Let's work together to accelerate already existing successful social housing efforts so we can make strides towards achieving the scale of social housing needed in California to address the affordable housing crisis for years to come: a 2022 Social Housing Accelerator Initiative.

While there are various models of both ownership and rental social housing in cities and countries around the globe, they all share an important set of characteristics. Those characteristics add up to a general definition of social housing, as follows:

1. Social housing is de-commodified housing, meaning it is either publicly or cooperatively owned, or owned by a qualified community-based nonprofit with a mission to provide social housing. It is forever protected from transfer to private, for-profit ownership.
2. It is available at affordable cost to residents of all income levels, from the very lowest to those of moderate incomes.
3. It is permanently affordable -- unlike, for instance, affordability covenants in the U.S. that often have expiration dates.
4. It provides its residents with the right to participate democratically in its operation and management, and protections from arbitrary eviction.

We propose a $1 billion investment from the California 2022-2023 state budget in a Social Housing Accelerator Initiative. This initiative would fund the production and preservation of social housing that meets the definition of social housing as outlined above, including projects that feature permanent affordability, social ownership, mix of incomes, and democratic control.

● This funding would be used for both acquisition and rehabilitation of 4,500-6,000 housing units serving 13,000-18,000 low and moderate-income Californians.

● The permanently affordable nature of social housing means that these impacts will be multiplied across generations of individuals and families who benefit from the stable, affordable housing in these projects.

● It is our analysis that this investment could be excluded from appropriations subject to the Gann limit. The capital expenditure exemption for government outlays is defined to include "an appropriation for a fixed asset (including land and construction) with a useful life of 10 or more years and a value which equals or exceeds one hundred thousand dollars ($100,000).” (Gov. Code sec. 7914)

In summary, this campaign will develop and implement a plan to commit $1 billion of California's $29 billion surplus funds towards a Social Housing Accelerator Initiative to move 8,000 homes off the speculative market and into permanently- affordable community ownership.