News and Updates

PASSED! PROPOSITION 1C: THE HOUSING AND EMERGENCY SHELTER TRUST FUND ACT OF 2006

11.13.06

The Housing and Emergency Shelter Trust Fund Act of 2006 placed before voters on the November 2006 election a $2.85 billion bond relating to housing.

To see the programs the funds will be allocated for, click here for a PDF document.

Follow this link to Homes 4 California to see a video and learn more about Prop1C www.homes4ca.org.



More Funding By Bush Administration, $7.9 Mil For Assisted Living Facilities

Alese Deere | 11.02.06

More on grants provided by the Bush Administration. Funding equaling $7.9 million will be used to convert multifamily projects into assisted living facilities, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

The announcement was made by HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson and Congressman Rob Simmons (CT-2) in Welles Country Village in Vernon, Connecticut, the same day the Bush Administration awarded $633 million toward housing assistance for low-income senior citizens and people with disabilities.

With the $7.9 million, elderly people with disabilities living in California ($1,146,690), Connecticut ($2,118,168), New Jersey ($2,043,608), New York ($497,206), and Pennsylvania ($2,043,664) will soon be living in apartments designed to meet their physical needs.

It's an affordable alternitive to nursing homes and is designed for low-income elderly and disabled persons. The housing facilities still allow them to continue living independently, but with some assistance.

The funds that are awarded under the Assisted Living Conversion program, however, do not cover the costs of the services that help with bathing, grooming, meals, and transportation, but must be managed by the project owners directly or through a third party.

Due to the competitiveness, certain stipulations were required during the review process: the extent to which the conversion is needed by the persons that the project is inteded to serve; the quality and effecitveness of the proposal in addressing the proposed conversion including the meals and supportive services which the project intends to provide; the ability of the project owner to secure other community resources which can be combined with the grant to achieve the program's purposes; as well s the capacity of the project owner to carry out the conversion in a timely and effective manner.

Strict guidelines for owners of the converted units were that they all meet local standards, codes, and regulations governing assisted living facilities and that projects be licensed and regulated by the appropriate governing body.

For more information, go to www.hud.gov.



June 27, 2006 - Tuesday

Due to logistical problems and conflicts in legislative hearing schedules on Wednesday the CDCAN Disability Rights Townhall Telemeeting on affordable and accessible housing for people with disabilities and seniors scheduled for June 28 Wed is POSTPONED. Sorry for any problems this change may cause. This is a first in a series on housing. We are also doing a series on transportation, employment, healthcare (Medi-Cal). It will be rescheduled for: July 13 Thursday (follows townhall on accessible transportation on July 12) between 1 and 2:45 PM

More details will follow regarding guests, how to participate in these free non-partisan telemeetings, and also future topics and telemeeting dates.

CDCAN
California Disability Community Action Network
Advocacy Without Borders: Connecting people with disabilities & seniors to rights and unified action
1225 8th Street Suite 480 - Sacramento, CA 95814 916/446-0013 Fax: 916/446-0026
Marty Omoto - director email: martyomoto@rcip.com website: www.cdcan.us

How To Receive CDCAN Capitol! News Reports and Alerts and Notices The California Disability Community Action Network is a non-partisan link to thousands of Californians with developmental and other disabilities, people with traumatic brain and other injures, seniors and their families, community organizations and providers, direct care and other workers, and other advocates. These action alerts and news reports is for all of them. If you would like to get on this distribution (and conversely, get off of it) please send an email with that request to: martyomoto@rcip.com OR sign up via the NEW CDCAN website at www.cdcan.us Sharing information is part of our organizing effort. Please feel free to forward or copy this (attribution is nice). We're all in this together!


Suspense Week

Friday, June. 2, 2006
The Capitol this week sounded more like a discordant modern symphony than the home of our deliberative legislative body. Hundreds upon hundreds of bills sitting on the Senate and Assembly Appropriations Committees’ “suspense file” met their fate yesterday. All week, the two committees looked like anthills as legislators, lobbyists and staffers tried to salvage their bills.

