On Tuesday, the San Jose City Council voted 8-3 to place a real estate transfer tax measure on the March 3, 2020 presidential primary ballot. We are very grateful to the Mayor, Vice Mayor Chappie Jones, and Councilmembers Sylvia Arenas, Magdalena Carrasco, Lan Diep, Maya Esparza, Pam Foley, and Raul Peralez for voting in favor of the measure, which SV@Home strongly supports.

The proposed tax would exempt any property transfers of $2 million or less, which exempts 98% of all home sales; meaning the tax would mostly apply to more expensive commercial and industrial properties. San Jose currently has one of the lower transfer tax rates in our region. According to City staff, the measure could generate as much as $73.1 million per year with a 20-year Average Scenario of nearly $50 million per year.

This is a general tax for City of San Jose programs and services. The proposed expenditure plan, which will be considered at the Council’s December 10th meeting, will be adopted as early budget development for next fiscal year. The plan includes the following allocation:

• 10% for homeless prevention activities and rental assistance
• 45% for permanent supportive housing and affordable housing for extremely low-income people (earning 30% of Area Median Income or below)
• 35% for affordable housing for very low-income and low-income households earning between 30-80% of AMI
• 10% for below market rate for-sale housing and moderate-income rental housing for households earning up to 120% of AMI

SV@Home will continue to advocate for housing as a key general fund budget priority for the City going forward.

This is a tremendous opportunity to demonstrate collectively the type of caring, compassionate, and enlightened community we are by strongly supporting this measure and funding proven solutions that transition homeless people – including a shocking number of seniors, veterans, and college students – out of creeks, streets, and parks, and into affordable housing. Join us in supporting this important campaign!

We want to thank our over 200 individual action alert subscribers who sent emails to their local representatives! Your voices were heard! To join our efforts and receive action alerts directly to your inbox, sign up here!