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HomeMy WebLinkAboutStaff Report 1.B 03/11/2019 Late Document 2January 24, 2018 From: Bay Area Equity Advocates To: CASA Steering Committee Subject: Adopt Goals and Equity -Based Guiding Principles for the CASA Process Dear CASA Steering Committee, We the undersigned, representing the affordable housing, environmental, faith, labor, public health, homeless and legal service providers, and tenants' rights communities, write to urge CASA to (1) adopt measurable goals for protection, preservation and production ("the 3 Ps") that accurately reflect the scale of our housing crisis and (2) adopt overarching principles to guide CASA's policy solutions. The Bay Area faces an extreme housing affordability crisis. High housing costs, low wages, rapid gentrification, evictions and the legacy of exclusionary practices like redlining continue to marginalize low-income communities and communities of color, displacing families, limiting access to high -opportunity areas and driving the Bay Area into further socioeconomic stratification. Displacement separates people from their jobs and schools, forces low-income transit riders to switch to polluting cars, adds to congestion and impossible commutes, creates homelessness, adds to health disparities, and destroys community networks. Meanwhile, the lack of affordable housing near low-wage jobs in most suburban job centers forces these workers to commute long distances, and denies them and their families access to resources available in the communities in which they work. This crisis disproportionately impacts low-income families, people of color, LGBTQ+ people, seniors, and other populations, creating a new era of regional resegregation and impeding fair housing. It also reminds us that we are linked: the fight for the right to a dignified home is connected to the struggle for workers' rights, immigrant justice, climate justice, equitable development, and transportation equity. As a united voice, we urge you to consider the following recommendations to guide the CASA process. 1. Adopt Measurable Goals for Each "P" that Accurately Reflect the Scale of Our Housing Crisis "Regional affordability and equity challenges, including displacement risks, are expected to worsen by 2040 ... To truly address affordability and equity challenges, an engaged public and government at all levels will need to act. In particular, the Bay Area will need more aggressive policies and significantly more funding to deal with the housing crisis ...." - Metropolitan Transportation Commission, Plan Bay Area 2040 During the first Steering Committee meeting, the Committee discussed the need to focus on order of magnitude solutions that adequately respond to the scale of the problem. In support of this call, we urge you to adopt the following three goals to guide solutions around tenant protections, affordable housing preservation, and new affordable housing production: Protection: Protect the 450,000 low-income renter households' at risk of displacement by adopting incentives and requirements and generating $400 million/year.2 Preservation: Take over 25,500 homes' occupied by and affordable to low-income renters off the speculative market and preserve over 11,100 expiring deed -restricted units' by adopting incentives and requirements and generating $500 million/year for 10 years.' Production: Meet the region's need for 13,000 new affordable homes per years by adopting incentives and requirements and closing the $1.4 billion yearly housing gap.' The above goals reflect a data -driven analysis of the scale of the need to protect tenants from displacement, preserve existing affordable housing, and produce new units of affordable housing. By adopting the above big picture goals, CASA can frame the scale of the problem, establish collective objectives, and engage stakeholders towards ambitious solutions. 2. Adopt Overarching Principles To Guide CASA's Policy Solutions CASA's policy solutions should advance collective goals but also be reflective of a set of collective values. We urge CASA to adopt the following five principles to guide policy solutions: a. Solutions advance racial equity. All CASA solutions should advance racial equity. The Bay Area, like the rest of the country, is saddled with the legacy of segregation and other discriminatory governmental policies. Creating a just and inclusive Bay Area requires policies that explicitly undo this legacy by affirmatively promoting racial equity. b. Solutions benefit, and do not harm low-income communities. Low-income communities are under the greatest strain from the affordable housing crisis, so it is essential that solutions affirmatively benefit, and do