Assembly Approps allowed the following bills to move off the suspense file to the floor: AB 2922 (Jones) increasing the housing set aside to 35% for agencies created after 1/1/07 and more deeply targeting the housing produced; AB 2104 (Lieber), simplifying low-income energy rebates for tenants; AB 2286 (Torrico), intent language to implement November’s housing bond; AB 2302 (Jud. Comm.), interpreters for civil cases including evictions; AB 2723 (Pavley), rental solar energy financing; AB 2961 (Núñez), rental assistance for tenants at risk of homelessness; AB 2980 (Núñez), fair housing mediation; and AB 2092 (Hancock), study of hazardous home vapor intrusion. The Assembly held in committee AB 2763 (Nava), our priority farmworker housing bill; AB 1904 (Tran), using escheated funds for senior housing; AB 2307 (Mullin), repeal of COG authority to charge fees for RHNA numbers (a big win); and AB 2503 (Mullin), local housing trust fund match.

Senate Approps sent to the floor SB 1210 (Torlakson), expanding rights in eminent domain proceedings, and held SB 1754 (Lowenthal) infrastructure finance zones, and SB 1816 (Alarcón), rental furnace replacement program. Earlier in the week Senate Approps sent SB 1745 (Kuehl), housing protections for domestic violence victims, and SB 1650 (Kehoe), eminent domain restrictions, to the floor.


ENTERPRISE SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA TRAINING SESSIONS

Wed, June. 28, 2006
8:30 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.

Training Session 1: Housing Development 101
This one-day training is designed for persons who seek an overview of the affordable housing development process. It will look at the stages of development from conception to completion. It will discuss criteria used to determine project feasibility, selection of development team members, project approvals, components of feasibility analysis, project timing and management development risks. The fee for this training is $25.00.

Space is limited. First come, first served.

Los Angeles Public Library
Chinatown Branch
639 N. Hill St.
Los Angeles, CA 90012

Signup.
See the flyer.


Employment Opportunity

Mon, Apr. 17, 2006
LINC Housing Corporation is seeking to contract a resident services consultant
Read the cover letter (Word Doc): Here.
Read the Description (PDF): Here.


House subsidy opening offers 'a little hope'

Posted on Mon, Apr. 17, 2006
By Linda Goldston
Mercury News

COUNTY EXPECTS 50,000 APPLICANTS; MOST WILL SPEND YEARS ON WAIT LIST

Alice Tarjan pays $1,000 a month for a tiny duplex she shares with her sister and disabled brother in downtown San Jose. Her siblings have a bedroom; Tarjan, 57, sleeps on the living room floor. They can't afford a three-bedroom place.

Harry Robinson and his wife live in an identical unit next door with their two teenage sons, their 21-year-old daughter and her two small children. The $1,000 rent devours their monthly income, but the crowded duplex is a big step up from the homeless shelter they called home before.

The two families have waited years for help. Their chance is coming soon. But in one the of the priciest housing markets in the country, a new wait begins.

For the first time since 1999, the Housing Authority of Santa Clara County will be accepting applications for its federally subsidized rental housing program. So many low-income people are expected to apply -- more than 50,000 -- that it could be several more years before families like the Tarjans and Robinsons get help. If they can beat the odds of a computerized random selection, they'll make it to the top of the list and possibly get financial help with their rent by September or October.

``All we can do is offer a little hope,'' said Candy Capogrossi, deputy executive director of the Housing Authority, which administers the Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher Program. ``The families are just desperate. Most of them are the working poor who don't make enough to find a good, safe place to live.''

In Santa Clara County, three out of four people who receive Section 8 help are considered ``extremely low income.'' To qualify, a family of four could make no more than $53,050 a year.

Years of waiting to get on the list will come down to a small window: five days. Applications must be received by the Housing Authority next week from Monday through April 28.

