Bill Text: CA AB309 | 2023-2024 | Regular Session | Introduced
NOTE: There are more recent revisions of this legislation. Read Latest Draft
Bill Title: The Social Housing Act.
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 14-0)
Status: (Vetoed) 2024-01-30 - Consideration of Governor's veto stricken from file. [AB309 Detail]
Download: California-2023-AB309-Introduced.html
Bill Title: The Social Housing Act.
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 14-0)
Status: (Vetoed) 2024-01-30 - Consideration of Governor's veto stricken from file. [AB309 Detail]
Download: California-2023-AB309-Introduced.html
CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE—
2023–2024 REGULAR SESSION
Assembly Bill
No. 309
| Introduced by Assembly Members Lee, Wendy Carrillo, and Kalra (Coauthors: Assembly Members Bennett, Haney, and Ward) (Coauthors: Senators Allen, Menjivar, and Wiener) |
January 26, 2023 |
An act to add Section 50103 to the Health and Safety Code, relating to housing.
LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST
AB 309, as introduced, Lee.
Social housing.
The Zenovich-Moscone-Chacon Housing and Home Finance Act establishes the Department of Housing and Community Development and the California Housing Finance Agency and sets forth various programs administered by those entities intended to, among other things, provide a comprehensive and balanced approach to the solution of housing problems of the people of this state. The act sets forth various definitions that govern its construction.
This bill would define “social housing” for purposes of the Zenovich-Moscone-Chacon Housing and Home Finance Act. The bill would make findings and declarations relating to social housing and would state the intent of the Legislature to subsequently further the Social Housing Act to address the shortage of affordable homes by developing housing for people of all income levels, prioritizing low-income households.
Digest Key
Vote: MAJORITY Appropriation: NO Fiscal Committee: NO Local Program: NOBill Text
The people of the State of California do enact as follows:
SECTION 1.
The Legislature finds and declares all of the following:(a) The housing crisis has reached unprecedented and unacceptable proportions in the State of California, where more than two in five households spend greater than 30 percent of their income on housing and more than one in five households spend greater than 50 percent of their income on housing.
(b) The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development defines cost-burdened families as those who pay more than 30 percent of their income for housing and may have difficulty affording necessities such as food, clothing, transportation, and medical care. Severe rent burden is defined as paying more than 50 percent
of one’s income on rent.
(c) Housing burden creates severe financial, physical, and emotional impacts on households.
(d) The affordable housing crisis has imposed a significant toll on the California economy, as overpriced rents depress the California gross domestic product by approximately 2 percent and more than 600,000 people leave the state annually in search of lower rent.
(e) Current efforts, while laudable, have proven insufficient in resolving the state’s affordable housing crisis, since 97 percent of cities and counties have been unable to meet the regional housing needs assessment targets for very low income, low-income, and moderate-income housing.
(f) With such a great failure to meet the housing needs of California residents, the state has
a duty to act and help localities fill the gap, by financing publicly owned, affordable housing built sustainably with union labor, based on the widely successful Vienna and Singapore models and many other successful models of mixed-income rental and ownership housing.
SEC. 2.
Section 50103 is added to the Health and Safety Code, to read:50103.
“Social housing” means any housing with all of the following characteristics:(a) The housing units are owned by a public entity or a local housing authority.
(b) If a housing unit is in a social housing development, the development contains housing units that accommodate a mix of household income ranges, including extremely low income, very low income, low income, moderate income, and above-moderate income.
(c) Residents of housing units are afforded, at a minimum, all protections granted to tenants with tenancies in private property under Section 1946.2 of the Civil Code, including protection against termination without just cause or for
any discriminatory, retaliatory, or other arbitrary reason, and shall be afforded due process prior to being subject to eviction procedures, in addition to other protections provided by this title.
(d) Residents of the housing units have the right to participate directly and meaningfully in decisionmaking affecting the operation and management of their housing units.
(e) The housing units shall be protected for the duration of their useful life from being sold or transferred to a private for-profit entity or a public-private partnership.
