Advocates push for state amendment to make housing a ‘human right’

The amendment could require state and local governments to pursue policies to add significantly more homes for low-income residents.

Should the state guarantee a right to housing for all Californians?

A coalition of anti-poverty advocates led by Matt Haney, a Democratic state assemblymember from San Francisco, is proposing an amendment to the state constitution that seeks to do just that.

The amendment does not define a right to housing, and backers have offered few specifics about what it would mean in practice. But they say it could make it easier for state officials to sue local governments that resist adding significantly more affordable housing. To pass, it needs a two-thirds majority in the state Legislature and then approval by voters.

At a news conference in Sacramento this week, Haney, alongside leaders from advocacy groups including the ACLU of California and Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, touted the amendment as a long-awaited solution to the state’s affordable housing shortage.

“This is a crisis, and the status quo approach that doesn’t recognize (housing) as a fundamental human right is not going to get us there,” said Haney, a newly elected lawmaker who campaigned on bolstering affordable housing.

Past efforts to codify a right to housing in the state constitution have failed in recent years. And it remains unclear if the latest amendment can muster enough support this time around. But if successful, advocates say it would be the first of its kind anywhere in the country.

For decades, the state and Bay Area haven’t come close to building enough affordably priced housing for everyone who needs it. That’s in part due to a lack of funding for low-income housing. But many cities — from metropolitan San Francisco to suburban Pleasanton — have also long resisted planning for growth.

Experts agree that underproduction is at the root of California’s astronomical housing costs, which are putting an increasing strain on many residents and exacerbating the state’s homelessness crisis.

More than half of all California renters spend over 30% of their earnings on housing, classifying them as “rent-burdened” by federal standards. And many pay much more than that. The state’s homeless population, meanwhile, has grown to over 170,000 people amid the economic fallout of the pandemic, spiking by at least 20% in Contra Costa, Alameda and San Mateo counties.

Peggy Pleasant ended up homeless on Los Angeles’ Skid Row after losing her job during the 2008 recession. She eventually moved into a temporary housing facility for women but continues to struggle with anxiety from her experience of being unhoused.

“There are women sitting outside that facility right now hoping to get a bed, a permanent place to stay, and an affordable place to stay,” Pleasant said at the news conference. “We need this bill.”

If approved, the amendment wouldn’t require state or local governments to build more housing themselves. But it could provide new legal avenues to hold officials accountable for their existing housing goals and responsibilities.

Carlos Marquez III, executive director of ACLU California Action, said state lawmakers would be required to come up with a regulatory framework for enforcement. The amendment would also create a “public right of action,” he said, enabling state officials, including Attorney General Rob Bonta, to sue localities that adopt policies that are “deviating from, or counter to, the right to housing.”

Over the next eight years, Bay Area cities and counties are on the hook for accommodating more than 180,000 new low-income homes, double the region’s previous state-mandated goal. To meet that lofty target, experts recommend streamlining the sometimes years-long planning and approval process for multifamily housing, loosening local zoning rules restricting what kind of homes can be built where, and putting much more money toward funding affordable apartments and townhomes.

The state is already requiring local officials to take some of those actions, and this week sued the city of Huntington Beach for refusing to comply with state laws intended to help solve the housing shortage.

Critics of the amendment worry it would open up local governments to many more lawsuits they say would only make building housing more difficult. Responding to those concerns, Haney said the amendment is not meant to be “punitive toward any particular jurisdiction,” but rather aims to ensure responsibility and accountability for addressing the state’s affordable housing shortage.

As a state assemblymember representing the East Bay, Bonta proposed a failed version of the amendment in 2019. The effort to pass that bill was launched by the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment in coordination with Moms 4 Housing, a group of formerly homeless mothers who made headlines for occupying a vacant home in Oakland just before the pandemic.

The community alliance also attempted to sponsor a similar bill last year. Now, it’s one of the groups behind this year’s push. In addition to the ACLU of California, co-sponsors include End Poverty in California and Western Center on Law and Poverty.

Amy Schur, campaign director for the alliance, chalked up the past failures to the pandemic. She said advocates are now better prepared to get the bill passed and send the amendment before voters.

“This year, it’s a top priority to move this forward,” she said.