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Tag: Housing Crisis

  • Letters: Housing bond | Resolving ambiguities | Harris critique | Get serious | Cruel order | Best hope

    Letters: Housing bond | Resolving ambiguities | Harris critique | Get serious | Cruel order | Best hope

    Submit your letter to the editor via this form. Read more Letters to the Editor.

    $20B housing bond
    should be voted down

    The $20 billion housing bond that will be on the Nov. 5 ballot is like snake oil.

    Only as little as 72% of the $20 billion housing bond will be spent to actually build affordable housing for extremely low-income, very low-income, and low-income households. Ten percent can be spent on grants for “transportation, schools, and parks.” Notably, only 80% of the proceeds of the bond issue need to be spent in the county funding the bonds. Thus, Contra Costa County residents could end up paying for parks in San Mateo County.

    The decision to place the bond on the ballot was made by the MTC, which includes unelected, unaccountable officials and is therefore like taxation without representation. We can and must do better.

    Nick Waranoff
    Orinda

    Critique of Harris
    applies to others

    Re: “Democrats deserved contest, not coronation” (Page A7, July 25).

    In his critique of Kamala Harris, Bret Stephens mentions high staff turnover during her time as vice president and the fact that she failed the bar exam on the first try.

    Regarding turnover, he should have started by looking at the mile-long list of senior and mid-level Trump people who quit or were fired.

    As for the bar exam, Harris is in good company. Others who took the exam more than once include Franklin D. Roosevelt, Michele Obama, John F, Kennedy Jr., and former California Governors Jerry Brown and Pete Wilson.

    He also claims she has been a bad campaigner. He’s entitled to his opinion, but her first speech in Milwaukee looked pretty impressive to me, in contrast to Donald Trump’s 93-minute meandering speech at the Republican convention.

    John Walkmeyer
    San Ramon

    We must get serious
    after record heat

    Re: “Last Sunday was hottest day on Earth in recorded history” (Page A2, July 24)

    That alarming headline was corrected the next day online: “Sunday was hottest day on the planet – no, wait, it’s Monday.” Things are just starting to warm up.

    It is now obvious that the cost of this heat — both in dollars and in human lives — far outstrips the cost of reducing CO2 emissions. Are we going to follow Ben Franklin’s advice: “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”? Or John Paul Jones, “I have not yet begun to fight”? We need to get serious, folks.

    Cliff Gold
    Fremont

    Newsom’s order to
    sweep camps is cruel

    Re: “Newsom orders sweeps of camps” (Page A1, July 26).

    The scary truth is most Californians are only a few bad breaks away from homelessness. The unlucky blow may come from a wildfire or, worse, an unexpected medical bill. Insurers profit most off denying coverage, that is, if you were fortunate enough to have health insurance in the first place.

    Capitalism turns housing into a scarce commodity and then blames people who lack it. Rather than treating the unhoused as untouchable, we should give them security and more chances. It is the Christian thing to do and a humane imperative.

    Gov. Gavin Newsom’s executive order to sweep away homeless encampments is cruel. It does nothing to solve the systemic problems that cause homelessness in the first place. And by treating other people like trash, the Ggovernor has proven he’s garbage.

    Alan Marling
    Livermore

    Harris win is best hope
    for multiracial society

    I was one of 50,000 Black men on a call for Kamala Harris, a day after 44,000 Black women got together. I haven’t seen this level of excitement since Barack Obama in 2008. Black women and men being this energized is how we will win the fight for a multiracial democracy.

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  • Opinion: Despite noble intentions, California’s environmental law is hurting Latinos

    Opinion: Despite noble intentions, California’s environmental law is hurting Latinos

    Latinos in California face significant disparities in income, homeownership and education compared with their counterparts in other states with substantial Latino populations such as Texas and Florida.

    Our state’s housing crisis is a big part of the explanation, and one cause of the crisis is the perversion of a well-intentioned 1970 law, the California Environmental Quality Act, known as CEQA. It has evolved into the most potent legal tactic to stifle housing development, contributing to high costs and limited affordability. Even when a proposed development can overcome the legal barriers, the homes finally approved are unaffordable to working families because a complex web of regulatory environmental mandates and fees add hundreds of thousands of dollars to the cost of each new home or apartment.

    This is an obstacle to upward mobility for all Californians, especially young people — which in this state means especially Latinos, who are 40% of the population and make up more than half of residents under 18. CEQA needs to be reformed to put the American dream back within reach for young Californians.

    The value of homeownership is profound, providing both housing and the long-term stability of being part of a neighborhood and school community, not to mention generational wealth and a nest egg. However, California is a hard place to achieve that dream. In 2022, only 46% of Latino households here owned their homes, compared with 51% nationwide. Rates were 59% in Texas, 55% in Florida and more than 70% in New Mexico.

    With median California home prices soaring past $900,000 in April, California’s housing policy choices have made homeownership a distant dream for most younger residents and for most hard-working Latino families, many of whom do not inherit wealth from their parents’ home equity and who are not on a path to pass along appreciated home equity to their children.

    CEQA, intended as a progressive environmental policy, now clearly undermines the economic potential of California’s Latino population. This process began in the 1970s, when a largely white, upper-class environmentalist movement emerged as a dominant political force. CEQA was enacted to minimize environmental harm from public works projects such infrastructure, but a 1972 court ruling expanded it to cover home building. After thousands of subsequent CEQA lawsuits, it now even applies to home remodeling.

    This law has strayed far from its intended purpose and needs to be reined in. Virtually anyone — even those with no direct interest in the project or the environment — can sue to block housing for any reason. Cases can be filed anonymously. Sometimes one real estate company even sues to block another’s project for competitive reasons.

    The state government’s Little Hoover Commission has urged the Legislature to exempt all infill housing from CEQA, which would allow more homes to be built on underutilized lots in areas that already have many homes. The commission also called for an end to anonymous CEQA lawsuits, a ban on lawsuits filed for non-environmental reasons, and the clarification and expedition of the CEQA process.

    Although California’s Legislature has enacted almost 200 laws since 2017 intended to boost housing supplies and reduce bureaucratic costs and delays, lawmakers have not reined in CEQA abuse. They also never authorized most of CEQA’s judicial mission creep. In its current interpretation, the law has come to be biased against changes to private views, against temporary construction noise during daytime hours and against common urban species such as seagulls and robins. Housing policies designed to overcome these CEQA obstacles, such as prioritizing infill high-density housing near transit, are economically infeasible in almost all of California while more affordable homes, in areas where Latino homeownership is actually increasing, continue to be pummeled by anti-development advocates.

    The upside-down mindset of current environmental policy ends up being anti-people and anti-environment. The California Air Resources Board, whose policies are enforced via CEQA, counts jobs and people who move out of a city or county as “greenhouse gas emission reductions” — even when these jobs and people relocate to states and even countries with far more lax environmental standards. California’s lost jobs and population would most likely increase global greenhouse gas emissions. So much for California’s climate change “leadership.”

    Agencies and advocates promoting this “de-growth” agenda through CEQA share the “no growth” dogma of the environmentalists of the 1970s, which then and now really means “no growth of ‘those people.’” The intention is racist, and the effect is racist. The housing crisis hits Black and Latino Californians hardest, as even CARB and the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst Office now expressly acknowledge.

    California cannot address its housing and homelessness crisis without building millions of new homes that are actually affordable to California’s working families — and doing so much faster, without the counterproductive legal barriers that add delays and costs.

    CEQA reform is key to this. A good start would be an immediate moratorium on CEQA lawsuits based on any theory not expressly authorized by a statute or regulation. The governor simply needs to direct agencies, and urge the courts, to follow the law and reject those claims.

    Today’s far more diverse Legislature ought to be able to do more as well, serving all Californians better than the sea of white male leaders and judges who have for so long been captured by NIMBY environmentalists.

    It’s time we admit the failures of CEQA’s expansion and start making the policy changes needed to restore the American dream of homeownership for a younger, more diverse California.

    Soledad Ursúa is an elected board member of the Venice Neighborhood Council. Jennifer Hernandez is a partner at the law firm Holland & Knight. Ursúa is the lead author of, and Hernandez is a contributor to, the recent report “El Futuro es Latino.”

