In the Bay Area, in the Central Valley and throughout the state, Enterprise's Northern California team leads, advises and supports a number of programs to increase housing supply, advance racial equity, and build resilience and upward mobility. This work includes the Association of Bay Area Governments' Regional Housing Needs Allocation Methodology, Reinvent South Stockton Coalition's Housing Landscape Assessment and California's Project Homekey.
Making Progress on Racial Equity Goals
On Jan. 21, the Association of Bay Area Governments executive board approved the Draft Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) Methodology, which plans for the distribution of the region’s 2023-2031 housing need of 441,176 homes across the 101 Bay Area jurisdictions. The methodology goes further than any RHNA cycle in the past in advancing racial equity, propelled by the new statutory requirement to affirmatively further fair housing and through advocacy efforts of a broad coalition of policy partners across the region. Co-led by Enterprise, the coalition worked over the last year to inform the methodology development process, advocating for an explicit focus on racial equity and providing technical expertise on how to assess and quantify residential exclusion and segregation.
The final methodology balances the many goals of RHNA, including promoting a balance between jobs and housing, reducing vehicle miles traveled and associated greenhouse gas emissions, and advancing fair housing. The methodology includes a stop-gap requirement that requires jurisdictions with above-average levels of racial and economic exclusion to take on a fair share of low- and very-low-income homes.
Producing a Stockton Housing Landscape Assessment
Enterprise continues to build its network and relationships with partners in the Central Valley. As part of a collaborative effort with Reinvent South Stockton Coalition, a nonprofit that advocates on behalf of the needs of one of Stockton’s most disinvested neighborhoods, Enterprise produced a Housing Landscape Assessment. The assessment, based on numerous interviews conducted with local community partners during 2020, will act as a foundational document to those interested in advancing local affordable housing policy in the city.
The assessment summarizes key challenges and opportunities unique to Stockton and spurred the creation of the Housing Justice Coalition, a group of resident service providers and housing advocates. The coalition seeks to organize key stakeholders and community members to voice their needs around housing stability and to organize for solutions.
Supporting Project Homekey Developments
In partnership with the State of California’s Department of Housing and Community Development and with funding from Kaiser Permanente, Blue Shield of California and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Enterprise continues to support Project Homekey sites with operating subsidies and technical assistance (TA). To date, over $40 million in philanthropic grants has been deployed, with $4 million more expected to be disbursed in the next few months. In total, Enterprise will be supporting more than 2,300 units of interim or permanent supportive housing in 45 sites across 26 counties throughout the state.
The technical assistance work being led by Enterprise Advisors is also beginning to ramp up with half of the grantees having completed their TA needs assessment. As part of this work, we are launching a peer-learning cohort at the end of the month to create a community of practice where grantees can share and learn about models, best practices and other helpful strategies to ensure success.
Project Homekey, the state’s first large-scale foray into acquisition-rehabilitation, is an innovative program that has shown early success. Within four months, the program acquired over 6,000 units across 94 sites to bring much-needed housing for Californians experiencing homelessness. As a testament to this success, Gov. Gavin Newsom allocated $750 million in state funds for the expansion of Project Homekey in his draft budget for the coming fiscal year.