Affordable Housing Month is here, and we have been energized by the many events that have taken place and how our community has shown up for each and every one of them. Thank you to everyone who has helped us make this month a success, and remember, we are not done yet. Be sure to register for our upcoming events and stay engaged for the remainder of the month. In case you missed an event, you can visit our website to find past recordings of events.
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We would like to give a special thank you to all of our sponsors who make this month possible. Our partners at the Silicon Valley Community Foundation have been steadfast advocates and allies in our work, and we are so grateful for their support. We would also like to express our gratitude to Kiyomi Yamamoto, Director of Housing at SVCF, for her partnership and long-time contributions to our work!
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#MembershipMatters – Become a Member Today!
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Measure E and the San Jose 2023-24 Budget
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On Tuesday the San Jose City Council held its first of two required Public Hearings to consider shifting Measure E resources from permanent supportive and affordable housing development to expanding and operating emergency interim shelters. SV@Home, working with a very broad coalition of community and housing advocates, is opposing this shift away from a comprehensive approach to the housing crisis.
The day was a real success. Our shared message was strong, our concerns were clear, and our collective voice and shared values had an impact.
No decisions were made on Tuesday, the council received a presentation from city staff and heard from the public, but deferred questions and discussion with their colleagues. The next meetings, scheduled for June 12th and the vote on June 13th, will have the council discussion and present another opportunity for public engagement.
This means our work continues, and we have to keep our concerns central to the discussion. We are asking for support for the current balance of priorities for Measure E, which funds preventive, permanent, and interim solutions.
- The destabilizing impact of rent burden, overcrowding, displacement, and the increase in homelessness is a result of the lack of homes in our community that people can afford.
- The proposed funding shift undermines our commitment to expanding affordable housing and ignores the role of affordable and permanent supportive housing in providing real homes for people moving out of interim shelters.
- Depleting funding for long-term affordable housing for overinvestment in short-term shelters deviates from the original stated intentions of Measure E, violating voters’ trust.
- This big and urgent challenge of housing and homelessness needs leadership that increases its overall investment in solving this crisis, not moving funds from one solution to another. We need to consistently be committed to BOTH and all solutions!
Following Tuesday it was also clear that there was a lot of information the council did not have and a lot of questions that they were going to have to address before making this decision. Measure E was passed by the voters with a requirement that any changes on priorities be approved by ⅔ of the council. It is up to us to hold the city council accountable to answering these questions thoughtfully and thoroughly.
- How many permanent affordable projects would not get the city’s support they need to move forward if the funds were redirected to building and operating the interim shelters?
- How much does it cost to operate the interim shelters we have built, and those we are planning on building, and where are these ongoing resources going to come from.
- What would the budget look like if we followed the current Measure E plan and continued to support both new affordable development and interim shelters?
Continue to stay engaged and share your voice on this issue.
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Thank you to everyone who joined us in solidarity on Tuesday for the rally outside of City Hall to protect Measure E. We were invigorated by the community support and grateful for everyone who gave public comment, expressing their concerns around the proposed changes to the Measure E expenditure plan. We asked our network to show up and speak up and you did in many ways, we had over 100 supporters signed on to the coalition letter, we heard from councilmembers that they were receiving calls, there were well over 100 people at the rally, and many of you joined the 106 people who gave public comment supporting a continued commitment to Measure E. We appreciate you. Special thank you to Sacred Heart Community Services’ Survivors of the Streets for leading the rally and uniting so many advocates around this important issue.
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Sunnyvale Moffett Park Plan Council Hearing Rescheduled to July!
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The final hearings on the Moffett Park Specific Plan (MPSP) at the Sunnyvale Planning Commission and City Council have again been rescheduled for dates in June. This has been an extensive, multi-year planning process now in its final stage. The current Plan promises the growth of an entirely new mixed-use, mixed-income neighborhood in North Sunnyvale at a scale beyond any other in the Bay Area. Adoption of MPSP is also now a required action for Sunnyvale’s Housing Element certification.
SV@Home has long advocated for complete integration of new homes throughout the plan area and clear requirements for the integration of affordable housing at all income levels. There are still some places where we think some small changes can make a big difference. We recently submitted a new letter with our partners at the Housing Action Coalition calling for explicit requirements for affordable homes and more flexible resources and incentives to support access for lower-income households.
These explicit commitments have become even more important as forecasts project significantly reduced office development for some time. And much like many large plan areas throughout the region, the MPSP is built around leveraging office development to provide resources for affordable housing development. This includes Commercial Linkage Fees (known as Housing Mitigation Fees in Sunnyvale) and the MPSP’s explicit use of office density bonuses to fund their Community Benefits programs, including more deeply affordable development.