Read the full article from The Mercury News: Here.


ASA Participates in Press Conference on Mercury and Autism

Thursday, March 30, 2006
By: Kate Ranta
ASA President & CEO Lee Grossman Discusses Autism Epidemic in America

BETHESDA, MD —March 30, 2006—The Autism Society of America (ASA)--along with Evidence of Harm author David Kirby, UPI journalist Dan Olmsted and Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY)--participated today in a press conference in Washington, D.C., on vaccines, mercury and autism. ASA President & CEO Lee Grossman briefed attendees, which included several media outlets, on the staggering numbers of those with autism in this country, the ever-growing numbers of children being diagnosed and the economic impact autism will have on America in the future.

Read the full article from the ASA website: Here.


Rollens Appointed to Blue Ribbon Autism Commission

March 13, 2006

California autism advocate Rick Rollens has been appointed to be one of sixteen statewide members of the Legislative Blue Ribbon Commission on Autism by Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez (D-Los Angeles). Rollens reports "I was honored to have been asked by Assembly member Fran Pavley (D-Malibu), a parent of an autistic child, and Assembly Majority Leader Dario Frommer (D-Pasadena), who has two relatives with autism, to consider serving on the Commission. At their urging I applied for the appointment." Other members of the Commission include high level representatives from various aspects of the autism and education communities throughout California."

The Legislative Blue Ribbon Commission on Autism was created by SCR 51 (Perata and Nunez), and adopted unanimously by the Legislature in 2005,

Read more: Here.


Two Bonds Down. One to Go.

by Chris Bender - Capitol Reporter Write a little. Write a lot. Just write. Keep housing hot.
Thanks to our joint lobbying efforts since September 2005, Senator Don Perata and Speaker Fabian Nunez have both included funding for new affordable homes and shelters in their infrastructure bond proposals (Perata and Torlakson’s SB 1024 and Nunez’s AB 1783). The combined work of advocates across our state achieved these victories.

On Tuesday, Jan. 3, however, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger announced his infrastructure proposal—with no funding for affordable homes. He will negotiate the final bond package with legislative leaders over the next six weeks. We’re all glad to see the Governor thinking about the long-term good of the state but we want homes for every Californian as part of that thinking. As homes are infrastructure – just like sidewalks and streets – we need to urge legislative leaders to maintain their support for housing infrastructure in their negotiations.
What You Can Do Sitting at your desk, you can make a difference.
The future of housing continues to rest on our advocacy. Don’t delay. Pen a letter today.
For more information, contact Julie Snyder, policy director, at (916) 447-0503, x102, or jsnyder@housingca.org.
Read this article on the Housing California website: Here.


Debate brews over housing

The governor's plan ignores shortage, and Democrats are offering their own proposals.

By John Hill -- Bee Capitol Bureau
Published 2:15 am PST Sunday, January 8,
Story appeared on Page A3 of The Bee

Affordable housing advocates planned to ask California voters as early as this year to approve a real estate fee or other permanent source of revenue to address the state's chronic housing shortage.But with no consensus on where to find the money, and potential opposition from the real estate industry and the public, housing advocates changed course. They hoped to piggyback on a massive public improvement plan that could go to voters in June.

Then, last week, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger unveiled an ambitious public works plan with no money for affordable housing.That set the stage for a debate with the Democratic leaders of the Legislature, Senate President Don Perata of Oakland and Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez of Los Angeles, who included housing in their own public improvement bond proposals."We're disappointed" at not being included in Schwarzenegger's proposal, said Chris Bender, a spokesman for Housing California, a coalition of more than 1,000 nonprofit developers and other housing organizations. "But we're encouraged by the fact that we're in these two other bonds. ... We feel like we're in a pretty good negotiating position."For decades, California has struggled with how to pay for or encourage the construction of housing for people priced out of the market. In the absence of a permanent source of revenue, the state instead depended on a series of bond measures - most recently, the $2.1 billion Proposition 46 approved by voters in 2002.Relying on bonds has its pitfalls.

