A California law meant to boost affordable housing has set off panic in Bay Area mobile home parks \u2014 some of the last truly affordable housing in a region where single-family homes sell for $2 million (1) and the median rent is $3,179 a month (2).<\/p>\n
As CBS News reports, Senate Bill 79 may make it easier for landowners who own mobile home parks near commuter rail stations to convert the land into high-rise apartments (3).<\/p>\n
In Sunnyvale, where seven mobile-home parks sit close to Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) light rail stops, residents quickly realized what that could mean.<\/p>\n
Landowners could evict residents who own their mobile home but not the land it sits on.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy reaction? \u2018Whoops. Somebody goofed,\u201d mobile home activist Gail Rubino told CBS News.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s already an affordable place to live, so putting something there that replaces that that\u2019s the same kind of housing is kind of goofy.\u201d<\/p>\n
For a look at what\u2019s behind the \u201cgoofy\u201d law and what California and other states are doing to make housing more truly affordable.<\/p>\n
It all comes down to California\u2019s definition of \u201caffordable housing.\u201d To qualify, the housing must cost no more than 30% of a household’s gross income.<\/p>\n
By that measure, mobile homes are clearly affordable housing.<\/p>\n
But there\u2019s another requirement.<\/p>\n
Trending: Warren Buffett used 8 simple money rules to turn $9,800 into a stunning $150B<\/a> \u2014 start using them today to get rich (and then stay rich)<\/p>\n To be deemed \u201caffordable\u201d in California, the housing in question must be built with public subsidies (4).<\/p>\n So mobile homes don\u2019t make the cut. Even though they\u2019re truly affordable and new-build \u201caffordable housing\u201d units may actually cost more to buy or rent.<\/p>\n The new law applies to counties with at least 15 passenger rail stations, including San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, and Alameda.<\/p>\n Rubino lives in El Dorado Mobile Home Park, a few blocks from the Fair Oaks VTA station.<\/p>\n Under Senate Bill 79, she noted, the park could theoretically be redeveloped into a nine-story building \u2014 even though hundreds of families already live there in homes they own outright.<\/p>\n “So, that’s, what, four to five thousand people,\u201d she said. \u201cWhere are they going to live? It’s really disastrous for that group of people.\u201d<\/p>\n Assemblymember Patrick Ahrens, who represents Sunnyvale, told CBS News that the law\u2019s unintended consequences are already prompting discussions in Sacramento (5).<\/p>\n \u201cCommon sense is not always very common,\u201d he said. “And we need to actually focus on new legislation that balances those tenant protections while also trying to build housing.\u201d<\/p>\n Ahrens and others now plan to amend Senate Bill 79 to exempt mobile-home parks entirely, so existing residents are not displaced.<\/p>\n While the California lawmakers may need to tweak Bill 79, other housing policies show promise:<\/p>\n Fast-track permitting and relaxed zoning rules have led to the construction of tens of thousands of new small homes. According to the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD), ADUs accounted for nearly one in five (19%) of all new homes in 2022 (6).<\/p>\n Adaptive reuse incentives are helping cities like Los Angeles convert older office buildings into apartments. California committed $400 million to office-to-housing conversions (7).<\/p>\n The federal Emergency Rental Assistance Program (ERA) provides funds for rent, utilities and eviction pre\u00advention (8).<\/p>\n In Los Angeles County, the Board of Supervisors approved nearly $30 million (9) in emergency rent-relief funding<\/p>\n Other jurisdictions have taken more targeted approaches:<\/p>\n Oregon has eliminated exclusive single-family zoning altogether statewide, triggering a steady rollout of duplexes and small multiplexes since the law was passed in 2019 (10).<\/p>\n Minnesota has a number of public housing preservation programs to prevent the loss of affordable housing in lower-income communities (11). And St. Paul, Minnesota limits monthly rent increases to no more than 3% in a 12-month period, even if tenants move out.<\/p>\n Colorado and Maine have both launched statewide zoning reforms to encourage the construction of \u201cmiddle housing\u201d like triplexes and rowhouses in walkable areas (12).<\/p>\n California\u2019s Senate Bill 79\u2019s collision with mobile-home communities shows the limits of a one-size-fits-all housing policy.<\/p>\n Clearly, solving the affordability crisis requires considering all stakeholders.<\/p>\n We rely only on vetted sources and credible third-party reporting. For details, see our editorial ethics and guidelines<\/a>.<\/p>\n Zillow (1<\/a>, 2<\/a>); CBS News (3<\/a>, 5<\/a>); Housing California (4<\/a>); California YIMBY (6<\/a>); Governing (7<\/a>); U.S. Department of the Treasury (8<\/a>); Lindsey Hovarth (9<\/a>). Bipartisan Policy Center (10<\/a>); Minnesota Housing (11<\/a>); Otten Johnson (12<\/a>)<\/p>\n This article provides information only and should not be construed as advice. It is provided without warranty of any kind.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A California law meant to boost affordable housing has set off panic in Bay Area mobile home parks…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":69278,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[31734,380,7,9,8,9176,41025,41026,3287,35505],"class_list":{"0":"post-69277","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-california","8":"tag-affordable-homes","9":"tag-affordable-housing","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-california-headlines","12":"tag-california-news","13":"tag-dave-ramsey","14":"tag-mobile-home-parks","15":"tag-mobile-home","16":"tag-senate-bill","17":"tag-valley-transportation-authority"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69277","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=69277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69277\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}