    Jennifer Hernandez and Soledad Ursúa

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  • Bay Area receives $14 million in state grants to combat youth homelessness

    Bay Area receives $14 million in state grants to combat youth homelessness

    The Bay Area is receiving $14.3 million from the state to help homeless families with children and unhoused young adults find lasting homes.

    The awards are part of the latest rounds of two statewide grant programs, which Gov. Gavin Newsom announced this week.

    “These grants are critical for helping to connect some of the most vulnerable Californians with access to housing,” Newsom said in a statement. “Many of these young adults don’t have the support of friends or family that most of us take for granted.”

    The money will help local agencies provide housing and services for young adults under 25, prioritizing those currently or formerly in the foster care or probation systems. It will also help add transitional housing beds, bolster job training programs and offer financial assistance for homeless families with children.

    The awards include $5.6 million (two grants) for Santa Clara County, $2.1 million for San Francisco, $1.9 million for Alameda County, $1.8 million for Oakland, $1 million for Sonoma County, $626,040 for Contra Costa County, $280,768 for Livermore, $283,050 for Solano County and $173,160 for San Mateo County.

    In applying for the grants, local governments had to demonstrate a need to help homeless families and young adults into housing. It was not immediately clear why some jurisdictions received more money than others.

    Across the Bay Area, an estimated 37,000 people experience homelessness on a given night.

    In Santa Clara County, the local county with the largest homeless population, there are roughly 360 homeless families with children and about 760 homeless youth under 25, according to the most recent count last year. More than 80% stay in homeless shelters.

    In Oakland, officials plan to use the grant money in part to add 8 beds at the Courage Housing Transitional Home. The home shelters women and children who’ve survived domestic violence, human trafficking and sexual exploitation.

    “The program provides residents with a safe space to heal, grow, and engage in comprehensive services related to professional development and career placement, economic resources, and preparation for permanent housing placement,” Raven Nash in Oakland’s Community Homelessness Services Division wrote in an email.

    Livermore aims to use its grant to add three 4-bedroom transitional housing units for homeless families at the Leahy Square affordable complex east of downtown. Families will receive job training support in finding permanent housing.

    “By leveraging this grant, we can provide stable housing and vital support services to some of Livermore’s most vulnerable families,” Paul Spence, Livermore’s assistant city manager, said in a statement.

    Ethan Varian

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  • Could a $20 billion bond measure help solve the Bay Area’s affordable housing crisis?

    Could a $20 billion bond measure help solve the Bay Area’s affordable housing crisis?

    This November, Bay Area voters could decide on an unprecedented bond measure to raise up to $20 billion for as many as 90,000 desperately needed affordable homes across the nine-county region.

    Ahead of a crucial vote by a regional agency next week to put the measure on the ballot, the mayors of three of the Bay Area’s largest cities gathered in San Francisco on Thursday to rally support for the proposal.

    “If you’re concerned about homelessness, this is the measure to support,” San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan said. “If you’re concerned about the high cost of housing and the high cost of living, this is the measure to support.”

    San Francisco Mayor London Breed and Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguín were also at the event, held at an affordable housing complex near the Chase Center arena in San Francisco’s Mission Bay neighborhood.

    Absent was Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao, who was a no-show after the FBI raided her home early Thursday morning.

    Across the Bay Area, some 1.4 million residents — 23% of all renters — spend more than half their income on rent, according to regional officials. Meanwhile, an estimated 37,000 people in the region are homeless on any given night — more than the entire population of Menlo Park.

    To alleviate the region’s chronic affordable housing shortage, the Bay Area Housing Finance Authority, established by the state legislature in 2019, has worked for years to put the bond measure on the ballot. The measure now needs approval from the finance authority’s board — made up of local elected and appointed officials — on June 26 before going to voters.

    While the board is expected to approve the measure, there remains some uncertainty about the final bond amount. The financing authority has proposed either $10 billion or $20 billion.

    The bond would be funded by a new tax on businesses and homes. For a $20 billion bond, the tax would come to $19 per $100,000, or about $190 a year for a home with an assessed value of $1 million.

    The vote comes as the state is pushing Bay Area cities and counties to approve more than 441,000 new homes by 2031, a roughly 15% increase in the region’s total housing stock. More than half of the new homes must be affordable to low- and middle-income residents.

    On Thursday, Breed said that soaring interest rates and other economic headwinds currently holding back construction underscore the need for more affordable-housing funding.

    “How are we going to get the much-needed affordable housing units done without the financial support?” she asked.

    Some mayors also pointed to the shrinking role the federal government has played in subsidizing affordable housing in recent decades as a reason the measure is needed.

    “Local mayors are right to complain,” U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna, a Democrat representing the South Bay, said in an interview.

    Khanna said he supports the bond measure, adding that if President Joe Biden is reelected, he plans to push the administration to make housing a high priority.

    If approved, a $20 billion bond measure would allocate $4 billion to creating a regional fund to finance affordable projects. The rest would be split among the Bay Area’s nine counties and five of its largest cities to determine how to boost affordable housing.

    Santa Clara County would receive $2.4 billion, San Mateo County $2.1 billion, Alameda County $2 billion and Contra Costa County $1.9 billion. San Francisco would see $2.4 billion, San Jose $2.1 billion and Oakland $765 million.

    A recent report by researchers with the housing nonprofit Enterprise Community Partners found the bond could help build 433 already-approved affordable projects totaling more than 40,000 units, many of which lack enough funding to complete. That includes more than 10,000 units in both Santa Clara and Alameda counties. Officials estimate the bond would also help build tens of thousands more new units.

    Affordable housing is reserved for those earning less than a specified amount, generally a percentage of an area’s median income. That can be as much as 120% of the median income or as low as 15% or 30%. In Santa Clara County, 30% of the median income is $38,750 for a single person, according to the state housing department. Residents typically spend about 30% of their income on housing costs, though the amount can vary.

    Local officials could also use the bond money to help build homeless shelters, including tiny homes, motel conversions, group shelters and managed-encampment sites.

    Earlier this year, San Jose, which under Mahan has made building new shelters the centerpiece of its homelessness response, agreed to spend about 28% of its potential bond money on shelter options. In an interview, Mahan said affordable housing is too expensive and takes too long to build to be the primary strategy to fight homelessness.

    “I’m not going to support an approach that’s only going to support one strategy, especially one that’s the slowest to get people off the streets,” Mahan, a voting member of the finance authority board, said in an interview.

    Ethan Varian

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  • Homelessness in San Mateo County jumps 18% even as more people get shelter beds

    Homelessness in San Mateo County jumps 18% even as more people get shelter beds

    San Mateo County’s homeless population spiked 18% over the last two years, according to the latest official estimate, even as local officials added around 300 shelter beds to help people get off the street.

    The tally released Wednesday identified 2,130 homeless people countywide. More than half lived outdoors, in vehicles or in other places not meant for habitation. The rest stayed in shelters.

    Despite the increase, local officials credited the opening of two shelters in Redwood City and San Mateo with boosting the number of homeless people with a roof over their heads. The county found 985 people were staying in shelters, a 38% jump from 2022.

    “This means fewer individuals in less safe situations such as on the street or in tents,” Claire Cunningham, director of the county’s Human Services Agency, said in a statement. “And shelters provide case management and supportive services to help residents move toward permanent housing.”

    The new numbers stem from the county’s latest biennial “Point-In-Time” homelessness census, taken by a team of volunteers and service providers on a single night in January.

    Across the Bay Area, Alameda, Contra Costa and San Francisco counties also conducted counts early this year. Alameda County recently reported its homeless population had dipped by 3% to 9,450 people, though Oakland’s population swelled by 9%. San Francisco, meanwhile, saw its number of homeless residents rise 7% to more than 8,300.

    Contra Costa County’s numbers are expected soon, while Santa Clara County, which took its tally last year, will not count again until 2025.

    The estimates, despite widely seen as an undercount, are crucial to helping cities and counties plan their homelessness response and determine how much state and federal funding they can expect receive.