Read the full article from the Sacramento Bee: Here.


Governor's plan omits housing and transit Critics say crucial needs unmet under ambitious bond proposal

Greg Lucas, Chronicle Sacramento Bureau
Saturday, January 7, 2006

SACRAMENTO - For all its size and sweep, critics say Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's ambitious 10-year public works construction plan leaves out or glosses over several key needs in California, specifically affordable housing and a bigger investment in mass transit. Schwarzenegger devoted the vast majority of his speech to a $222 billion spending plan that would use existing revenue and $68 billion in new bonds to finance a panoply of modernization, rehabilitation and construction projects for California's universities, public schools, highways, levees, jails and courts. But some environmentalists, transit agencies and affordable housing advocates questioned a number of the governor's spending priorities and omissions. The governor has said his proposal is a starting point for negotiations with lawmakers. Democratic leaders of both the state Senate and the Assembly each have their own public works plans, which embrace some different spending choices than Schwarzenegger's -- in particular creation of affordable housing. California is home to the top 20 least affordable housing markets in the country, according to a study sponsored by the state's Building Industry Association. Yet Schwarzenegger's massive public works financing proposal contains no money to help generate more affordable housing.

Read the full article from the San Francisco Chronicle: Here.


BUSH ADMINISTRATION ANNOUNCES MORE THAN $710 MILLION TO HELP VERY LOW-INCOME ELDERLY AND PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES

January 05, 2006

WASHINGTON, DC - It will soon be easier for thousands of senior citizens and people with disabilities to find affordable housing, thanks to more than $710 million in housing assistance announced today by Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson. These grants will help the nation's very low-income elderly and people with disabilities find decent, safe housing that they can afford.

"Our senior citizens have given us so much, and Americans with disabilities make remarkable contributions to our society every day. Neither group should ever have to worry about being able to afford a decent place to live," said Jackson. "The grants we are announcing today will go a long way toward achieving that goal."

Section 202 Grants ($574.8 million to assist very low-income elderly)

HUD's Section 202 grants program helps expand the supply of affordable housing with supportive services for the elderly. It provides very low-income elderly with options that allow them to live independently but in an environment that provides support activities such as cleaning, cooking, and transportation.

Read the full article from the HUD website: Here.


Derelict building razed

Housing for disabled looks to take its place
By Alex Dobuzinskis, Staff Writer for dailynews.com
01/04/2006

GLENDALE - For decades, city officials issued citations to the owners of a worn-down apartment complex on San Fernando Road for everything from rodent infestations to a lack of heat.

On Tuesday, officials announced that crews had completely cleaned the eyesore in preparation for what they hope will be housing for the developmentally disabled, ending what they called the longest running code enforcement case in city history.

The city bought the property at 6206 San Fernando Road in 2004 for $2.6 million. Crews demolished the 28-unit building last month after relocating its tenants.

"It's an anomaly in that most things are repaired and they stay repaired," said Sam Engel, a city neighborhood services administrator. "This one, because it was never intended to be housing that was to last for decades, has deteriorated faster because it's gotten such heavy use."

The city wants to work with United Cerebral Palsy of Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara Counties to build a 24-unit apartment building for the developmentally disabled. The project would cost nearly $10 million, including the amount already spent buying the property and relocating tenants. The city's contribution would total $4.1 million.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development would need to pitch in $3.1 million, and HUD has not decided whether to fund the project. An announcement is expected within weeks.

"They might not fund the project, and if they don't fund the project then we don't have a project," said Peter Zovak, housing development and preservation administrator. "So we'll be looking to alternatives at that time."

Read the full article from dailynews.com: Here.


Charity Advocacy Blocked In Bill Passed By House of Representatives

Novmber 7th, 2005

The United States House of Representatives has approved a housing bill that includes an amendment that blocks advocacy work for organizations that access affordable housing funds.

Read more in an article from The NonProfit Times: Here.