not further burden them. CASA should ensure that policy solutions protect low-income renters from displacement and do not exacerbate displacement pressures. CASA solutions should also make sure that low-income people and neighborhoods are relieved of the disproportionate environmental and health burdens they currently bear. c. Solutions are appropriately tailored by geography to reflect the varying experiences of low-income residents in different communities. Low-income residents in the Bay Area are experiencing displacement, disinvestment, and/or exclusion depending on the community. CASA solutions should reflect these community -level realities and respond to historic and ongoing patterns of discrimination. d. Solutions engage disadvantaged communities and advance community priorities. CASA should engage communities traditionally underrepresented in government decision-making, ground -truth solutions, and advance the priorities of those most impacted by the housing crisis. e. Solutions are actionable. CASA should anchor policy solutions in implementation. Policy ideas are only part of the equation; CASA's success will ultimately depend on whether these solutions can be meaningfully implemented at the local, regional and state levels. By anchoring policy ideas in implementation, CASA can move one step closer to creating actionable game -changing solutions that impact people's lives for decades to come. Policies should meet or advance these collective principles for inclusion in the final compact. CASA has the ability and responsibility to create a transformative regional housing justice agenda—an agenda that values community stabilization where current residents can prosper in place, breaks down barriers to exclusion and creates more integrated neighborhoods, promotes land stewardship and respect for the people on it, leads to increased democratic participation, and invests in an equitable distribution of resources throughout the region. Achieving these ambitious outcomes must begin by setting our sights high—adopting bold and measurable goals and visionary guiding principles. Let us write a new story for the Bay Area. In community, Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, Carroll Fife Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment Riders for Transit Justice, Alia Phelps Anti -Eviction Mapping Project, Erin McElroy Asian Pacific Environmental Network, Alvina Wong Bay Area Consortium of Community Land Trusts California Housing Partnership Corporation, Matt Schwartz Causa Justa :: Just Cause, Camilo Sol Zamora Community Housing Development Corporation, Donald Gilmore Community Legal Services in East Palo Alto, Daniel Saver Council of Community Housing Organizations, Fernando Marti and Peter Cohen EAH Housing, Mary Murtagh East Bay Community Law Center, Seema Rupani and Melissa Colon East Bay Housing Organizations, Gloria Bruce, Jeff Levin and Stevi Dawson Enterprise Community Partners, Rich Gross Fair Rents for Redwood City, Diana Reddy Faith in Action Bay Area (a federation of the PICO National Network), Lorena Melgarejo Housing Leadership Council of San Mateo County, Evelyn Stivers Jefferson Federation of Teachers (AFT Local 1481), Sergio Robledo-Maderazo Law Foundation of Silicon Valley, Diana E. Castillo Latinos United for a New America (LUNA), Salvador Bustamante Monument Impact, Debra Bernstein Non -Profit Housing Association of Northern California (NPH), Amie Fishman North Bay Organizing Project, Susan Shaw and Davin Cardenas North Bay Organizing Project - Transit Riders United, Carol Taylor Northern California Land Trust, Francis Mcllveen Oakland Tenants Union, James Vann Oakland Community Organizations (a federation of the PICO National Network), Rev. Dr. George Cummings One San Mateo, John Fyfe People Acting in Community Together (a federation of the PICO National Network), Akemi Flynn PICO Bay Area, Jennifer Martinez PolicyLink, Kalima Rose Public Advocates, Lynsey Gaudioso Residents Insisting on Social Equity (RISE) Fremont Coalition, RISE Steering Committee Sacred Hear` Community Service, Poncho Guevara San Francisco Tenants Union, Deepa Varma Santa Cruz Tenants Association, Cynthia Berger Santa Cruz Tenants' Organizing Committee, Zav Hershfield Sunflower Alliance, Rev. Earl W. Koteen Tenants Together, Aimee Inglis TransForm, Shannon Tracey Urban Habitat, Mashae/ Majid Working Partnerships USA, Derecka Mehrens Youth Leadership Institute, Montzerrat Garcia Bedo/la, Youth United for Community Action, Tameeka Bennett References Using 2011-2015 data, Miriam Zuk, Director of the Urban Displacement Project and the Center for Community Innovation at UC Berkeley and a consultant to CASA, estimates that 447,828 low-income renter