Office of the Richmond City Council
September 14, 2023
The Honorable Anthony J. Portantino
Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee
1021 O Street, Room 7630
Sacramento, CA 95814
Re: Support for AB 309 (Lee)
Dear Chair Portantino:
Richmond, California City Council i s wr iting in strong support of AB 309, which would introduce social housing to California. Inspired by successful models in Europe and Asia, this bill will create a proof-of-concept social housing program by building housing affordable to a range of incomes on state owned land without relying on scarce affordable housing subsidies. AB 309 will significantly address our housing crisis by developing homes for the social benefit of all Californians, rather than for profit.
California ranked 49th among the United States in housing units per resident in 2018. In 2020, a worker had to earn an hourly wage of $36.96 to afford an average 2 -bedroom apartment. As a result, 41.6% of California households cannot afford their housing and pay over 30% of their household income. Many more are homeless; in fact, 27% of people experiencing homelessness in the entire United States live in California.
As the United Nations stated in a 2017 report, “Rather than treating housing as a commodity valued primarily as an asset for the accumulation of wealth [governments must] reclaim housing as a social good, and thus ensure the human right to a place to live in security and dignity.”
Social housing will help California achieve its housing goals by developing social housing units, including new construction and utilizing existing units . A copy of this letter will be submitted to the online portal at https://calegislation.lc.ca.gov/Advocates/ .
Sincerely,
Claudia Jimenez
Richmond City Council D6
On behalf of Richmond City Council