Senate Approves $100-Million Plan to House Homeless

Legislation that would create a new, $100-million state program to help provide housing for the homeless was approved by the Senate on Friday on condition that none of the money would go to communities that restrict growth.

The bill, by Sen. Nicholas Petris (D-Oakland), went to the Assembly on a 27-7 vote, the minimum two-thirds majority required.

Petris noted that in recent years, the federal government has sharply cut back aid for housing and that the state has failed to fill the breach, despite a vastly increasing population of homeless people.

Opposed by the Deukmejian Administration’s Department of Finance, the bill would tap the taxpayer-fed state general fund for $100 million a year and transfer it to cities and counties to provide various forms of housing for low-income and “very-low-income” people. This would include construction of rental units, rehabilitation of existing housing, emergency shelters and interim housing and support services for the homeless.

The funds would be transferred to local government by the state Department of Housing and Community Development in such a way as to avoid counting against state government’s voter-imposed limit on spending.

However, one opponent, Sen. Ed Davis (R-Valencia), argued that the imposition of rent control by various cities had blocked the construction of new apartments for low-income people because landlords no longer are as willing to invest in new buildings. He called for removal of rent controls as one solution to providing additional housing.

Other Republicans, however, who usually oppose programs such as the Petris bill, reluctantly supported it. They charged that no-growth and slow-growth policies adopted by some local governments have severely inhibited the construction of housing and aggravated the predicament of thousands of homeless Californians.

Driven Higher

Sen. John Seymour (R-Anaheim) claimed that the housing supply has been reduced and the price driven higher by policies of local officials who have adopted a “pull-up-the-gangplank attitude.”

He was joined by Sen. Jim Ellis, a San Diego Republican whose City Council recently adopted a slow-growth policy. He said he voted for the bill “because there is an immediate need.”

They conditioned their support, however, on a promise by Petris that he would amend the bill to prohibit no-growth and slow-growth communities from receiving any of the state money for the homeless.

“If you’re no-growth, keep your hands off that money,” Seymour said the amendment must declare.

Petris told them he would make such an amendment in the Assembly.