Local 1990 Endorses SB50: The More HOMES Act

SB50 will benefit lecturers and librarians represented by UC-AFT, particularly early career and part-time employees who pay very high rents and/or drive long distances to get to work.

Senate Bill 50 allows for building housing near existing job centers and public transportation, and includes strong protections against displacement for renters and vulnerable communities in those areas.

The bill is expected to help relieve the acute housing shortage and affordability crisis in California’s cities. It will also reduce climate pollution and improve public health by greatly expanding access to sustainable transportation options, like public transportation, and by allowing people to live closer to where they work.

Resolution endorsing California’s Senate Bill 50:

The More HOMES Act—Housing, Opportunity, Mobility, Equity, Stability

WHEREAS the State of California has a shortage of 3.5 million homes that is crushing working families with extreme rent burdens; and

WHEREAS California’s failure to keep home building on pace with job growth is directly responsible for longer commutes and increased air pollution; and

WHEREAS many local governments have preserved extreme low-density zoning around multibillion-dollar rail and other transit infrastructure; and

WHEREAS SB50 would legalize apartments around that transit infrastructure; and

WHEREAS the California Air Resources Board has found that the state will miss its climate targets unless Californians reduce the amount they drive by 25 percent by 2030; and

WHEREAS absent a surge of new housing development in livable, pedestrian-oriented areas near public transit, such reductions in vehicle miles travelled are impossible; and

WHEREAS reducing and eliminating parking requirements near transit will aggressively increase sustainable transit usage; and

WHEREAS encouraging new homes in already developed areas and areas of opportunity not only alleviates the housing crisis, but also supports the State’s climate change and equity goals; and

WHEREAS Senate Bill 50 integrates lessons learned from cities like Los Angeles and Oakland to expand the benefits of affordable, transit-rich and job-rich housing across the state; and

WHEREAS Senate Bill 50 will give cities new tools to provide relief to rent-burdened workers and families while reversing the growing, and alarming, trends of homelessness, displacement, and migration out of California; and

WHEREAS Senate Bill 50 does not apply to any currently rented property or property that has been rented in the last seven years; and

WHEREAS Senate Bill 50 does not apply to any property from which tenants have been evicted by the Ellis Act in the last fifteen years; and

WHEREAS Senate Bill 50 includes specific requirements to provide low-income housing in new development to ensure that market-rate construction is always coupled with affordable units for the lowest income Californians; and

WHEREAS the California Legislative Analyst’s Office has found that the housing shortage in coastal cities is pushing a growing share of Californians into poverty, and forcing a large and growing cohort to spend more than half their income on rent; and

WHEREAS economic and educational opportunities in California are increasingly concentrated in urban areas, but housing construction has not kept pace with demand for access to these opportunities; and

WHEREAS California’s workers and families feel the results of this shortage in the form of exorbitant rents and the highest home purchase prices in the nation; and

WHEREAS excessive competition for limited housing supply is also driving a statewide epidemic of displacement, evictions, and homelessness; and

WHEREAS millions of low- and middle-income Californians have multi-hour commutes, as they seek affordable housing far from areas with concentrated economic and educational opportunities.

WHEREAS easy access to jobs and amenities reduces a household’s daily commute and other travel demands; and

WHEREAS the Associated Students of the University of California have, by endorsing SB50, demonstrated bold action on climate and affordability; and

WHEREAS SB50 has earned the further endorsement of the California League of Conservation Voters; the Non-Profit Housing Association of Northern California; California AARP; Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART); Black American Political Association of California (BAPAC) – Sacramento Chapter; State Building & Construction Trades Council, Associated Students of San Jose State University; Mayor Breed of San Francisco, Mayor Tubbs of Stockton, Mayor Liccardo of San Jose, Mayor Libby Schaaf of Oakland, Mayor Darrell Steinberg of Sacramento, Mayor Hagele of Healdsburg; Mayor Penrose of Half Moon Bay; Councilmemeber and former Mayor John Bauters of Emeryville, and Mayor Gabriel Quinto of El Cerrito; and

BE IT RESOLVED THAT the UC-AFT Local 1990 at UCLA supports Senate Bill 50’s revolutionary advancement of the causes of climate justice, sustainable transit, tenant protections, and housing abundance and affordability.

Local 1990 Endorses SB50: The More HOMES Act

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Local 1990 Endorses SB50: The More HOMES Act

Links, Blogs, etc.

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Media