(a) California’s housing needs have far outpaced existing stock as well as planned development and construction, which has only worsened the state’s affordability and homelessness crises.
(b) The overcrowding rate within the area represented by the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) is 10.11 percent, 6.76
percent higher than the national average. SCAG’s cost burden rate is 69.88 percent for lower income households, and 18.65 percent for higher income households, 10.88 percent and 8.70 percent higher than the national average respectively. Further, the regional housing need allocation (RHNA) for the fifth revision of the housing element for the SCAG region was impacted by the recession and was significantly lower than SCAG’s RHNA for the fourth cycle.
(c) The County of Los Angeles, for example, has produced less than 3,000 affordable units annually on average, far below its goals. This has led to over half a million lowincome renters in the County of Los Angeles not having access to an affordable home. Given these conditions, it is not surprising that the homeless count in the County of Los Angeles went from 58,936 in 2019 to 66,436 in 2020, a 13 percent increase.
(d) On October
15, 2019, the Department of Housing and Community Development issued its final regional housing need assessment determination to SCAG, concluding that the region needs to construct 1,341,827 housing units over the next decade.
(e) The final determination further called for 558,603 units, or 41.6 percent of the total number of units, to be extremely low, very low, or lowincome housing. This is more than triple the RHNA for the SCAG region during the 2014–2021 compliance period.
(f) The RHNA process is ultimately a requirement that each region in this state, including the SCAG region, zone sufficiently in order for these homes to have the potential to be built, but it is not a requirement or guarantee that these homes will be built.
(g) Local governments make plans to accommodate their affordable housing units, but
too often fail to rezone and follow through with building much needed housing that accommodates low income households, leading to the shortage of affordable housing we see in California today.
(h) Therefore, it is the intent of the Legislature that the determination made by the Department of Housing and Community Development to build sufficient housing units that serve extremely low, very low, and lowincome households is successfully accomplished in the SCAG region.
(i) It is further the intent of the Legislature that the southern California region provide more affordable housing units to people who are lowincome to ensure we prevent further homelessness.