State Assemblyman Kevin Mullin, D-South San Francisco, praised Gov. Jerry Brown’s fiscally prudent budget Friday but said it falls short when it comes to affordable housing.
Brown released his May budget revision Friday that does not include an Assembly proposal to earmark $1.3 billion toward affordable housing.
Mullin hopes that by the time the budget is adopted in mid-June, Brown will embrace the Assembly proposal.
“I’m disappointed but there is a lot more negotiating to take place,” Mullin said Friday after speaking at a Housing Leadership Council forum in Redwood City.
Brown’s May revise does endorse a $2 billion bond financed by proceeds from Proposition 63 for chronic homeless and other affordable housing programs.
Affordable Housing Week in San Mateo County ends Saturday, May 14.
Mullin described to the audience of housing advocates, nonprofit officials and elected officials the difference between today’s housing market and when his father Gene Mullin, a former assemblyman, first bought his home in South San Francisco in 1968 for $28,000.
Mullin’s parents bought the home on one public school teacher’s salary.
The same home is valued at $800,000 today, which would require “two very high-earning incomes to purchase,” Mullin told the audience.
“San Mateo County needs 22,000 affordable rental homes to meet our current needs,” he said.
Housing Authority Director Ken Cole was at the forum which this year focused on how communities can leverage technology to improve community engagement.
The Housing Authority is on an ambitious mission to get landlords to accept the 400 or so Section 8 housing vouchers that go unused in San Mateo County every month.
The Housing Authority has contracted with a nonprofit on housing locator services and has a new goal to “Leave No Voucher Behind.” The government agency is partnering with the San Mateo County Association of Realtors and the local branch of the California Apartment Association to provide incentives to landlords to accept the vouchers.
The unused vouchers represent $500,000 a month in federal money that is essentially lost, Cole told the Daily Journal.
Brown did declare that the state is in the midst of a housing crisis.
“Welcome to the party,” Mullin said about Brown’s declaration.
In San Mateo County, the average rent for a one-bedroom apartment is now $2,562, a 53.2 percent increase in four years, according to a county housing indicators report through December 2015.
Mullin was encouraged by some proposals in Brown’s budget.
“It also represents an opening that a deal might come together on regulatory reform and ministerial by-right zoning for multi-family, affordable in-fill units, something that could be big for our county,” Mullin said at the forum.
Mullin is also tackling the housing crisis through legislation.
His Assembly Bill 2502 would restore local governments’ ability to enact inclusionary housing policies, ordinances requiring a certain percentage of below-market rate housing in new residential developments.
The legislation, however, is similar to a bill Brown vetoed in 2013.
“We need the governor to step up and lead on this housing challenge,” Mullin said at the forum.
Approximately 1.5 million low-income California households pay more than half their income in rent, according to a summary of Brown’s May revision of the budget.