BILL ANALYSIS
AB 558
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Date of Hearing: April 29, 2009
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON HOUSING AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT
Norma Torres, Chair
AB 558 (Portantino) - As Amended: April 13, 2009
SUBJECT : Land use planning: housing element: foster youth
placement.
SUMMARY : Allows a city to reduce its regional housing need
allocation by 10% if it adopts a program to actively promote and
assist in the placement of foster youth in existing family-based
households. Specifically, this bill :
1)Allows a city to reduce its regional housing need allocation
(RHNA) by 10% if it adopts a program that meets all of the
following requirements:
a) Actively promotes placement of foster youth in existing
family-based households through advertisement and
city-based incentives;
b) Provides a process for coordinating city and county
assistance to help interested persons by providing
information and documents necessary to meet the
responsibility of caring for foster youth;
c) Serves as a resource to assist interested persons in
accessing existing services that support the placement of
foster youth in existing family-based households;
d) Provides a plan to measure the success of the program,
in coordination with the county's current system of data
outcomes; and
e) Is approved by the council of governments (COG) that
assigns the city's RHNA share, or by the Department of
Housing and Community Development (HCD) if there is no COG.
2)Prohibits the COG or HCD from approving the program for a
subsequent housing element planning period if the program
cannot be shown to have met 2.5% or more of the city's RHNA
share in the previous planning period.
3)Limits participation to five cities per COG and five cities
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from areas not covered by COGs.
4)Requires each city that adopts a program to submit to the COG
or HCD, as appropriate, two progress reports per planning
period on dates established by the COG or HCD.
5)Requires that these reports include, but not be limited to,
the number of foster placements with duration of one year or
more that occurred within the reporting period as verified by
the county program that manages foster placements.
6)Sunsets the bill's provisions on January 1, 2017.
EXISTING LAW
1)Requires every city and county to prepare and adopt a general
plan containing seven mandatory elements, including a housing
element (Government Code Sections 65300 and 65302).
2)Requires a jurisdiction's housing element to identify and
analyze existing and projected housing needs, identify
adequate sites with appropriate zoning to meet the housing
needs of all income segments of the community, and ensure that
regulatory systems provide opportunities for, and do not
unduly constrain, housing development (Government Code Section
65583).
3)Requires cities and counties to revise their housing elements
every eight years based on a staggered statutory schedule
(Government Code Section 65588).
4)Requires, prior to each housing element revision, that each
COG, in conjunction with HCD, prepare a regional housing needs
assessment and allocate to each jurisdiction in the region its
fair share of the housing need for all income categories.
Where a COG does not exist, HCD determines the local share of
the region's housing need (Government Code Sections
65584-65584.09).
5)Requires the housing element to plan for the following income
categories:
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a) Very low-income (50% or less of area median income);
b) Lower-income (80% or less of area median income);
c) Moderate-income (between 80% and 120% of area median
income); and
d) Above moderate-income (exceeding 120% of area median
income).
FISCAL EFFECT : Unknown
COMMENTS :
Under the state's Housing Element law, every city and county is
required to prepare and regularly update a housing element to
plan for its existing and projected housing needs. The
fundamental basis for housing elements is the regional housing
needs assessment process. HCD, working with population
projections from the Department of Finance, assigns each region
a regional housing need allocation (RHNA) number that indicates
the number of housing units the region needs over the next eight
years across four income categories (very low-, low-, moderate-,
and above moderate-income). The COG, or HCD in areas with no
COG, then allocates a share of the RHNA to each city and county
in the region.
In preparing its housing element, a city or county must show
that it has zoned, or will zone by the end of the third year of
the housing element planning period, enough land at appropriate
densities to accommodate its share of the RHNA. With respect to
the zoning, density is used as a proxy for affordability.
Jurisdictions may establish the adequacy of a site for very low-
or low-income housing by demonstrating that the site allows the
densities established in statute (commonly referred to as the
"Mullin densities") or by providing an analysis of how a lower
density can accommodate the need for affordable housing. To the
extent that a community does not have adequate sites within its
existing inventory of residentially zoned land to accommodate
its RHNA share, then the community must adopt a program to
rezone land at appropriate densities to accommodate the
community's housing need for all income groups by the end of the
third year of the planning period. With respect to sites
rezoned to accommodate the need for very low- and low-income
housing, the new zoning must allow multifamily residential use
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by right (i.e. without discretionary review of individual
projects other than design review).
Advocates for affordable housing have long maintained that the
housing element process is essential in order to make sure that
cities and counties adequately plan for housing for all income
levels. Particular attention has been paid to making sure that
cities and counties plan for very low- and low-income housing,
which are often both the most needed type of housing and the
hardest to provide. Local governments, for their part, have
complained about inconsistencies and inequities in the
allocation of RHNA numbers and certification of housing elements
by HCD. In 2003 a housing element working group comprised of
stakeholders from all sides of the issue agreed on two pieces of
legislation, AB 2158 (Lowenthal), Chapter 696, Statutes of
2003, and AB 2348 (Mullin), Chapter 724, Statutes of 2003.