    Despite unprecedented billions of public dollars spent in recent years to combat homelessness, getting people off the streets remains a grave challenge as rising housing costs, job losses, and mental health and addiction issues force others out.

    Ethan Varian

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  • Workers displaced by shooting priority for new Half Moon Bay housing project

    Workers displaced by shooting priority for new Half Moon Bay housing project

    The San Mateo County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to provide nearly $6 million for much-needed affordable housing for farm laborers, which would prioritize families displaced by a mass shooting last year that killed seven people.

    The money will be used to purchase manufactured homes for farmworkers. At least 19 families who were displaced by the shooting in Half Moon Bay will be given priority.

    A total of 28 of the 45 to 50 units at Stone Pine Cove, a 22-acre property zoned for multiple affordable housing buildings, will be set aside for agricultural workers.

    “Every family deserves a safe and healthy place to live,” said Supervisor Ray Mueller, who represents District 3, where a majority of the county’s farmland is located. “We must absolutely create opportunities for farmworkers to live in San Mateo County, as well as invest resources in stabilizing the agricultural economy that provides for farmworking jobs.”

    The money is coming from the state-funded Joe Serna Jr. Farmworker Housing Grant.

    Last month, San Mateo County resubmitted its housing plan, officially known as the “housing element,” with updates emphasizing farmworker housing as one of its top priorities.

    Ryan Macasero

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  • San Jose to clear 1,000 homeless people from creeks and waterways

    San Jose to clear 1,000 homeless people from creeks and waterways

    For decades, homeless people have camped along San Jose’s 140 miles of creeks and rivers. Now, at the direction of state regulators, city officials are devising an ambitious plan to move about a thousand people into shelter by the middle of next year.

    On Friday, before a line of tents near Coyote Creek, Mayor Matt Mahan announced the plan in response to a state mandate to clear encampments polluting the city’s watersheds.

    “What they’re telling us, which is what I’ve been saying all along, is that the status quo is unacceptable,” Mahan said.

    To ensure homeless people have a place to go, the mayor and a handful of City Council members pledged to continue adding shelter space across the city, including a newly proposed group shelter with about 1,000 beds south of downtown.

    Officials said the clean-up and shelter effort — which could start in earnest in about six months and must be completed by June 2025 — will cost tens of millions of dollars at a time when the city’s budget is already stretched thin.

    But they maintain that the hefty price tag is worth it, not just to meet environmental requirements but to ease the human suffering on the street and ensure that neighbors feel safe visiting city parks and trails.

    “We must treat this like the emergency that it is,” Mahan said. “This is going to be hard. It’s going to be challenging, and it’s going to be expensive.”

    Pedro Reyes, who lives along the grassy floodplain near Coyote Creek and Tully Road, said he’d be open to accepting a bed at the new shelter. But Reyes, 39, added he’s also comfortable staying outside, despite tending to recent stab wounds after he said he was attacked at his encampment.

    Besides, he said he doesn’t think he needs help. And even if he did, he finds it hard to trust people offering support.

    “I can’t believe it when people are talking to me, like, sweet,” he said. “I don’t trust anyone.”

    On Tuesday, the City Council is set to vote to direct officials to devise plan details, including which areas along waterways across the city need to be prioritized for clean-up and where no-camping zones could be established to prevent homeless people from returning. The city has an estimated 6,340 homeless residents, about 70% of whom are unsheltered.

    The agency forcing the city into action is the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board, which has recently ramped up pressure on cities across California to move encampments out of sensitive waterways that often empty into the ocean. It’s threatening San Jose with litigation and tens of thousands of dollars in daily fines if it fails to comply.

    The city has long struggled with what to do about encampments along its creeks and rivers, dating back at least 10 years when it took multiple attempts to clear hundreds of people from a massive Coyote Creek encampment known as “The Jungle.”

    More recently, the city cleared around 200 people from parts of Coyote Creek to make way for a flood protection project. In February, it set in motion plans to create a no-encampment zone along the downtown stretch of the Guadalupe River after clearing dozens of tents and RVs from the area.

    Homeless advocates say clearing camps can be traumatizing for unsheltered people, who can be torn from encampment communities and forced to part with their possessions. Without providing a roof over their heads, advocates say, encampment sweeps do little but push homeless people into new neighborhoods.

    “If you’re going to abate, you have to have a place for them to go,” said Todd Langton, founder of the Coalition for the Unhoused of Silicon Valley. “It’s common sense. It’s humanity.”

    Under a 2018 federal court ruling, local governments across the Western U.S. are expected to at least offer shelter before clearing encampments. However, after frustrated officials petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to modify or do away with the mandate, the justices agreed to review the rule later this year.

    Mahan, who’s expected to sail to reelection next week, has made adding tiny homes, safe overnight parking spots and other “interim” shelter options with supportive services a centerpiece of his push to end street homelessness.

    Critics of that position argue that shelter, while needed, is but a temporary solution that won’t help many people out of homelessness without significantly more investment in permanent affordable and supportive housing. A city report from last year found that about half of the roughly 900 people who stayed in interim shelters in 2022 moved on to permanent housing.

    Mahan and his allies on the council respond that faster and more cost-effective solutions are needed because building low-income homes can take years and cost as much as $1 million for a single unit.

    “For far too long we have enabled unsafe, inhumane, and dangerous living conditions for the unsheltered by relying on woefully slow and brutally expensive projects,” Councilman Bien Doan said in a statement.

    Doan on Friday announced the proposed 1,000-bed group shelter for his district, south of Highway 280 between Highways 101 and 87. Doan’s office declined to give potential locations and did not immediately respond to a question about how much it could cost.

    Ethan Varian

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  • This California couple wanted a $500,000 starter home. Here are their 3 choices

    This California couple wanted a $500,000 starter home. Here are their 3 choices

    Christopher Park and Kristyn Reano relax in their new home in Vallejo, Calif. with their rescue dog Raili, Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2024. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group)

    When Christopher Park turned 28 — the age his dad was when he bought his first home — he started to wonder: Could he ever do the same?

    Gaining a foothold in his hometown, the waterside city of Benicia in the Bay Area, isn’t as easy today as it was 30 years ago for his parents. They bought their house in 1993 for $205,000, and have seen its value soar to $800,000.

    “I knew I would never get to Benicia,” the e-commerce manager at an industrial manufacturer said.

    But Park was still set on buying a home in the Bay Area. To save money, he moved in with his parents for a few years. When he finally moved out, it was to live with his girlfriend, in an apartment attached to her parents’ home in Vallejo.

    After getting engaged in 2023, Park and his fiancée, Kristyn Reano, a water treatment operator, started to take a more serious look at the housing market.

    Homes in Benicia were only getting more expensive, with the median-priced home growing 54% since 2015 to $788,943 from $512,544, according to Zillow.

    Nearby cities presented more options within their $500,000 budget. The couple was drawn to Vallejo — not far from Marin County, where Reano had recently taken a job — and the industrial city of Martinez in Contra Costa County.

    While Park was open to looking at condos, starter homes for many these days, Reano was adamant that they buy a single-family home. They were also willing to consider places that required a little fixing up, since Reano’s dad, an experienced builder, had offered to help them work on an older home.

    Here were their options:

    No. 1: A Recently renovated ranch in Vallejo

    Christopher Park and Krysta Reano considered this recently renovated ranch in Vallejo.
    Christopher Park and Krysta Reano considered this recently renovated ranch in Vallejo.

    This three-bedroom home in South Vallejo had recently been fixed up by a home flipper. It was about 1,500 square feet, plus a 400-square-foot finished attic, and sat on the largest plot of land on the street, measuring a quarter acre. The home had just one bathroom, though, and a small kitchen. The asking price was $550,000 (reduced from $650,000).

    (Photo courtesy of NavigateRE)
    (Photo courtesy of NavigateRE)

    No. 2: Open-concept 3-bedroom in Benicia

    While searching for a home they could afford, Christopher Park and his fiancee Kristyn Reano looked at this fixer upper in Benicia, Calif., photographed on Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2024. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group)
    While searching for a home they could afford, Christopher Park and his fiancee Kristyn Reano looked at this fixer upper in Benicia, Calif., photographed on Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2024. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group)

    This 1,100-square-foot home was in Benicia, not far from Park’s parents. It included one bathroom and three bedrooms, one of which had been converted from a garage space. It was a 20-minute walk from downtown. The home, which had been sitting on the market for several months by the time the couple saw it, was listed at $530,000.

