Dive Brief:
- California has two new laws aimed at addressing the state’s housing and homelessness crises.
- One of the bills that Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Tuesday makes it easier for homeless service providers to continue using hotels and motels as shelters for those experiencing homelessness.
- The other bill signed by Newsom aims to streamline the process for local governments to permit the construction of junior accessory dwelling units, which are smaller versions of accessory dwelling units that exist within the walls of the main single-family home.
Dive Insight:
California faces housing challenges for numerous reasons, according to its Department of Housing and Community Development. Not enough housing is being built, too much of people’s income is going toward rent and homeownership rates are at their lowest rate in about 80 years. California is home to 22% of the nation’s homeless population, despite making up only 12% of the nation’s entire population, according to the HCD.
That’s left Newsom and other California officials with a big job. Newsom made headlines this summer for his crackdown on encampments of people experiencing homelessness in the wake of a U.S. Supreme Court decision that cleared the way for governments to enforce anti-camping laws. In July, Newsom directed state agencies to dismantle encampments on state land. In August, he said he would start redirecting money away from cities and counties that don’t show “demonstrable results” in reducing homelessness.
Some local leaders in California have welcomed the governor’s actions, according to CalMatters, but Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass told the news outlet that “strategies that just move people along from one neighborhood to the next or give citations instead of housing do not work.”
In Newsom’s Aug. 27 announcement about the state’s two new laws, he said that “the homelessness crisis demands immediate and innovative action, not the status quo. With these new laws, local governments have even more tools to provide housing. I urge them to fully utilize the state’s unprecedented resources to address homelessness.”
AB 2835, one of the bills signed this week, removes the sunset date on an existing state law that allows homeless service providers to use hotels and motels as shelters for longer than 30 days without landlord-tenant laws kicking in. That existing law was supposed to sunset at the beginning of 2025.
The other new law, AB 3057, “represents a small but significant technical change” that simplifies the process for constructing junior accessory dwelling units, Assemblywoman Lori Wilson said in a statement. An existing state law exempted local ADU ordinances from the California Environmental Quality Act, which requires environmental reviews of projects. But junior ADU ordinances were previously not granted the same exemption.
“This discrepancy makes little sense, given that JADUs, constructed within the walls of existing homes, have less environmental impact than new attached or detached ADUs,” according to a fact sheet from Wilson’s office.
