund the creation of at least 24,000 affordable units by 2029, with most of them using modular construction. The company pledged $1 billion for affordable housing in the region last year; the majority, it said, would come from efforts to rezone Google-owned real estate valued at more than $750 million to allow for the development of housing projects. Despite plummeting rent prices in the region caused by the economic crisis and coronavirus pandemic, the Bay Area remains an expensive place to live, and local government investment in affordable housing depends on tax revenue that will likely slump this year. Read More | | | | The Pandemic Has Pushed Aside City Planning Rules. But to Whose Benefit? The New York Times One month into the coronavirus crisis this spring, Oakland, Calif., began to restrict car traffic on some streets — ultimately on 21 miles of them — to create outdoor space for residents who suddenly had nowhere else to go. And in some Black neighborhoods, people have been deeply worried about their streets — but not necessarily whether they can dine on them. “What this moment shows us is that those decisions have never had much to do with true civic engagement,” said Destiny Thomas, an anthropologist-planner who has criticized the lack of community participation in “pop-up” pandemic infrastructure in her native Oakland and elsewhere. “That knee-jerk reaction exposes the power structure, the decision-making autonomy, and the centering of certain people’s comfort and freedoms over others.” It’s not just that cities have been fast to make the changes wealthy white residents value, or that they have allowed cafes on top of streets before fixing drainage under them in poor neighborhoods, say Ms. Thomas and other people of color who are planners. It’s that the process itself has seldom been designed to include marginalized residents, many of whom don’t feel safe on city streets from police violence or community surveillance. Read More | | | | Bay Area needs to build lots of housing to meet state goals - and goals called too low San Francisco Chronicle The Bay Area would need to more than double its housing production over the next decade to meet preliminary state goals aimed at easing the housing shortage that has driven out thousands of families over the past decade and made the region the nation’s most expensive. The state Department of Housing and Community Development is calling for 441,176 new housing units to be built in the Bay Area between 2022 and 2030, nearly 2½ times the region’s target from the last eight-year cycle, which runs through 2021. The current target of 187,990 homes was set in 2012 and extends through 2022. While the exact amount of housing each of the region’s cities would be responsible for producing has yet to be determined — the Association of Bay Area Governments will release that plan by the end of the year — the preliminary proposal is already sparking debate about whether the state goals are ambitious enough and how the influx of new housing can best reverse the displacement of poor and working class families. Read More | | | | Bay Area counties seek more resources for homeless amid pandemic KRON4 “County governments, city governments, state governments are going into deficits exactly at the same time when people need more resources and investment from county city and state government.” As Bay Area counties burn through their reserves throughout the pandemic, a good chunk of it goes to housing the homeless in hotel rooms. But still, counties like Santa Clara and San Francisco need more resources and more rooms. Many counties like San Francisco are housing the homeless in motels. While local governments are promised reimbursements for rooms like these, one county has its concerns. While thousands of homeless across the Bay Area are now in hotels, there’s still a large need for more rooms to self-isolate throughout the pandemic. Counties like San Francisco and Santa Clara are still working to secure enough hotel rooms and fill them with those who need it. “I think the public can see now how vulnerable the homeless are and they’re all around us,” Santa Clara County Supervisor Dave Cortese said. “They’re not just going to go away with a major wand. We’re going to need permanent investment well beyond pandemic.” While more investment and resources are needed, Cortese says the dollars are dwindling. Read More | | | | 27 U.S. mayors: Want to address systemic racism? Start with housing. The Washington Post We have arrived at a critical juncture: Do we offer platitudes and empty gestures to outraged Americans demanding change, or do we answer the cry for racial justice and dismantle the broken systems that keep racism deeply embedded in our daily lives? As the mayors of 27 large and small cities across the United States, we understand that moving our cities forward requires the unraveling of a long history of systemic racism and fighting for long-overdue equity for people of color — and black people in particular. To get there, we need federal support that goes beyond what local resources can provide. The federal government has the power and resources to begin to undo the harm our nation has done to communities of color. That was proved when it found $2 trillion to fund the Cares Act in a few short weeks. Many of the critical resources in the Cares Act will soon run out or expire on July 31. If our representatives are serious about creating racial equity, the path forward is clear: We must dismantle the systems that keep disparities locked in place. Our nation’s housing system — and the programs and policies that perpetuate racial disparities in housing — is the best place to start. Read More | | | | High rents make Bay Area tenants most stressed in the country The Mercury News The Bay Area is the least affordable region in the country for low- and moderate-income renters, with San Francisco, San Mateo and Marin counties topping the list, according to a new report. Santa Clara, Alameda and Contra Costa counties also remain among the top 10 most income-stressing spots in the country, according to an analysis released Tuesday by the National Low Income Housing Coalition. The average worker in the most expensive Bay Area counties needs to make $64 an hour to afford a two-bedroom — about 5 percent higher than last year. The heavy housing costs mean a minimum wage worker needs the equivalent of four, full-time jobs to make rent and have enough left for food and family expenses. Read More | | | | Affordable housing plan in Moss Beach clears hurdle San Mateo Daily Journal Developers of an entirely affordable housing plan cleared another hurdle after the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors approved a rezoning request and amendments to a Local Coastal Plan — despite substantial dissent from residents. MidPen Housing Corporation, the Foster City-based developers behind the residential plans, requested that supervisors rezone the vacant 11-acre parcel located in Moss Beach to allow for the development of 71 affordable units. Currently, zoning guidelines permit the development of 148 units, allowing a mix of 96 market-rate units and only 52 affordable units. The zoning change reduces acre density from 13.6 dwelling units per acre to 6.5, leaving 54% of the parcel as open space. Development plans currently include 18 structures with two to four units included per two-story building. Supervisors approved amendments to the Local Coastal Program land use plan to require 100% of the units to be affordable rather than 35% as originally set in 1986. Read More | | | | Just say 'yes in God's backyard.' Californians need homes, and houses of worship have land Los Angeles Times The cost of constructing affordable housing is staggering, and getting permission to build is time-consuming and expensive. That’s why Farkas is supporting Senate Bill 899, a proposal in the state Legislature that would make it much easier for religious institutions and nonprofit colleges to build affordable housing on their land. The legislation is being carried by Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), who introduced it in March after the demise of Senate Bill 50, his ambitious effort to override local zoning to allow bigger apartment complexes near transit hubs and four-unit buildings in single-family neighborhoods. While that bill proved too controversial for Wiener’s fellow lawmakers, SB 899 passed the Senate last month on a near-unanimous vote, even though it would also override local control. The bill now heads to the Assembly. The idea of encouraging faith communities to put housing on their land has been gaining support for a number of reasons. Many churches, synagogues and mosques are sitting on large, underutilized properties. As fewer people choose to participate in organized religion, many congregations have seen their membership shrink along with their budgets. Yet religious leaders want to continue the mission to serve their almighty and their community. Read More | | | | | | | | | |