    No. 3: A fixer-upper in Martinez

    While searching for a home they could afford, Christopher Park and his fiancee Kristyn Reano looked at this home in Martinez, Calif., photographed on Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2024. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group)
    While searching for a home they could afford, Christopher Park and his fiancee Kristyn Reano looked at this home in Martinez, Calif., photographed on Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2024. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group)

    This 1,564-square-foot home, built in 1926, was located on a corner lot at the top of a hilly residential street in Martinez. It came with three bedrooms, two baths, and a single garage space — but needed a full interior and exterior renovation. The house was the only one well within their price range, listed at $299,000 — but it was unclear how much renovations would cost.

    Christopher Park and Krysta Reano considered this fixer-upper in Martinez, where they would be required to do extensive renovations.
    Christopher Park and Krysta Reano considered this fixer-upper in Martinez, where they would be required to do extensive renovations. (Courtesy Photo / Ron Melvin, Keller Williams)

    Here’s what they chose:

    The recently renovated 3-bedroom in Vallejo

    Kristyn Reano and Christopher Park enjoy their new home in Vallejo, Calif., Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2024. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group)
    Kristyn Reano and Christopher Park enjoy their new home in Vallejo, Calif., Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2024. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group)

    On their first tour of the house in Vallejo, Reano fell in love with the open-concept living room, where she could imagine her large family congregating for holidays and celebrations.

    While the Benicia home was in the ZIP code that Park and Reano wanted, the inspections revealed a major termite issue and an aging roof. “It was enough to scare us away,” Park said. “This was clearly opening up a can of worms.”

    Although they love Martinez’s downtown and industrial vibe, the house there would have required extensive renovations, too.

    “It felt like far too much work, and we didn’t want to live in a construction zone for the next year,” Park said. “I’m not going to hurt myself with more debt to fix up a house.”

    Buying a turn-key property would allow them to move in right away, rather than stressing about a budget for renovations. Noticing that the flipper for the Vallejo home had already reduced the price from $650,000 to $550,000, Park reasoned he might be willing to go even lower. They offered $525,000 — but the seller wouldn’t budge.

    Christopher Park and his fiancee Kristyn Reano enjoy their new home in Vallejo, Calif., Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2024. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group)
    Christopher Park and his fiancee Kristyn Reano enjoy their new home in Vallejo, Calif., Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2024. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group)

    “I was so determined to beat out the boomers,” Park said. “They were going after this house because they’re trying to downsize — and we are just trying to get into something for the first time.”

    The couple submitted an offer for $550,000, putting down 19.5%, which Park received as a gift from his parents. They closed in 20 days.

    “I just didn’t want more offers on this house,” Park said.

    The down payment gift from Park’s parents allowed the couple to save a small nest egg for home improvement projects. Eventually, they plan to install another bathroom in the back of the house, which could cost around $12,000 — but they’re not rushing to start those projects anytime soon.

    The home was slightly out of their budget of $500,000 — and high interest rates also mean higher monthly payments. Park and Reano plan to refinance their mortgage when rates drop, so they can get out of their 7.5% interest rate and $3,800-a-month payment.

    Christopher Park and Kristyn Reano enjoy their new home in Vallejo, Calif., Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2024. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group)
    Christopher Park and Kristyn Reano enjoy their new home in Vallejo, Calif., Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2024. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group)

    Still, the couple says the price is worth it to be so close to family. Reano’s parents are a short 3-minute drive away.

    Reano and Park realize how lucky they are to buy a home near their hometown, especially when so many of their friends are still renting, or have had to move out of the area.

    “We have this generational guilt,” he said. “I figured I would be renting a room for the rest of my life. Everything else has been a cherry on top.”

    Kate Talerico

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  • Camden High Rise to Undergo $130M Renovation

    Camden High Rise to Undergo $130M Renovation


    The Northgate high-rise, near the Benjamin Franklin Bridge in Camden, New Jersey is set to undergo a massive renovation, with all 321 apartments being refurbished to offer affordable housing for residents with low incomes. 

    The new owners, Hudson Valley Property Group, unveiled the $130 million project last week aimed at enhancing housing affordability and quality in Camden within two years, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported.

    Constructed in 1963 as a luxury tower, Northgate initially offered hope for an economic resurgence in the city. However, over the years, the tower faced declining occupancy and growing maintenance issues. Recent inspections revealed numerous violations, prompting urgent action from both officials and the new ownership.

    “We’ve been fighting for this for some time,” Camden Mayor Vic Carstarphen told the outlet. ”I’ve been on every floor of that building. The code violations are incredible. I know [Hudson Valley] is as passionate as I am about changing that environment.”

    Hudson Valley Property Group specializes in revitalizing distressed urban rental properties, with previous successful projects such as the nearby Crestbury Apartments, now known as Community Meadows. 

    The firm’s co-founder and partner, Andrew Cavaluzzi, revealed plans for immediate preliminary work at Northgate, including meetings with tenants to discuss upgrades and operational changes. Renovations of individual units are slated to begin in April, with tenants temporarily relocating during plumbing stack replacements.

    Cavaluzzi outlined extensive security measures, community facilities, and refurbished retail and office spaces as part of the renovation plans.

    This renovation is part of a larger effort to revitalize the city, which is New Jersey’s poorest, with a 35% poverty rate. Last year Campbell Soup consolidated its office-based employees from Norwalk, Connecticut to its headquarters in Camden.

    “If you look at where we’ve come from there is a demonstrable difference in the city today from 10 years ago,” the county’s Commissioner Jeffrey Nash recently said. “But we cannot become complacent and forget about the promises we’ve made to the people of Camden.”

    — Ted Glanzer



    TRD Staff

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  • Opinion: Why is L.A. still letting single-family homeowners block solutions to the housing crisis?

    Opinion: Why is L.A. still letting single-family homeowners block solutions to the housing crisis?

    Last month YIMBY Law, a nonprofit, pro-housing advocacy group, sued the City of Los Angeles on behalf of a private developer seeking to construct a 360-unit apartment building in Canoga Park. These apartments would be only for renters who meet the federal definition of low to moderate incomes in L.A. The project was submitted under Mayor Karen Bass’ Executive Directive 1, meant to dramatically speed up the approval and permitting process for 100% affordable housing projects. But recently the city revoked the eligibility of the Canoga Park building for this program following complaints from single-family homeowners.

    This about-face is part of a trend. Last year, the mayor’s office amended ED1 to shield single-family zones from streamlined development — after eight such applications, including the Canoga Park proposal, were already submitted. Those proposals were then denied eligibility for ED1. Some of the projects have filed appeals; one denial has been overturned, but the City Council rejected an appeal for the Canoga project.

    Without ED1, these projects face a discretionary approval process that may involve lengthy environmental review and other delays likely to prevent them from happening. This turn of events may cost the city more than 1,100 affordable apartments.

    Bass announced ED1 as moving “City Hall away from its traditional approach that is focused on process and replacing it with a new approach focused on solutions, results and speed.” The mayor’s stated intention received a remarkable boost via the state law AB 2334, passed in 2022, allowing developer incentives for 100% affordable projects including substantial increases in height limits and allowable density (the number of housing units on a given-sized parcel of land) in “very low vehicle travel areas,” where limited residential development has kept down traffic. The idea is that these areas can more easily accommodate any extra traffic stemming from increased housing density.

    The potential cost savings from ED1 and AB 2334 encouraged private developers to produce long-term, income-restricted units — crucially, without relying on public financing. If the more than 1,100 apartments now held up from ED1 streamlining were built through the standard publicly subsidized pathway, at a typical cost of around $600,000 per unit, they could require up to $660,000,000 in public funding. Privately funded alternatives are a boon to local, regional and state governments that have sought for years to spur the production of so-called “missing middle” housing that is affordable to working-class and middle-income households.

