CONTACT: Adam Briones, California Community Builders CEO, 510.961.3957, abriones@ccbuilders.org

Good morning, my name is Adam Briones and I am CEO of California Community Builders, a research and advocacy nonprofit working to close the racial wealth gap, using housing and homeownership as the primary tools. As an organization led by and serving people of color, I am here today to proudly support AB 1893 to modernize and strengthen the Housing Accountability Act.

I’m excited to talk about why we believe AB 1893 is so important, but first I’d like to say thank you to both Attorney General Bonta and Assembly Member Wicks for their leadership on this issue as well as all of the most important housing issues we have as a state. When I think about champions for homeownership, affordable housing, and a more equitable California, the first people that come to mind are Attorney General Bonta and his work to enforce our state housing laws and Assembly Member Wick’s work to enact new, creative legislation to solve our state’s housing crisis.

For anyone not familiar with California Community Builders, we were founded to ensure that people of color are always at the table, not on the table, when it comes to housing policy.

We focus on everything from housing production and zoning to ensure that we have enough homes for everyone that wants to live in our state, to issues around who gets to build that housing: Specifically, making sure that small builders of color have a direct and guiding role in the growth and evolution of their own neighborhoods. And, lastly, once those homes are built, ensure our communities have access to mortgages and other capital needed to actually buy a home if they choose.

California Community Builders believes that AB 1893 is essential, common-sense legislation to address an issue that frankly should not even exist: cities that don’t follow the rules when it comes to planning for housing – meaning they don’t follow the rules when it comes to ensuring that all families have a place to live.

While Attorney General Bonta and Assembly Member Wicks have given an overview of AB 1893, I’d like to focus on one specific aspect: the benefit to middle-density housing. Under this bill, the builder’s remedy would incentivize construction of small developments up to 10 units – often referred to as “missing middle-density” or “gentle density” – by making these projects more feasible. These missing middle developments are relatively small multifamily projects, like duplexes and townhomes, that are more affordable than similarly located single-family homes, and serve the needs of more economically diverse households.

This is important because smaller developers from the community – especially small developers of color – are unlikely to build large residential towers. But projects of under 10 units are feasible for builders that don’t have deep pockets and do one project, in one community, at a time.

It's also important to note that AB 1893 brings the Housing Accountability Act into the 21st century. When the Act was first passed in 1982, the median home cost 5 times the average annual salary. By 2020, that same home cost 9 times the average salary. We live in a fundamentally different housing economy than when the Act was first passed, and it’s important that the it be updated to reflect that.

We believe research has conclusively shown that the undersupply of housing has made California one of the least affordable states to rent in and has made our homeownership costs the 2nd highest in the country. This has had a devastating impact on low-income families but it has also had a chilling effect on the lives of moderate- and middle-income families, especially moderate and middle income people of color.

Over the past 20 years, moderate- or lower-middle-income Californians have shrunk as a portion of the population by a whopping 35%. We’re losing the families that throughout our state’s history have made up an important, and aspirational, backbone of society. And when you read about why those families are leaving California it’s because they want to buy a home and can’t afford to do so.

While homeownership is the way in which most Americans build intergenerational wealth, only 4 in 10 Black and Latino Californians own their own home, compared to 6 in 10 white Californians. That’s one of the main reasons why for every dollar of wealth held by a white family, Black and Latino families have about 20 cents.

California Community Builders looks forward to a future where housing unaffordability and the racial wealth gap have been left in the past – and where there is no need for a builder’s remedy because every city and local jurisdiction does their fair share to accommodate growth.

But we are not there yet, and until then we need champions like Attorney General Bonta and Assembly Member Wicks, and we desperately need legislation like AB 1893 to ensure that when cities don’t follow the rules there are clear, consistent, and reasonable consequences.

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CALIFORNIA COMMUNITY BUILDERS

Closing the Racial Wealth Gap Through Housing & Homeownership

ccbuilders.org