Stay tuned for future actions you can take to support the recommendations in our letter. In the meantime, below are the Planning Commission and City Council public hearing dates and links to meeting details:
City of Sunnyvale’s Moffett Park Specific Plan Website: https://www.moffettparksp.com/
The Moffett Park Specific Plan is 1,275 acres in size and is located at the northerly-most portion of Sunnyvale. The planned area will have the capacity to build 20,000 homes with an aspiring target of 3,000 to 4,000 affordable units. We have been involved in this multi-year planning process, and we are pleased to see a timeline pushing for adoption later this Spring. However, SV@Home is working hard to ensure that the MPSP has all the policy tools in place to ensure that the Plan will realize its housing goals. We support the city in living up to its promise that the Plan will create an Eco-Innovative District where everyone can work, live, and play.
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Congratulations to the City of Milpitas!
On May 17, 2023, the City of Milpitas became the first jurisdiction in Santa Clara County to earn Housing Element Certification from the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD)! HCD’s letter points out that “the City must continue timely and effective implementation of all programs”- as with every jurisdiction, Milpitas must keep the commitments they have made in the Housing Element. Milpitas is only the 18th of the Bay Area’s 109 jurisdictions to have adopted a Housing Element that HCD has deemed in substantial compliance with state law, despite the January 31, 2023 deadline to do so. Learn more about what can happen when cities fail to adopt a compliant Housing Element by the deadline.
What is the Housing Element?
Housing Elements are a critically important 8-year plan California cities must create to meet the housing needs of all their residents, at all income levels. Housing Elements must be certified as compliant with state housing law by the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) in order for cities to avoid loss of local land use authority, fines, and loss of access to important pools of state funding. No jurisdiction in Santa Clara County, and only 17 of the Bay Area’s 109 jurisdictions, have adopted a Housing Element that HCD has deemed compliant with state law, despite the January 31, 2023 deadline. Learn more about what can happen when cities fail to adopt a compliant Housing Element by the deadline.
Housing advocates can read the HCD review letter for their city’s Housing Element and suggest solutions that meet local housing needs and respond to the issues raised by HCD. You should submit your comments both directly to your city and also to the assigned HCD reviewer. Find all the information you need in SV@Home’s Housing Element Toolkit.
San Jose Revised Draft Housing Element Coming Next Week
Get ready! Yesterday, the City of San Jose released a new draft of their Housing Element. When the first draft was submitted last year city staff were transparent in acknowledging that they were working to provide more detailed timelines, processes, and impact metrics for many of the proposed policies addressing displacement and streamlining development. There were also planning decisions that had to be made in North San Jose to accommodate the total number of sites available for low-income development.
Many local community and housing advocacy organizations provided detailed comments on the original draft. While there have been several discussions with city staff and the HCD reviewer assigned to the city in Sacramento, there was no specific language shared from the new draft before its release. The turnaround for a detailed review will need to be fast, but we will have opportunities to plug into the process in the coming weeks.
There will be three public hearings at City Hall, which will provide formal opportunities for verbal and written comments:
The agenda, staff report, and current version of the Draft Housing Element will be posted at the links above 7 days in advance for Planning Commission and HCDC and 10 days in advance for City Council.
Affordable Housing Funding in San Jose – Measure E and the Housing Element
Measure E, which collects a small tax from property sales over $2 million, is a critical source of funding for the affordable housing commitments in San Jose’s Housing Element, but it is under threat from proposals to shift resources to interim shelters. Take action to protect Measure E funds- contact your Council office today! In the Housing Element, the City has committed to building affordable housing in formerly exclusionary communities, ensuring that new affordable homes will be stabilizing assets to underinvested communities, including housing in the Diridon Station Area that everyone can afford, and integrating affordable homes in North San Jose. So that these future growth areas do not develop as yet another neighborhood accessible only to the economically privileged. San Jose cannot meet these commitments without resources to fund affordable housing. Changing the Measure E expenditure plan will take away the resources we need.
Sunnyvale Revised Draft Housing Element released
On May 16th, the City of Sunnyvale released their Revised Draft Housing Element for 7 days of public notice prior to prior to submitting to HCD for a 60-day public review period beginning May 23rd. The City states that the revision addresses comments from the public and from HCD. If you are a resident or stakeholder and need to submit comments on the Draft Housing Element, SV@Home encourages you to send them directly to Sunnyvale’s assigned reviewer, Shawn Danino, at Shawn.Danino@hcd.ca.gov and copy city staff at rdyson@sunnyvale.ca.gov
Cupertino gets an HCD review letter
The City of Cupertino received a review letter from HCD on May 4th, with 14 pages of additional analysis and work necessary to bring the Housing Element into compliance with State Law. View the initial Draft Housing Element, released on November 18, 2022. While this was not a surprise – the City’s initial draft was incomplete, nowhere near legal standards, and incomprehensible in places – there is a lot of work to be done by the City’s new consultant with the support of the new pro-housing majority on Council. Stay tuned for more opportunities to get engaged, and find all the information you need in SV@Home’s Housing Element Toolkit!