    Yet now this progress is in question, just as the power of these complementary city and state reforms has begun to emerge. The lawsuit concerning the Canoga Park building may result in one or more of the halted projects being built eventually, and the state has suggested that the city erred in revoking their ED1 eligibility. But even if these projects get approved, since ED1 now excludes the single-family neighborhoods that make up approximately three-quarters of residential land in L.A., they would mark an end rather than a beginning to similar development.

    Some residents of these neighborhoods say that’s only fair. According to Councilmember Bob Blumenfield, for homeowners affected by new apartments, “their property value is going to get cut in half, they’re going to have a big shadow over their place.”

    As it happens, I can speak personally to these concerns. I am the owner and resident of a unit in a small rowhouse condo development on the Westside located directly across the street from an ongoing project converting a single-family home into a multi-unit apartment building.

    My neighbors and my family are losing a good deal of sunlight throughout the day from the new building. Our street has been a cacophonous, messy construction site for so long it’s hard to remember what it was like before.

    But I know that this is what solving the housing crisis looks like: A single parcel that previously housed one family is being transformed into apartments for perhaps 15 to 25 people, with units reserved for low-income households. Like those in the contested ED1 projects, these affordable units won’t require public funding.

    There is simply no way to solve our housing crisis without throwing shade in some single-family residential areas. We might have to increase traffic in some neighborhoods, too, though providing more housing in jobs-rich West L.A. could ultimately reduce traffic by allowing people to live closer to where they work. As for property values, multiple studies have shown that low-income housing does not substantially reduce them, including in high-cost neighborhoods, and often increases them.

    Some constituencies will always oppose development. Local policymakers who are serious about solving our dual crises of housing affordability and homelessness have to take a hard look at how much political capital they are willing to spend to create effective policies in the face of such objections.

    If we can’t build fully affordable projects that don’t drain government coffers even on the edges of land zoned for single-family residences, then Angelenos should prepare for a permanent housing crisis.

    But if this sounds like the wrong direction for the city, Bass and the City Council should fully commit to protecting and expanding innovative policy such as the original ED1, without categorical exclusions for single-family neighborhoods, and AB 2334. Mechanisms that convince private developers to produce long-term affordable housing offer what is as close to a free lunch on this crisis as L.A. is ever likely to get.

    Jason Ward is an economist at Rand Corp. and the co-director of the Rand Center on Housing and Homelessness.



    Jason Ward

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  • Record number of Americans are homeless amid nationwide surge in rent, report finds

    Record number of Americans are homeless amid nationwide surge in rent, report finds


    A growing number of Americans are ending up homeless as soaring rents in recent years squeeze their budgets.

    According to a Jan. 25 report from Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, roughly 653,000 people reported experiencing homelessness in January of 2023, up roughly 12% from the same time a year prior and 48% from 2015. That marks the largest single-year increase in the country’s unhoused population on record, Harvard researchers said. 

    Homelessness, long a problem in states such as California and Washington, has also increased in historically more affordable parts of the U.S.. Arizona, Ohio, Tennessee and Texas have seen the largest growths in their unsheltered populations due to rising local housing costs. 

    That alarming jump in people struggling to keep a roof over their head came amid blistering inflation in 2021 and 2022 and as surging rental prices across the U.S. outpaced worker wage gains. Although a range of factors can cause homelessness, high rents and the expiration of pandemic relief last year contributed to the spike in housing insecurity, the researchers found. 

    “In the first years of the pandemic, renter protections, income supports and housing assistance helped stave off a considerable rise in homelessness. However, many of these protections ended in 2022, at a time when rents were rising rapidly and increasing numbers of migrants were prohibited from working. As a result, the number of people experiencing homelessness jumped by nearly 71,000 in just one year,” according to the report.

    Rent in the U.S. has steadily climbed since 2001. In analyzing Census and real estate data, the Harvard researchers found that half of all U.S. households across income levels spent between 30% and 50% of their monthly pay on housing in 2022, defining them as “cost-burdened.” Some 12 million tenants were severely cost-burdened that year, meaning they spent more than half their monthly pay on rent and utilities, up 14% from pre-pandemic levels.


    Homelessness a major issue in New Hampshire heading into primary

    04:15

    People earning between $45,000 and $74,999 per year took the biggest hit from rising rents — on average, 41% of their paycheck went toward rent and utilities, the Joint Center for Housing Studies said.

    Tenants should generally allocate no more than 30% of their income toward rent, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

    Although the rental market is showing signs of cooling, the median rent in the U.S. was $1,964 in December 2023, up 23% from before the pandemic, according to online housing marketplace Rent. By comparison, inflation-adjusted weekly earnings for the median worker rose 1.7% between 2019 and 2023, government data shows.

    “Rapidly rising rents, combined with wage losses in the early stages of the pandemic, have underscored the inadequacy of the existing housing safety net, especially in times of crisis,” the Harvard report stated.

    Elizabeth Napolitano


    elizabeth-napolitano-cbsmoneywatch-cropped.jpg

    Elizabeth Napolitano is a freelance reporter at CBS MoneyWatch, where she covers business and technology news. She also writes for CoinDesk. Before joining CBS, she interned at NBC News’ BizTech Unit and worked on The Associated Press’ web scraping team.



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  • State wins a round in fight with Huntington Beach to build more housing

    State wins a round in fight with Huntington Beach to build more housing

    California’s lawsuit against Huntington Beach, which accused the city of defying state efforts to ease the housing crisis, appears to be back on a fast track after the suit was temporarily halted by a Superior Court judge in November.

    A three-judge panel at California’s 4th Circuit Court of Appeal instructed a lower court Thursday that Huntington Beach’s status as a charter city did not stop the state from seeking a rapid hearing on its lawsuit. Charter cities adopt a voter-approved set of governing rules that give them more say over local affairs.

    The lawsuit, brought by Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta, Gov. Gavin Newsom and the state Department of Housing and Community Development, alleges that the city violated state law by rejecting a plan to provide enough houses and apartments to meet the region’s expected population growth.

    Thursday’s action did not decide the merits of the state’s case against Huntington Beach. Instead, it paves the way for the case to continue on an expedited basis, unless the city can persuade the courts to halt the lawsuit for other reasons.

    Although numerous cities have been slow to increase their housing supplies, Huntington Beach has drawn fire repeatedly from state officials because it has pointedly refused to follow state laws that address the housing crisis.

    Triggering the latest battle, Huntington Beach’s council voted in March against a proposal to zone for roughly 13,400 additional housing units — the number assigned to the city by the Southern California Assn. of Governments in 2021. Under state law, cities have to revise the housing element of their general plans periodically to comply with a “regional housing needs assessment” done by intergovernmental groups such as SCAG.

    The day after state officials filed an early version of its current lawsuit, Huntington Beach sought protection in federal court. In that case, the city claims the state-mandated regional housing needs assessment and its additional housing demands usurp Huntington Beach’s authority as a charter city, in violation of the California Constitution. It also argues that the mandates violate the city’s rights under the U.S. Constitution’s 1st and 14th Amendments, as well as the Commerce Clause.

    For the record:

    7:50 p.m. Jan. 19, 2024A previous version of this story said a federal judge rejected the state’s lawsuit. The ruling was against the city’s suit.

    Huntington Beach persuaded San Diego County Superior Court Judge Katherine Bacal in November to put the state’s lawsuit on hold until after the city’s federal lawsuit could be decided. Shortly thereafter, a federal judge rejected the city’s lawsuit, saying the city had no standing to sue. Huntington Beach has since taken its case to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

    On Thursday, the state 4th Circuit panel wrote that by state statute, “charter cities are exempt from some requirements of state planning and zoning law,” but “like all other cities, charter cities must adopt general plans with the mandatory elements specified by state law, including a housing element.”

    It went on to say that state law gives top priority to lawsuits against a city’s general plan, obligating the court to hold a hearing within 120 days if requested.

    In a statement Thursday, Bonta said, “Today the Court of Appeal affirmed that every city will be held to the same standard…. No one, including Huntington Beach, is exempt from following the law. We’ll continue to use every legal tool available to hold those who break state housing laws accountable.”

