Aug 25, 2024 | Housing, Politics
By JORDAN WOLMAN and MELANIE MASON
08/25/2024
CHICAGO — Democrats are trying to turn a political vulnerability, housing affordability, into a winning issue for November. The strategy carries significant risk: It’s likely to spark a host of fights across blue cities and states.
Top party leaders are leaning into what’s long been a perilous issue for the Democratic Party in response to voter outrage over the crunch of housing supply and the rising costs of homes and rents.
Aug 16, 2024 | Housing, Opinion, Politics
by Christopher LeGras
August 15, 2024
Legislature considering a bill that would make it easier for developers to build housing in high fire danger zones. Anyone still believe the YIMBYs give a fraction of a flip about housing affordability and struggling working Americans? No — the YIMBYs are about the almighty dollar. They are rapacious capitalists perversely masquerading as crusading social reformers.
Aug 15, 2024 | Taxes, Housing
By TIM REDMOND
AUGUST 15, 2024
The $20 billion regional housing bond that was supposed to be on the November ballot would have been a game changer. The money would have paid for 70,000 units of non-market affordable housing, enough to make a dramatic difference in homelessness, housing costs, air quality, and so, so much more. Nolw it’s gone.
Aug 14, 2024 | Housing, Taxes
BY BEN CHRISTOPHER
AUGUST 14, 2024
Backers pulled a $20 billion affordable housing bond off Bay Area ballots today, amid fears that it wouldn’t pass.
A $20 billion affordable housing bond — which would have been the largest ever of its kind and the subject of a campaign half-a-decade in the making — won’t go before San Francisco Bay Area voters this November after all. This morning, the board of the Bay Area Housing Finance Authority voted to scrap the measure for now, potentially punting the effort until at least 2026.
Aug 13, 2024 | Housing, Taxes
By Ben Christopher
August 13, 2024
California’s most unaffordable region is set to vote on a record-breaking affordable housing bond. Will state Democrats add a pro-union requirement to win over a powerful labor coalition?
But before developers, workers, pro-tenant and pro-building activists can start campaigning for the blockbuster borrowing measure in earnest, they’ll need to stop squabbling over who will get hired to build all the new homes and under what conditions.
Aug 10, 2024 | Housing
By Andrew Pridgen
Aug 10, 2024
Santa Barbara has a housing problem — or rather, a growing set of problems due to lack of housing. Not having enough housing for individuals and families who, by definition, are on the lower end of the income spectrum is part of the issue. But even Santa Barbara residents whose households make or exceed the median income thresholds, sometimes by as much as 200%, can’t afford to live here.
