The housing affordability crisis is hitting states differently, and many states are taking initiatives to change the outcome. In California, the state with the worst impact, voters have the ability to take action, aiming $6 billion to solve the issue, solving not only for shelter but the correlated psychological benefits it brings with it.
Two years after voters approved billions of dollars to fund low-income homes around California, affordable-housing advocates are upping the ante big-time — with two statewide bond measures on the Nov. 6 ballot to raise a record-breaking $6 billion for housing for struggling families, veterans and severely mentally ill people.
If they pass, the two measures would generate the most money ever approved by statewide voters for affordable and supportive housing in California.
So far, no organized opposition has emerged for Proposition 1, which would create a $4 billion bond for loans, construction and preservation of rental housing for families and loans to veterans for the purchase of homes and farms.
Neither is there any organized campaign against Proposition 2, which would divert $2 billion from the state’s 14-year-old Mental Health Services Act — the 1 percent tax on millionaires created by Proposition 63 — toward building supportive housing for people with severe mental illness who are homeless or in danger of becoming homeless.
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