    Huntington Beach City Atty. Michael E. Gates, however, said the appeals court misread state law. “We will continue to challenge any ruling that applies state law to charter cities that do not apply to charter cities,” he said in an interview.

    Bacal has set a hearing for Jan. 26 on Bonta’s motion to let the state’s lawsuit proceed. Gates said Bacal “could continue the stay on other bases,” or she could lift the stay and have the two sides start litigating.

    Jon Healey

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  • New Orleans landlord gifts tenants 1 month of free rent

    New Orleans landlord gifts tenants 1 month of free rent

    New Orleans landlord gifts tenants 1 month of free rent – CBS News


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    A landlord in New Orleans gave all her tenants a free month of rent this December to help make the holidays a little easier. Omar Villafranca has the story.

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  • Computronix and Archistar Announce Strategic Partnership

    Computronix and Archistar Announce Strategic Partnership

    Alliance will leverage the robust capabilities of POSSE PLS and eCheck solutions, giving government agencies the tools needed to fast-track permitting outcomes.


    DENVER, December 12, 2023 (Newswire.com)
    –
    Government software solution provider Computronix has formed a strategic partnership with Australian proptech innovator Archistar to integrate the latter’s AI-based eCheck toolset within the POSSE PLS – Permitting and Licensing System. A powerful compliance check technology, eCheck uses AI to make more than 90 complex checks against local building codes and regulations in just seconds. Following its seamless integration with POSSE PLS, Computronix’s end-to-end solution for municipal planning, permitting, inspection, licensing, and code enforcement, eCheck will simplify and streamline the review process for builders, architects, designers, planners, and building surveyors alike — providing rich 3D visual feedback on all pertinent code-compliance checks.

    Archistar CEO & Founder, Dr Ben Coorey, said: “Archistar is committed to empowering cities and municipalities worldwide with advanced technology to effectively tackle the global housing supply crisis. We are proud to partner with Computronix, a company renowned for its award-winning, service-centric approach to serving government clients. By harmonizing the strengths of POSSE PLS and eCheck, we are set to revolutionize the way cities assess and approve permits, delivering faster building permits, enhanced transparency and an enriched experience for government officials and submitters alike.”

    Gord Meeberg, VP of Business Development for Computronix, adds, “In Archistar, we recognize a corporate culture much like our own: one dedicated to building innovative solutions designed to fundamentally streamline permitting processes for community planners and builders. POSSE PLS with eCheck will leverage the robust capabilities of both award-winning solutions, giving government agencies the leading-edge tools needed to fast-track municipal planning and permitting outcomes, to meet affordable housing targets and exceed economic development objectives.”

    In addition to the integration of their complimentary and compatible technologies, Archistar and Computronix have agreed to work together to jointly promote their respective solutions to community development leaders worldwide.

    Leveraging artificial intelligence to assess planning rules and restrictions on land plots, eCheck streamlines the plan review process, creating rapid compliance checks that can be used to accelerate the design and building process. In tandem with the award-winning POSSE PLS system, this offering represents a powerful total product solution for government leaders keen to fast-track community development processes to facilitate increased affordable housing supply.

    About Computronix: Computronix is a leading provider of transformative software solutions for land management, alcohol beverage control, enterprise licensing, gaming control and workflow management. Winner of 22 national and international awards, including the Smithsonian Institution’s collection of ground-breaking software, our POSSE Platform is a wholly integrated and fully realized product suite. A true service-centric organization, exemplified in our 100% Project Success rate and industry-leading employee retention rate, Computronix is proud to serve major government clients representing over 100 million citizens from Honolulu to Halifax.

    About Archistar: Founded by Dr. Benjamin Coorey, a global expert in 3D generative design, Archistar is the world’s leading digital platform for the Property Industry. The platform combines architectural design with artificial intelligence to inform decision-making in property and is used by agents, developers, architects, government planners and homeowners nationwide. Since launching in 2018, Archistar has grown rapidly, listed in the AFR Top 100 fastest-growing companies in Australia for three years in a row, with notable clients including Mirvac, Ernst & Young, Brookfield and JLL.

    Source: Computronix

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  • Civil Rights Undone

    Civil Rights Undone

    In late 2020, even as the instigators of insurrection were marshaling their followers to travel to Washington, D.C., another kind of coup—a quieter one—was in the works. On December 21, in one of his departing acts as attorney general, Bill Barr submitted a proposed rule change to the White House. The change would eliminate the venerable standard used by the Justice Department to handle discrimination cases, known as “disparate impact.” The memo was quickly overshadowed by the events of January 6, and, in the chaotic final days of Donald Trump’s presidency, it was never implemented. But Barr’s proposal represented perhaps the most aggressive step the administration took in its effort to dismantle existing civil-rights law. Should Trump return to power, he would surely attempt to see the effort through.

    Explore the January/February 2024 Issue

    Check out more from this issue and find your next story to read.

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    Since the legislative victories of the civil-rights movement in the 1960s, legal and civil rights for people on the margins have tended to expand. The Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968 were followed by voting provisions for Indigenous people and non-English speakers, a Supreme Court guarantee of the right to abortion, increased protections for people with disabilities, and formal recognition of same-sex marriage. The trend mostly continued under presidents of both parties—until Trump. Though his administration could be bumbling, the president’s actions matched his rhetoric when it came to eroding civil-rights enforcement.

    From the March 2021 issue: American democracy is only 55 years old—and hanging by a thread

    Under Trump, the Justice Department abandoned its active protection of voting rights. The Environmental Protection Agency ignored civil-rights complaints. The Department of Housing and Urban Development scaled back investigations into housing discrimination. Trump’s appointees to the Supreme Court, for their part, have whittled away at landmark civil-rights legislation and presided over the end of affirmative action.

    In a second term, the most effective way for Trump to continue rolling back protections would be to dismantle disparate-impact theory. Under the theory, the federal government can prohibit discriminatory practices not just in instances of malicious and provable bigotry, but also in cases where a party’s actions unintentionally affect a class of marginalized people disproportionately.

    The theory is important because discrimination can be perpetuated without ill intent; even seemingly benign or neutral policies can perpetuate a legacy of bias, or create new inequities. But disparate impact is also essential because landlords, business owners, and municipal officials who do wish to discriminate have learned how to operate without expressing overt bigotry. Under disparate impact, the government’s burden is not to prove that these actors intended to discriminate, only that their actions resulted in discrimination.

    For decades, lawyers have invoked disparate impact as a means of fighting discrimination. The standard has been applied across the federal government. After the housing crisis of 2008, the DOJ brought a series of lawsuits against banks that had charged higher mortgage rates and fees to minority borrowers, winning hundreds of millions of dollars in settlements from the lenders. In 2015, the DOJ released a damning report on the practices of the police department in Ferguson, Missouri, after an 18-year-old Black man, Michael Brown, was shot and killed by a police officer. Disparate impact was mentioned at least 30 times in the report, including in its main takeaway: “African Americans experience disparate impact in nearly every aspect of Ferguson’s law enforcement system.”

    Adam Serwer: Trump is making it easier to get away with discrimination

    Many conservatives have long been suspicious of disparate impact. The most principled objections center on the claims that it invites government overreach and inefficiency, that it impedes state and local policy development, and that it always entails some degree of ghost-chasing—in a country as unequal as America, discerning what exactly contributes to a disparate outcome can be difficult.

    But these philosophical and practical objections to the theory have always served to disguise a more visceral disdain. Many conservatives simply believe that ensuring equality is not a legitimate federal priority. In the Trump era, as the Republican Party has embraced white nationalism, its leaders have been emboldened to abandon the guise. They edge closer to the line once held by the architects of Jim Crow: Equality is undesirable because people are not equals; some of us might not even be people.

