{"id":65,"date":"2018-11-19T19:25:12","date_gmt":"2018-11-19T19:25:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/?p=65"},"modified":"2018-11-20T13:30:13","modified_gmt":"2018-11-20T13:30:13","slug":"fwd-voters-finally-got-a-chance-to-weigh-in-on-the-housing-crisis-huffpost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/65\/","title":{"rendered":"Fwd: Voters Finally Got A Chance To Weigh In On The Housing Crisis | HuffPost"},"content":{"rendered":"

> From: Mary Bolton <mary.bolton@comcast.net<\/a>> > Date: November 10, 2018 at 9:45:56 AM EST > To: Mary Bolton <mary.bolton@comcast.net<\/a>> > Subject: Voters Finally Got A Chance To Weigh In On The Housing Crisis | HuffPost > > > m.huffpost.com\/us\/entry\/us_5be4b3a1e4b0dbe871a8db2a?utm_medium=facebook&ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000063&utm_source=main_fb&utm_campaign=hp_fb_pages<\/a> > > Voters Finally Got A Chance To Weigh In On The Housing Crisis > In a slew of ballot initiatives, voters approved measures to address rising rents and homelessness. > > Michael Hobbes > > ASSOCIATED PRESS > In the midst of a housing crisis that has been steadily worsening for years, voters in more than a dozen cities and several states finally got the chance to do something about it Tuesday. > > In California alone, 60 housing-related measures appeared on state and local ballots during the 2018 midterms. Nationwide, at least 30 state and local initiatives proposed legal changes that would fund affordable housing, provide homeless services or expand tenant protections, according to the National Low-Income Housing Coalition. Twenty-three of those measures passed. > > The United States needs more than 7 million units of affordable housing to meet its current needs, according to the NLIHC. In 2016, nearly half of the nation\u2019s renters were considered cost-burdened, spending more than 30 percent of their income on rent. Until this year, though, political efforts to address the crisis have trailed far behind its expanding scope. > > \u201cThe need for more housing and its effects on residents and businesses has finally reached a tipping point,\u201d said Priya Jayachandran, the president of the National Housing Trust. \u201cAfter being barely mentioned in the 2016 election, the need for more affordable housing was touted by many House and gubernatorial candidates and local and statewide affordable housing measures appeared on ballots across the country.\u201d > > > Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey was a high-profile opponent of San Francisco\u2019s Proposition C, which will tax large corporations to provide homeless services. > (ASSOCIATED PRESS) > The most ambitious of these efforts could provide models for regulation in other cities. San Francisco\u2019s Proposition C, for example, will impose a tax on large corporations to fund homeless services. While the measure was controversial locally \u2014 Twitter\u2019s Jack Dorsey led the opposition and Salesforce\u2019s Marc Benioff gathered support \u2014 it passed easily, with 60 percent of the vote. If the measure survives a likely legal challenge, it will raise an estimated $300 million, provide 5,000 affordable housing units and add 1,000 beds to San Francisco shelters.. > > Other cities also explored new housing-related revenue streams. Berkeley and Oakland passed real estate transfer taxes, an extra fee added to the purchase price of homes. Voters in Telluride, Colorado, authorized the city to take on debt to construct more low-income units. Richmond, California, and Oakland proposed taxing vacant properties. Napa County and West Marin, also in California, will increase their hotel taxes. > > These measures, Jayachandran said, \u201crepresent local government and local citizens making funding for affordable housing a priority even when their state may not.\u201d In Austin, Texas, residents defeated a proposition that would have required voter approval for any significant changes to the city\u2019s zoning code. If it had passed, the measure would have delayed the process of adding density as the city continues to grow. > > Cities also approved housing bonds by wide margins. A Portland proposal to spend $652.8 million constructing up to 12,000 units of affordable housing passed with 59 percent of the vote. Nearly three-quarters of voters in Austin also approved a $250 million housing bond. Sixty-eight percent of Charlotte, North Carolina, voters approved a measure tripling the size of the city\u2019s housing trust fund. > > While the housing initiatives were largely focused on cities, there was action at the state level too. California voters passed $6 billion in bonds for housing and homeless services and rejected an effort to cut property taxes for older homeowners that would cost the state billions in lost revenue.. In Oregon, voters approved Measure 102, which will allow public funds to support affordable housing. Previously, government entities were barred from giving funding to any private entity, including nonprofit property developers. > > > Voters in Austin, Texas, approved a $250 million bond to address the city\u2019s affordable housing crisis. > (Bloomberg via Getty Images) > But Tuesday\u2019s results weren\u2019t uniformly positive for advocates of urgently addressing the housing crisis. In California, a number of housing bonds received a majority of the vote, but were rejected because the state requires a 66 percent approval for any tax increase. > > Another mixed result was California\u2019s Proposition 10, which would have allowed cities to impose and expand rent control legislation. Supporters, including tenants\u2019 rights groups and the mayors of San Francisco and Los Angeles, argued that the measure would protect low-income renters from evictions. Opponents, including the business community and Republican and Democratic gubernatorial candidates, said it would discourage the construction of new apartments. The merits of both arguments will remain unexplored: The measure lost decisively, 38 percent to 62 percent. > > But the biggest controversy concerning the wave of new housing policies was their relative modesty. Even supporters of this year\u2019s ballot measures noted that, while extra units of housing and additional funding are welcome, they are tiny compared to the scale of the problem. As HuffPost has chronicled in its ongoing Betting the House project, rising rents and soaring living costs affect a large and growing percentage of Americans, and nearly every political measure to address it has so far fallen short. > > \u201c$6 billion is not enough,\u201d Leslye Corsiglia, the executive director of housing advocacy organization SV@Home<\/a>, told CityLab during the campaign, \u201cbut it is more than we\u2019ve ever had.\u201d > > CORRECTION: This article previously misstated the results of the vote on a proposition in Austin, Texas, to require voter approval of changes to the zoning code, suggesting that the measure had been approved; the proposition failed. > > > > Mary Bolton > 202-390-1208<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

> From: Mary Bolton > Date: November 10, 2018 at 9:45:56 AM EST > To: Mary Bolton > Subject: Voters Finally Got A Chance To Weigh In On The Housing Crisis | HuffPost > > > m.huffpost.com\/us\/entry\/us_5be4b3a1e4b0dbe871a8db2a?utm_medium=facebook&ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000063&utm_source=main_fb&utm_campaign=hp_fb_pages > > Voters Finally Got A Chance To Weigh In On The Housing Crisis > In a slew […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-65","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-housingarchive"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}