17998.

 The Legislature finds and declares all of the following:

(a) The Department of Housing and Community Development reports that one in every eight dwelling units in the state is substandard and that unless health and safety problems are corrected, habitability conditions generally deteriorate until the units become life threatening and uninhabitable and must be removed from the housing stock through closure or demolition.

(b) California is experiencing a housing shortage of significant proportions, particularly in the affordable housing sector. The state and many local governments are funding affordable housing from a variety of sources at substantial costs. It is ill advised to neglect timely code enforcement responsibilities and thus lose housing that could have been retained.

(c) The lack of code enforcement on a single dwelling unit can lead to the deterioration of an entire neighborhood: the substandard or abandoned unit becomes a magnet for crime, vandalism, fires, and other activities that rapidly infect the surrounding homes and neighborhood.

(d) Many local governments endeavor to fulfill their statutory responsibility for code enforcement. However, local governments with a higher percentage of lower income households with families, living in older, overcrowded housing stock, exacerbated by the neglect of absentee slumlords, bear a disproportionate code enforcement cost and responsibility than that of more affluent communities.

(e) Existing law provides building standards to assure decent, safe, and sanitary housing for all Californians.

(f) Resources for code enforcement at the local level are frequently allocated to code enforcement activities, which generate fees to pay for regulatory services, including building and permit inspections.

(g) The enforcement of building codes for existing housing is frequently performed only on a complaint-by-complaint basis and frequently there is insufficient funding for the abatement of existing violations.

17998.1.

 The Department of Housing and Community Development, upon appropriation by the Legislature for this purpose, shall make funds available as matching grants to cities, counties, and cities and counties to increase staffing dedicated to local building code enforcement efforts. The funds shall be subject to all of the following provisions:

(a) Grants shall be made for a three-year period.

(b) The city, county, or city and county shall provide a local match of 25 percent in the first year, 50 percent in the second year, and 75 percent in the third year.

(c) The maximum grant to a single recipient shall not exceed one million dollars ($1,000,000).

(d) Funds may be used to supplement, but shall not supplant, existing local funding for code enforcement.

(e) On or before June 1, 2003, grant recipients shall submit a report to their local legislative bodies and to the department regarding the results of their expanded code enforcement efforts. The department shall summarize the results and transmit the reports to the Legislature by December 31, 2003.

(f) The department may use up to 5 percent of the funds appropriated by the Legislative for administering the grants during the three-year period.

(g) The department shall award the grants on a competitive basis with criteria to be established and specified in a “Notice of Funding Availability.” The criteria shall be weighted for local government applicants with high percentages of lower income households, with older, overcrowded housing stock and absentee owners. The criteria shall also be weighted for applications that propose to identify and prosecute owners with habitual, repeated, multiple code violations that have remained unabated beyond the period required for abatement. Grants awarded pursuant to this chapter shall not be subject to the requirements of Chapter 2.5 (commencing with Section 11340) of Part 1 of Title 2 of the Government Code.