    Trump himself has always had a preternatural gift for identifying and channeling grievance; white backlash against civil-rights legislation was one of the major forces behind his advancement to the presidency, and that backlash can be traced directly to disdain for civil-rights legislation and enforcement. Once Trump was in office, one of his early targets was HUD. In 2020, the department finalized a rule that demolished its discriminatory-effect standard, which had been the basis for enforcement at the department for at least 40 years. Trump’s HUD secretary, Ben Carson, said that the move would spur efficiency at the local level without undermining the department’s antidiscrimination work. But Carson has long been a skeptic of desegregation; during his 2016 presidential campaign, he described desegregation efforts in cities as “failed socialist experiments.” Ultimately, Carson’s attempt to undermine the discrimination standard was stymied by lawsuits. But the cause of fighting bias suffered nevertheless. In 2020, at the end of Carson’s tenure, the number of secretary-initiated complaints had gone from several dozen in 2015 to three.

    Trump did serious damage to disparate impact as president; there’s little question that he would finish the job if given another chance. A second Trump administration could go beyond simply abandoning the theory, perhaps even bringing lawsuits seeking to declare the entire concept unconstitutional. Trump could thus attack civil-rights law from both sides, sabotaging the government’s capability to adjudicate cases while also arguing that it should not have that capability in the first place. If this two-pronged strategy succeeds, it will be difficult for any future administration to undo the changes. With today’s conservative-dominated judiciary and high levels of political polarization, any substantive changes Trump makes to civil-rights enforcement could effectively become permanent.

    Without disparate impact, the DOJ would lose its primary tool for addressing brutality in police departments, and current efforts to finally enforce environmental laws in communities of color and hold cities accountable for creating slums in Black and Latino neighborhoods would be stalled. Given the damage that has already been done by the courts, there is a future—perhaps a likely future—in which the remaining foundations of the civil-rights era are undone. If Trump were to win in 2024, he would see the victory as a mandate to tear everything down now.

    This article appears in the January/February 2024 print edition with the headline “Civil Rights Undone.”

    Vann R. Newkirk II

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  • It’s been a brutal year for homebuyers. Here’s what experts predict for 2024, from mortgage rates to prices.

    It’s been a brutal year for homebuyers. Here’s what experts predict for 2024, from mortgage rates to prices.

    New real estate data shows sellers incurring more losses, sales down


    New real estate data shows sellers incurring more losses, sales down

    02:14

    Home buyers faced a tough real estate market this year, with home prices continuing their upward march and mortgage rates reaching their highest levels in more than 20 years. Making matters worse, the number of homes available for sale were scarce, which also pushed prices skyward. 

    The question is whether 2024 will deliver more of the same, or if homebuyers could see some relief next year. Housing experts provided CBS MoneyWatch with their forecasts for the coming year.

    Will home prices keep rising in 2024?

    There’s some good news on this front, with experts predicting that home prices will be flat to slightly down in 2024.

    Prices could fall about 1% or be little changed next year, Daryl Fairweather, chief economist at Redfin, told CBS MoneyWatch. Meanwhile, Realtor.com is predicting that home prices could slip about 1.7% in 2024.

    That would come after the national median home price reached a high of $410,200 in June, a 14.2% surge since year-start, according to the National Association of Realtors. 

    To be sure, home prices have eased somewhat since then, with the median price dipping to $379,100 in October — yet that’s still higher than at year start and a 40% jump from October 2019, prior to the pandemic.

    Real estate prices surged during the pandemic partly due to higher demand from millennials starting their own families as well as baby boomers creating more households after a death or divorce. Low mortgage rates during the first two years of the crisis also spurred buying. 

    Mortgage rates: Will 2024 bring some relief?

    Mortgage rates have been climbing since 2022, when the Federal Reserve began hiking its benchmark rate in an effort to tame the highest inflation in four decades. 

    By October 2023, the typical rate for a 30-year loan had soared past 8%, after starting the year at 6.4%. 

    A growing number of economists now believe the Fed is done with rate hikes — and may even start cutting its benchmark rate in response to rapidly cooling inflation. The Fed could start lowering its rate by mid-2024, according to a Bank of America estimate. 

    That could push mortgage lenders to follow, with rates potentially dropping as low as 6.5% in 2024, predicts Realtor.com.

    “I believe we’ve already reached the peak in terms of interest rates,” Lawrence Yun, chief economist at the National Association of Realtors, said. “The question is when are rates going to come down?”

    Mortgage rates don’t always shadow the Fed’s rate decisions, as they tend to track the yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note. Investors’ expectations for future inflation, global demand for Treasurys and Fed policy can also influence rates on home loans.

    Will home inventory increase in 2024?

    Now for the bad news: experts don’t foresee an improvement next year in the number of available homes for sale. 

    For that to happen, builders would need to have a booming year, while a tidal wave of homeowners would have to be willing to sell their properties. 

    Homeowners have been reluctant to sell this year because many of them refinanced or bought their properties during the first two years of the pandemic, when mortgage rates were at historic lows of about 3%. 

    Even if mortgage rates fall to the 6%-range, many homeowners would still face higher financing costs, experts note. As a result, it’s unlikely that a flood of properties will hit the market in 2024, which means inventory could remain tight next year.

    Realtor.com expects housing inventory to fall 14% next year, in part because homeowners are likely to stay put. Homeowners will not sell their properties unless they’re absolutely forced to, Realtor.com Chief Economist Danielle Hale predicted.

    “Moves of necessity — for job changes, family situation changes, and downsizing to a more affordable market — are likely to drive home sales in 2024,” Hale said. “Home buyers will continue to seek out markets where they feel like they get the most out of their dollar as they look for homes that better meet their needs.”

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  • Want to rent a single-family home? Here’s where it’s most affordable.

    Want to rent a single-family home? Here’s where it’s most affordable.

    With the cost of buying a home financially out of reach for most Americans, a growing number of people are choosing to rent a single-family home. 

    Nearly 2.5 million U.S. households have rented a single-family home in the past 12 months alone, according to an October estimate from the National Rental Home Council.

    “It is generally less expensive to rent a home than to buy one, so for most Americans the path to homeownership starts with renting while saving for a down payment,” Yanling Mayer, an economist with real estate research firm CoreLogic, said in a report this week. “However, homeownership is becoming more elusive than ever for many people, as surging rents over the last few years have put an increasing financial burden on budgets.”

    The lowest-cost cites for renting a single-family home across the U.S. are in the Midwest and the South. Here are the most most affordable metro areas, along with the median monthly rent, according to CoreLogic.

    • Cleveland, Ohio ($1,395)
    • Jacksonville, North Carolina ($1,400)
    • Oklahoma City, Oklahoma ($1,595)
    • Fayetteville, North Carolina ($1,600)
    • St. Louis, Missouri ($1,650)
    • Detroit, Michigan ($1,750)
    • Fayetteville, Arkansas ($1,750)
    • New Orleans ($1,750)
    • College Station, Texas ($1,785)
    • Tucson, Arizona ($1,875)

    Of the millions of Americans who began renting a single-family home, most said they made the move because they wanted better housing, transferred to the area for a new job, needed cheaper housing or wanted to establish their own household, CoreLogic found.

    Fully half of the nation’s renters today live in a single-family home, while the rest live in multifamily buildings such as an apartment complex or condominium, as well as in in mobile homes, according to CoreLogic. Renting a single-family home is the most expensive option of the three, with the median monthly rent tallying $2,600 as of September. Still, renting a place is cheaper than buying a home in most parts of the nation. 

    Here are the nation’s most expensive metro areas for renting a single-family home as of September, according to CoreLogic:

    • Los Angeles ($4,750)
    • San Diego ($4,500)
    • San Jose ($4,300)
    • San Francisco ($4,200)
    • Ventura, California ($3,925)
    • Riverside, California ($3,250)
    • Miami ($3,200)
    • Boston ($3,000)
    • Bridgeport, Connecticut ($3,000)
    • New York City ($3,000)

    Soaring homeownership costs

    The costs of owning a home have skyrocketed in recent years, driven largely by a shortage of properties on the market and, more recently, surging mortgage rates. The typical American household needs an annual income of $115,000 to afford the median priced home across the U.S., which is $40,000 more than what the average household makes, according to Redfin. 

    The median down payment on a home in September was nearly $61,000, the real estate firm’s data shows. That’s up roughly 15% from a year earlier, the biggest increase since June 2022.

