2023 Policy Agenda
Housing California’s 2023 Policy Agenda focuses on community members most in need of an affordable place to call home.
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Our 2023 legislative priorities are listed below. As the legislative session progresses, please check this page for updates.
Sponsored Bills
Affordable Housing
SB 225 (Caballero)
Community Anti-Displacement and Preservation Program (CAPP)
This bill provides state funding and technical assistance to support the acquisition and preservation of unsubsidized affordable housing and its stewardship as permanently affordable. Assemblymember Matt Haney is co-authoring/championing this effort in the Assembly. The legislation is tied to a $500 million budget request.
AB 312 (Reyes)
State Partnership for Affordable Housing Registries in California (SPAHRC) Grant Program
Coauthored with Assemblymember Ward, this bill will enable the Department of Housing and Community Development to implement a pilot program creating a streamlined, standard model for listing available and forthcoming affordable housing units, and for Californians to search for and apply to those units. The legislation is tied to a $25 million budget request.
SPAHRC aligns with Policy Solution E10 in the Roadmap Home 2030
AB 919 (Kalra)
Stable Homes Act
This bill will to establish a statewide policy giving tenants, local public agencies, and mission-driven nonprofits the first opportunity to purchase rental housing properties when owners put those properties up for sale, and a right to match an offer on those properties made by a third party, helping to keep families in their homes and preserve at-risk rental housing on the market as permanently affordable.
AB 919 aligns with Policy Solution A14 in the Roadmap Home 2030
AB 1307 (Wicks)
No CEQA on Unamplified Voices
AB 1307 would directly and narrowly address the Court’s ruling in the case of “Make UC A Good Neighbor et al. v. Regents of the University of California.” Specifically, it would say that noise generated by the unamplified voices of residents in a residential project cannot be considered a significant effect on the environment under CEQA. By making this change, AB 1307 would remove the potential for litigants to challenge residential development based on the speculation that the new residents will create unwanted noises. It would also reestablish existing precedent that minor and intermittent noise nuisances, such as from unamplified human voices, be addressed through local nuisance ordinances and not via CEQA. As such, no longer could CEQA consider “people as pollution.”
Homelessness
AB 799 (L. Rivas)
Homelessness Accountability and Results Act
This bill will strengthen local and state collaboration and accountability for reductions in homelessness. The bill seeks to strengthen the Homeless Housing, Assistance, and Prevention (HHAP) Program to enhance oversight and transparency on State spending, tie funding to achievement of specific outcomes, ensure taxpayer dollars fund solutions promoting reductions to homelessness and improve other specific outcomes for Californians experiencing homelessness, strengthen regional collaboration and homeless services workforce capacity, and advance racial equity in California’s homeless response systems. This bill also commits to securing ongoing funding to achieve reductions in the number of Californians experiencing homelessness.
AB 920 (Bryan)
Housing Status Anti-Discrimination Protection This bill adds “housing status” to the list of protected categories under California discrimination law, barring discrimination against people on the basis of their housing status from unequal treatment under programs administered, funded, or overseen by the state.
Housing Stability
AB 653 (Reyes)
Housing Voucher Utilization Program
AB 653 creates a program that would provide resources to increase voucher utilizations, including housing navigation, landlord incentives, and security deposits. The program is building off of several successful programs locally and will help utilize many of California’s tens of thousands of unused federal housing choice vouchers. This legislation is aligned with a $200 million budget request to be used over 2 years.
AB 1449 (Alvarez)
CEQA Exemption for Affordable Housing
This bill would exempt affordable housing funded through the Low Income Housing Tax Credit Program from the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).
Other Priority Legislation
Support
SB 18 (McGuire)
Tribal Housing Grant Program
This bill will promote the construction and rehabilitation of homes for rent and sale, specifically for tribal communities, to direct state agencies with housing funding to create alternative criteria for tribal nations that are tailored to tribal laws and practices in order to meet newly established threshold and compliance requirements for applications, and to provide technical assistance on grant writing and applications on a need basis.
ACA 1 (Aguiar-Curry)
Lower Voter Threshold
This constitutional amendment would place on the November 2024 ballot an initiative to reduce the local vote threshold from two-thirds to 55% for approval of bond and special tax measures to fund the construction, reconstruction, rehabilitation, or replacement of infrastructure, including homes affordable to households earning up to 150% of the area median income.
Opposed
AB 257 (Hoover)
Encampments
This bill would prohibit a person from sitting, lying, sleeping, or storing, using, maintaining, or placing personal property in any street, sidewalk, or other public property within 500 feet of a school, daycare center, park, or library.
SB 31 (Jones)
Encampments
This bill would prohibit a person from sitting, lying, sleeping, or storing, using, maintaining, or placing personal property upon any street, sidewalk, or other public right-of-way within 1000 feet of a sensitive area, as defined.