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A $950 million affordable housing bond has helped build thousands of affordable homes across Santa Clara County, though its efforts have focused on some parts of the region more than others.
Measure A, passed by voters in 2016, has helped fund the construction of 5,135 new homes and smashed the county’s goal of 4,800 in 10 years. The vast majority of those homes are in San Jose — the county’s largest city with 969,655 residents. Although officials have celebrated Measure A’s success, the region’s cost of living has continued to increase, making building and preserving affordable housing even more critical.
“We consider the implementation of Measure A one of the most successful housing bond implementations in the state,” Deputy County Executive Consuelo Hernandez told San José Spotlight.
Of the $950 million, $690.8 million of Measure A’s funds has been allocated.
Silicon Valley is one of the nation’s most expensive places to live, with exorbitant prices to rent or buy homes and the most expensive utilities. Reports have found someone working minimum wage needs four jobs to just meet Silicon Valley’s cost of living. Creating more affordable housing is one way local officials hope to tackle the problem.
Measure A funds have been applied toward 56 projects across 10 cities. On top of building new homes, Measure A dollars also went toward the renovation of 689 existing affordable homes to help preserve the county’s housing stock.
San Jose has received about $384 million to build or renovate 3,542 affordable homes across 34 projects. Santa Clara is the second largest recipient of Measure A funds, receiving about $86 million to build 618 affordable homes.
Five municipalities in Santa Clara County receive no funds from Measure A: Campbell, Los Gatos, Saratoga, Los Altos Hills and Monte Sereno. Other than Los Altos, these are five of the county’s smallest municipalities by population.
Hernandez attributed part of Measure A’s success to the county’s partnerships with city governments and developers to prioritize projects that are competitive for funding, and to create production goals for cities. Those include each city’s state housing requirements and results from the county’s homeless census and point-in-time count of unhoused residents.
Hernandez said the county worked with various communities to identify potential recipients, with a focus on projects that were ready for construction.
“Not every city or town has been able to identify a viable project in their community, but the county continues to work with cities that do not have a Measure A-funded project in their community,” Hernandez said.
California requires every city and town to build some affordable housing by 2031, though none are on track to hit their state-mandated goals.
The vast majority of Measure A funds went to projects in San Jose, but the average investment per home has been highest in Milpitas. While the city received $65.5 million across three projects, almost half went toward the Hillview Court project, which renovated a motel into a 134-apartment complex for homeless residents or people at-risk of homelessness.
Affordable housing development can be expensive. San Jose has 13 housing projects on a waitlist to receive money from the city’s own housing bond, Measure E, which continues to be redirected toward short-term homelessness support programs. Other cities have been finding creative ways to help fund affordable housing, like buying the land for those developments.
SV@Home Director of Policy Alison Cingolani said some cities are better prepared or more willing to work with the county than others, which has affected how Measure A funds have been allocated. For example, Mountain View had more space zoned for multi-family purposes, which is the zoning designation for most affordable housing projects. The city has received nearly $13 million from Measure A across six projects, coming out to an average of $950 from Measure A per capita.
“It’s going to require active engagement on the part of the cities and the county, and cities will see this investment,” Cingolani told San José Spotlight. “The county has an excellent track record of partnering with cities that are willing to partner.”
While Measure A has been successful at building and preserving affordable housing, Cingolani said the region needs much more to keep up with rising cost of living.
The Bay Area Housing Finance Authority considered putting a $20 billion affordable housing bond across the nine Bay Area counties on the November ballot, but pulled it at the last minute. Cingolani said there may be a bond measure in the future, either countywide or regionally.
“Measure A was a resounding success, it just wasn’t enough,” Cingolani told San José Spotlight. “When the problem is a structural problem, there is not any one solution that’s going to be a quick fix. It’s going to take a lot of us working together.”
This story was written by B. Sakura Cannestra for San Jose Spotlight. The original version of this article can be viewed here.
Contact B. Sakura Cannestra at sakura@sanjosespotlight.com or @SakuCannestra on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Funny what details they leave out like the $25 million giveaway in down payments.
If you can’t afford a down payment, you probably shouldn’t be buying a home. Even VA loans will lend you with less than 10% down.
According to the county So far we’ve spent billions to build 6000 new homes and homelessness has….checks notes….gone up? Who has this helped exactly?
The link in the article states that NONE of the cities in Santa Clara County (including Mountain View) are coming close to meeting the affordable housing goals that ABAG (Association of Bay Area Governments) has handed them.
But isn’t the objective of our new housing policy to lower the cost of housing for “teachers, service workers, and kids who don’t code”? If nobody is coming close to meeting their affordable housing goals, isn’t that a sign that our new housing policy will simply not meet it’s so-called objective?
The truth is, the net result of our new housing policy is to maximize construction of expensive, market rate housing (which is only “affordable” to the highest wage earners in the land).
Here are excerpts from “Santa Clara County cities are failing to hit housing goals” – https://sanjosespotlight.com/santa-clara-county-cities-are-failing-to-hit-housing-goals/
“industry experts say the [majority of cities in Santa Clara County will] continue to struggle, especially with affordable housing.”
“Of all 15 cities in the county … none have come close to their affordable housing goals.”
“[Land use consultant Erik] Schoennauer said the largest barrier to building more housing is cost. Unfortunately, city governments are limited in what they can do.”
“Cost and process issues are compounded with affordable housing, Schoennauer said, and federal, state and local governments should do more to subsidize development.”
“It’s mind-boggling that California, the fifth largest economy on the face of the earth, cannot set aside enough funding for affordable housing,” he said. “The No. 1 economy on the face of the earth and the number of dollars that go into the production of affordable housing is peanuts.”
We don’t have affordable housing for the same reason that there is no such thing as a free lunch. Providing free lunch is not profitable. Building affordable housing is NOT PROFITABLE. If we want affordable housing, it needs to be subsidized. Without subsidies, it simply won’t be built. That is the honest truth.
If the objective of our housing policy is to lower the cost of housing for “teachers, service workers, and kids who don’t code”, the answer is clear. The issue is not zoning, the issue is FUNDING. The RHNA targets set by ABAG will not be met without sufficient funding. And that funding simply does not exist.
Building tons and tons of market rate units is NOT going to magically make rents come crashing down for “teachers, service workers, and kids who don’t code”.
Leslie is right for once here. I would argue the county needs to up its transportation game. Absurdly frequent buses that go to useful places.