    Khristopher J. Brooks

    Khristopher J. Brooks is a reporter for CBS MoneyWatch. He previously worked as a reporter for the Omaha World-Herald, Newsday and the Florida Times-Union. His reporting primarily focuses on the U.S. housing market, the business of sports and bankruptcy.

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  • What $1.8 billion jury ruling could mean for real estate industry

    What $1.8 billion jury ruling could mean for real estate industry

    What $1.8 billion jury ruling could mean for real estate industry – CBS News


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    Earlier this week, a federal jury awarded $1.8 billion in damages against the National Association of Realtors and several real estate companies for finding that they artificially inflated brokerage commissions. Carter Evans takes a look at what the staggering payout could mean for the real estate industry.

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  • A couple in L.A.’s film industry make over $100k combined but have given up hope of buying a house: ‘It’s impossible if you’re not rich’

    A couple in L.A.’s film industry make over $100k combined but have given up hope of buying a house: ‘It’s impossible if you’re not rich’

    When Emily Blake moved to Los Angeles from North Carolina, she lived in a two-bedroom apartment. She doesn’t remember how much her rent was; all she knows is she could afford it on her school teacher salary. Now, in her mid-40s, she and her husband are living paycheck to paycheck, unable to move out of their rent-controlled apartment, and they can’t even imagine owning a home in the city. 

    Blake and her partner both work in the film industry; she’s a freelance script supervisor and he’s an assistant to a visual effects agent. Together, they made slightly over $100,000 last year. They are lucky enough to have a great deal on a rent-controlled apartment in Echo Park, a fashionable neighborhood in the eastern part of the sprawling megacity where her husband has been living for seven years. Since Blake moved in a little over a year ago, they split the rent of $1,750 per month. So why do they feel trapped and hopeless of ever buying a house? “We can’t leave,” she tells Fortune.

    “We would never be able to find an apartment for this rate, it just doesn’t exist,” she says. They used to think about buying a house, but that was before the Pandemic Housing Boom drove prices to an absurdly unaffordable level, including a mortgage rate shock that’s still playing out. 

    Blake and her husband should be well positioned, since they make more than the median household income and pay well under the median rent. The median household income in the city is $69,778, per the Census Bureau, while the median rent for all bedroom and property types in the city is $2,895. But just look at the average home value in Los Angeles of $923,739. Hypothetically, at a 7% interest rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage, a monthly payment on a $900,000 home would be roughly $4,790, before taxes and insurance. 

    “We would love a house, we want a house so badly,” Blake says, but “it’s not possible…you have to make over $200,000 a year in order to buy a house now.” Maybe if they left L.A., they could do it, and the average home value nationally is in fact much lower, at $348,539. But that would require leaving their industry behind, and even that is looking shaky now.

    Blake and her husband haven’t been on strike like the Hollywood actors and writers, but they may as well have been. Blake is a member of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, but she hasn’t worked any industry gigs since the strikes shut down production across the industry. She says she’s very lucky, having found temp jobs that pay the bills, like subtitling for a post-production house and editing a web series. Still, she’ll likely make less this year than last because there’s hardly any work. “Everybody I know in my union has been absolutely struggling to find work since about November, so we were already kind of hurting before the strike started.” 

    The industry is changing, Blake says, which speaks to why writers and actors stopped working. It’s been getting harder and harder to make a living freelancing because of how short seasons are now. “I’m not making enough money, and he’s making okay money—it’s still not house money,” she says. Her husband also has student loans, which makes it harder for them to save. (She didn’t share the amount of his student loans, and he didn’t speak with Fortune.) Blake has some money saved from her share of a house that she sold after a previous marriage and a divorce, but she says that isn’t close to a down payment in the current climate. 

    Choosing between a career and the ability to buy a house

    She and her husband want to be able to set up a workshop where she can craft, and he wants more space to work on starting his own business. They could move to a handful of cities if they want to continue working in the film industry, but one of those is New York, where the average home value is $736,314 and the average rent is $3,539. 

    “Unless we change careers and move out of L.A., I don’t see how we’ll ever afford a house, the prices just keep going up,” Blake says. “And every time rent control is on the ballot … it ends up getting voted down, and it’s very frustrating because rent keeps going up.” 

    In reality, home prices across the city are down from their peak, but they’re up substantially since the onset of the pandemic. As for rent control, it was on the ballot in 2018 and 2020 for California voters, but in both cases, those measures failed. It’ll be on the ballot again next year, but the majority of the state’s voters are homeowners, who may be less concerned about rents. 

    Blake says they’re not struggling to pay their rent, but they are living paycheck to paycheck. They can pay their bills, and occasionally go out with friends, but there’s no money left over—which has made it nearly impossible to afford to rent a bigger apartment, one that may not be rent-controlled, or buy a house in the city. 

    “We have dreams, we have plans,” Blake says. “I’m a little old, but we’ve discussed having kids, there’s still time, [but] time is going to run out because we don’t have anywhere to put them…we just really want a house. That’s the American dream, right? Get a house, start a family, have a thriving career, and that used to be possible a few decades ago.” 

    Blake says that, like a lot of other people, she’s waiting for the housing market to crash, so she can afford a home. She and her partner keep walking around their neighborhood, looking at all the houses, and she says she’s at the point where she’ll buy any house they can afford, regardless of what condition it’s in. “We can always fix it up later,” she says. The cheapest homes they’ve seen in the surrounding neighborhoods are still around $600,000.

    “We’re both in a position where we have to choose between our careers and everything else, because again, I want to keep doing my job, he’s trying to sort of level up,” Blake says. “But, it’s really hard. It’s just all very hard all the time.”

    They ask themselves, “is this just forever? We just live in this apartment until we die?”

    “We have a culture here … but, if you want to upgrade your life in any way, if you don’t want to just keep existing, you gotta leave.” They keep waiting for something to change, Blake says, but it just keeps getting worse. 

    “I feel like, now, you have to be rich to buy a house,” in Los Angeles, Blake tells me. “It’s impossible if you’re not rich.”

    Alena Botros

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  • ‘The Big Short’ investor Steve Eisman says he’s buying stocks rooted in the ‘old economy,’ and that there’s no new housing crisis in sight

    ‘The Big Short’ investor Steve Eisman says he’s buying stocks rooted in the ‘old economy,’ and that there’s no new housing crisis in sight

    Paramount Pictures

    • Steve Eisman of “The Big Short” fame told the Wall Street Journal his current investing outlook.

    • He calls his thesis “revenge of the old school,” noting he likes “old economy” stocks.

    • Eisman, who was played by Steve Carell in the movie, also said there is no new housing crisis.

    Bond yields are hovering near 5%, stocks are under pressure, and the housing market has frozen over.

    Amid the tumult, investor Steve Eisman, known for his bet against collateralized debt obligations backed by soured mortgages ahead of the 2008 crisis, shared his market outlook with the The Wall Street Journal.

    Eisman, who was depicted by Steve Carell in “The Big Short,” is now a managing director at Neuberger Berman. He was one of a handful of investors who famously profited via prescient bets that the housing market was in a bubble that was about to burst.

    But now, with low home inventory, mortgage rates at 8%, and borrowing costs climbing, he said there is no housing crisis looming on the horizon.

    He’s instead turned his focus to the debt market, the Journal reported, and he’s buying bonds for the first time in his career. To play the government’s big spending spree, he’s leaning into an investment thesis he calls “revenge of the old school.”

    “This is the first industrial policy in the U.S. we’ve seen in several decades,” Eisman told the Journal. “The money isn’t spent yet — it’s the government, it doesn’t take a week. There has been no revenue impact at this point and I don’t think most of the spending has been embedded in any stocks.”

    So-called “old economy” stocks, in his view, include names in construction, utilities, and materials.

    Meanwhile, he’s not looking to buy bank stocks or hypergrowth stocks. He thinks that era of investing is over.

    “What does Vulcan Materials do?” Eisman said. “It makes rocks. This isn’t the nitty-gritty technical aspects of AI. The fundamentals of these companies are not difficult to understand, and they will tend to have the wind at their backs.”

    Read the original article on Business Insider

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