These bills eased some of the tension between the parties, but
the issue of RHNA remains sensitive, and any attempt at changes
must tread very carefully.
AB 2322 would allow cities to reduce their RHNA share by 10% if
they adopt a program to promote the placement of foster youth in
family-based households. The program would have to be approved
by the COG, or HCD in areas with no COG, and only five cities
per COG, and five cities in non-COG areas, could adopt such a
program. The bill sets forth very general guidelines for what a
program would look like or do, including actively promoting
placement of foster youth in existing family-based households
through advertisement and city-based incentives. A city would
not be able to continue to reduce it RHNA share by 10% in the
next housing element planning period if the program was not
responsible for meeting at least 2.5% of the city's share of the
regional housing need in the previous planning period.
The author expresses the need for the bill this way:
"Foster youth without relative caregivers are
disproportionately housed in group homes, juvenile justice
facilities, or homes that serve multiple, unrelated foster
youth. These settings meet the child's basic, immediate
physical needs-food, clothing, shelter-but are not always
adequate for the emotional needs of these traumatized youth.
The result is often multiple placements and instability. The
best environment for children without relative caregivers is a
family-based household willing to take on a potentially
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permanent parental responsibility."
In addition, the author points out that the number of people
across the state willing to become foster parents declined by
more than 30 percent since 2001, with some counties experiencing
even greater declines.
AB 2322 takes two important policy issues-the dramatic shortage
of family-based placements for foster youth and planning for
affordable housing-and merges them in a way that makes little
sense. There is no discernible nexus between the housing
element process and the needs of foster youth. It is hard to
know if AB 2322 will have much effect on the foster parent
shortage given that the parameters of what a city program would
look like are so loosely defined, but it is very clear that it
will do nothing to increase affordable housing production since
it will allow cities to zone for less housing than they
otherwise would be required to do. Given the challenges in
zoning at the higher densities required to support affordable
housing, it is likely that most participating cities would
choose to reduce their RHNA share at the lower income levels,
making it even more difficult than it already is to get
critically needed affordable housing in the ground.
The author correctly points out that the housing element process
does not require cities and counties to plan for the needs of
foster youth. Upon examination, this "omission" in the law
makes perfect sense. The housing element process is focused on
planning to accommodate the increased housing production
necessary to erase existing deficiencies in the housing supply
and accommodate future population growth. Foster youth are not
willfully excluded from the process, they simply do not fit in
because they are seeking placement in existing homes rather than
creating a demand for additional housing units.
While the housing element does not address the needs of existing
foster youth, it is a tool that helps ensure that communities
plan for the needs of emancipated foster youth. These youths
are overwhelmingly in need of housing that is affordable and
already face tremendous challenges when they age out of the
system. By allowing cities to reduce their responsibility to
plan for housing, AB 558 may actually make it more difficult for
former foster youth, who already experience homelessness at an
alarming rate, to find adequate housing.
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AB 2322 raises a number of additional concerns. The bill asks
COGs and HCD to approve plans for recruiting foster parents, an
area in which these entities have absolutely no experience or
expertise. The bill asks cities to develop programs to increase
the number of foster parents, despite the fact that counties
oversee foster care. Counties would not even be eligible to
participate in the program AB 2322 creates. Additionally, the
bill specifies that cities cannot continue to receive the 10%
RHNA share reduction in subsequent planning periods if the
program cannot be shown to have met 2.5% or more of the city's
RHNA share in the previous planning period. Under current law,
a city meets its share of the RHNA primarily by zoning enough
land. Given that a city is not required to zone (nor could it)
to accommodate foster youths in existing households, it is
unclear how a program to increase foster placements would ever
result in a city meeting any percentage of its RHNA. If the
intent is that a city could take the RHNA reduction in a second
planning period if the program resulted in the placement of a
number of foster youths in family-based households equal to 2.5%
of the city's RHNA share, it is unclear how this would be
measured. How could a city prove which foster placements were a
direct result of its program?
Prior legislation : AB 2322 (Portantino, 2008) was identical to
this bill. AB 2322 failed passage in this Committee with a 2-2
vote.
Double referred : The Assembly Committee on Rules referred AB
2322 to the Committee on Local Government and Housing and
Community Development. The bill passed the Assembly Committee
on Local Government on April 1, 2009 by a vote of 7 to 0.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees
Aspiranet
Opposition
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California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation
Housing California
Non-Profit Housing Association of Northern California
Western Center on Law and Poverty
Analysis Prepared by : Anya Lawler / H. & C.D. / (916)
319-2085