households currently live in neighborhoods that are at risk of gentrification or displacement, undergoing displacement, or in advanced gentrification or exclusion (more details available at http://www.urbandisplacement.org/). This number—and the preservation -related number of units occupied by and affordable to low-income households—represents a change from the goals submitted in September 2017 due to updated data (2011-2015 vs. 2009-2013). The number of households at risk of displacement increased and the number of units occupied by and affordable to low-income households decreased. MTC and ABAG estimate that 160,000 "lower-income" households living in priority development areas, transit priority areas, and high -opportunity areas are at risk of displacement (as of year 2010, Plan Bay Area's baseline year). MTC estimates that "Based on the proposed Plan's performance target analysis for displacement risk, an additional 107,000 lower-income households are anticipated to be at risk of displacement in year 2040 under the proposed Plan, resulting in a total of 267,000 lower-income households at risk of displacement in PDAs, TPAs, or high -opportunity areas [in 2040]." MTC/ABAG, Final Environmental Impact Report, at 2-410, 2-415, 2-423 (July 2017), available at http://bit.ly/2yant7M. 2This number is a conservative estimate of the cost to provide legal counsel (approximately $60 million per year); rent control, just cause, and anti -harassment protections (approximately $92 million per year); tenant counseling, education, and outreach (approximately $36 million per year); relocation assistance (approximately $176 million per year); and rental assistance (approximately $35 million per year). Calculation based on data from cities of Oakland, San Francisco, Fremont, Alameda, Union City, and New York City, and Alameda County, the U.S. Census Bureau, and UC Berkeley's Urban Displacement Project. This cost estimate does not take into account potential cost savings from various tenant protection policies. For example, an independent consulting report of New York City's recently adopted right to legal counsel policy estimated that adopting right to legal counsel for evictions would save the City $320 million per year by reducing homeless shelter and unsheltered homeless costs and preserving existing affordable housing (in addition to other unquantified benefits of eviction prevention such as health, school and job-related impacts). See Stout Risius Ross, Inc., The Financial Cost and Benefits of Establishing a Right to Counsel in Eviction Proceedings Under Intro 214-A, available at http://bit.ly/2DmeQws. Therefore, adopted tenant protection policies could result in a net cost savings. 'Miriam Zuk estimates that 131,812 low-income renter households in the Bay Area are not rent -burdened, and that the Bay Area has approximately 106,116 subsidized units, leaving approximately 25,696 units to be acquired, rehabbed, and preserved as affordable. This calculation draws on American Community Survey 2011-2015 data and subsidized housing data from HUD, TCAC, and USDA via California Housing Partnership Corporation. "The California Housing Partnership Corporation estimates that 5,106 affordable units in the Bay Area are at risk of conversion to market rate housing within the next 5 years and 11,159 affordable units are at risk within the next 10 years. California Housing Partnership Corporation, Risk Level by County, available at http://bit.ly/2rfjSWH; see also California Housing Partnership Corporation, 28,152 Affordable Rental Homes Lost in California; 31,988 More At Risk Over Next Five Years, available at http://bit.ly/2B6614M. e Generating $5 billion, or $500 million per year for 10 years, would produce approximately $125,000 per unit, an estimate for the gap financing needed for acquisition and rehab. s The RHNA for 2014-2022 for very low-, low- and moderate -income housing units is 109,040 units, or 13,630 units per year. The RHNA for very low- and low-income housing units is 75,620 units, or 9,452 units per year. ABAG, Regional Housing Need Plan: San Francisco Bay Area 2014-2022, at 5, available at http://bit.ly/2x4JyWU. MTC and ABAG estimate a $1.4 billion gap for low- and moderate -income housing. MTC/ABAG, Plan Bay Area 2040 5 (adopted July 26, 2017), available at http://bit.ly/2f9OUdx. The San Francisco Foundation found a $1.45 billion gap for very low- and low-income housing. The San Francisco Foundation, Funding Affordable Housing Near Transit in the Bay Area, at 6 (May 2017), available at http://bit.ly/2jt4TVi. For more information please contact Lynsey Gaudioso at Public Advocates (Igaudioso@publicadvocates.org) or Mashae/ Majid at Urban Habitat (mashael@urbanhabitat.org).