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Affordable Housing Month Proclamations
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We have been excited to see so many cities and our county proclaim May Affordable Housing Month! Thank you to Santa Clara County, Palo Alto, Gilroy, Sunnyvale, Cupertino, Los Altos, Los Gatos, and San Jose.
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Help San Jose find their next Housing Director
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Join the City of San Jose in their search for a new Housing Director. You can provide input by attending one of the upcoming community meetings or completing their online survey.
Meetings:
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TOMORROW! Join us for an Affordable Housing Month special edition of Policy in Action @Home (PIA) at noon!
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Spanish translation will be available for this event. Traducción en español va a ser disponible en este evento.
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Recent research from the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at UC Berkeley reveals racial and socioeconomic disparities in which homeowners can build Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs). These disparities are driven by high costs, limited access to financing, and the complexity of permitting processes in many cities. ADUs can provide much-needed additional homes in our communities and are an important potential source of revenue for lower-income homeowners. Join the conversation, as we discuss the disparities and actions local jurisdictions can take to remove barriers to ADU construction for lower-income homeowners of color along with broader recommendations to increase ADU construction overall.
Speakers:
- Muhammad T. Alameldin — Policy Associate for the Terner Center. Part of a team bringing the Center’s innovative research to inform local, state, and federal housing policy.
- Iliana Nicholas — Leader of the CANDO ADU program at the East Palo Alto Community Alliance and Neighborhood Development Organization (EPACANDO).
SV@Home’s Policy in Action @ Home series is a monthly, informal brown bag discussion convening Housers to engage on hot housing topics. Every month, we select a topic or current event, bring in an expert to give a brief presentation or interview, and then open up the discussion to ask questions, float new ideas, and identify potential areas for shared action
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Affordable Housing on Faith Lands Breakfast on May 23rd!
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Save the Date: Happy Housers in June
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Deep Dive: Tenant Protections- Wednesday, June 14
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Join us to learn more about tenant protections so you can better understand the challenges and opportunities of advocacy. In addition, information on the very real impacts these laws and ordinances can have in our community will be shared. What are the specific risks and hardships facing tenants? How do different policies address different parts of the problem? How did laws such as rent stabilization, tenant relocation assistance, and just cause for eviction come about? And, who is protected? How are local cities adopting tenant protection actions into their long-range housing plans? We will explore these issues and more in this edition of Deep Dive on Affordable Housing. The Deep Dive series of events is designed to empower advocates on how to engage and drive their needs.
Previous topics in the Deep Dive series are Deep Dive on Affordable Housing: A How-To Guide for Advocates, Deep Dive on Affordable Housing: Affordable Housing Finance, and Deep Dive on Affordable Housing: Fair Housing. Click here to view recordings of previous Deep Dive sessions.
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Save the Date! June 2023 PIA: Tenant Right to Counsel
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Friday, June 30, 2023, at noon.
The City of San Jose will be exploring a Tenant Right to Legal Counsel program to prevent evictions and displacement. Speakers will be announced soon!
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The month of May is full of partner events with more than 35 events offered throughout the month. See some of the upcoming events you can expect in the remaining week of Affordable Housing Month!
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The City of Mountain View Human Relations Commission Presents: A Place Called Home (May 25th). At the event, the HRC will bring together several of our unstably housed neighbors to share their stories: their day to day challenges, their hopes, their humanity. Housing insecurity is not just what you think of as visible homelessness. Along with those who lack shelter, we will also hear from people like seniors, families living many to one house, those in below market-rate housing, and more, hearing their amazing stories of persistence. We will also have an art showcase, featuring dozens of works by housing insecure residents.
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SJSU Institute of Metropolitan Studies & Human Rights Presents: 2023 SJSU Human Rights Lecture – The Future of Social Housing in California (May 26th). Join this expert panel for a discussion of the current state and potential future of social housing in California. Panelists will react to the currently proposed legislation and provide their views on social housing and the provision of housing as a human right. Panelists Include: Jennifer Martinez, Policy Director of Housing Affordability for the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI); Regina Celestin Williams, Executive Director, SV@Home; Tomiquia Moss, Founder and CEO of All Home.
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Housing Trust Silicon Valley Presents: Affordable Housing Finance 101 (May 24th) How does affordable financing work? What is the difference between Measure A, TECH Fund, and the Apple Affordable Housing Fund? Housing Trust Silicon Valley’s Senior Loan Officer Stephaney Kipple will give an inside look at how Housing Trust, public entities, private lenders, and equity investors are working to create more affordable housing in our region. You’ll learn the basics of affordable housing finance, how homes go from pre-acquisition to move-in day, and how the industry is meeting the challenges caused by today’s economic climate.
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For a full list of upcoming events, visit our Events Calendar. We look forward to seeing and connecting with you throughout the month.
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