By Andrew Oxford<\/p>\n
Bloomberg<\/p>\n
California lawmakers said they have agreed to place an $11.3 billion housing bond on the ballot this November, aiming to expand affordable housing and homeownership.<\/p>\n
The proposal,\u00a0Senate Bill 417<\/a>, includes $10 billion of general obligation bonds for affordable housing programs and $1.25 billion of self-supporting revenue bonds for the state\u2019s home loan program for veterans.<\/p>\n The measure comes as housing costs continue to rank as a top concern for residents of California, where the median price for a single-family home is more than $900,000.<\/p>\n \u201cCalifornia\u2019s future depends on whether people can afford to put down roots, raise a family, and build a life here,\u201d Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement announcing the deal.<\/p>\n State officials said the housing package is expected to help more than 40,000 Californians buy homes through down-payment assistance, affordable mortgage financing and other support, while also helping finance or preserve tens of thousands of affordable homes for lower-income residents.<\/p>\n The measure includes $1.25 billion of revenue bonds for the CalVet Home Loan Program<\/a>, which state leaders said would be repaid entirely through mortgage payments rather than taxpayer funds.<\/p>\n Lawmakers face a deadline this week to finalize ballot measures for the November election and are weighing a separate proposal to issue $12 billion in bonds for science and health research, as well as a measure to update the state\u2019s reserve policies.<\/p>\n The housing proposal follows several years of debate over how much borrowing California voters are willing to accept.<\/p>\n Voters in 2020 rejected a $15 billion school facilities bond<\/a>. In March 2024, they approved $6.4 billion of bonds<\/a> for behavioral health treatment facilities and housing. That November, they approved $10 billion of bonds for school and community college facilities and another $10 billion for safe drinking water, wildfire prevention and protection from climate risks.<\/p>\n California had about $72 billion of general obligation bonds outstanding as of June 1 and another $40 billion already approved by voters but not yet sold, according to the state treasurer\u2019s office. The debt is rated AA by Fitch Ratings, Aa2 by Moody\u2019s Ratings and AA- by S&P Global Ratings, according to the treasurer\u2019s office.<\/p>\n When California sold $2.4 billion of bonds in March, a portion of debt due in 2056 priced at a yield that was 23 basis points higher than AAA securities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Andrew Oxford Bloomberg California lawmakers said they have agreed to place an $11.3 billion housing bond on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":370547,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,400,100,13],"class_list":["post-371803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-california-politics","tag-news","tag-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=371803"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371803\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/370547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=371803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=371803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=371803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}