HLC Housing Agenda Blog

Regions tiff over Prop. 1C bond funds

California voters approved the Prop. 1C housing bond measure in November 2006. The State of California’s Housing and Community Development Department (HCD) is gradually rolling out funding. Details are available on their website at http://www.hcd.ca.gov/fa/bonds.html.

Today the Los Angeles Times reports that Southern California officials are feeling left out in the funding awards. Funds have not been distributed geographically in the same proportion as population.

Advocates for affordable housing in Northern California said their area has its own housing crisis.
“There needs to be more funding in all parts of the state,” said Paul Peninger, policy director of the Non-Profit Housing Assn. of Northern California. He said the state should evaluate the funding formulas after the first rounds of funding to see if any portion of the state was shorted.
There clearly is not enough money to go around. For the $95 million in transit-oriented projects, for example, applications totaled $544 million, including $247 million from Southern California and $297 million from Northern California.

The full story is online here.

Meanwhile, the State Housing and Community Development Director, Lynn Jacobs, has embarked on a series of statewide consultation meetings to explore ideas for a permanent source of state funding for housing. The HCD website has a section dedicated to the topic of a dedicated revenue source: http://www.hcd.ca.gov/permsource/. Stay tuned for locally relevant meeting information.