As top House and Senate Democrats work to revive President Biden's stalled spending plan, California lawmakers are making it clear they want support for affordable housing to remain on the congressional agenda.
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Biden's Build Back Better Act included billions of dollars for affordable housing and housing vouchers before it was derailed last December after opposition from West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin.
Now, California Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Alex Padilla have called on party leaders to maintain that commitment in whatever plan gets put together.
"The lack of affordable housing is a key driver of the homelessness crisis in California and nationwide, largely resulting from the high cost of construction and slow pace of building new affordable housing units," the senators wrote to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi earlier this month. "That is why we worked to make sure that the House-passed 'Build Back Better Act' included much-needed investments in addressing these challenges."
In the meantime, Silicon Valley Rep. Ro Khanna also rallied support on housing on Friday. The third-term congressman toured affordable housing developments in San Jose and Santa Clara, which he said were just the sorts of projects that would have benefited if the Build Back Better Act had passed.
"The president's Build Back Better bill would've had dramatic increases in Section 8 housing, dramatic increases in the housing trust, which would’ve allowed for the building of many more rental units," Khanna said Friday.
The California Department of Housing and Community Development announced last month that the state needs to build 2.5 million additional homes by the end of the decade, 1 million of which must be affordable.
Bay Area rents, meanwhile, have largely normalized. In February, rents were closer to pre-pandemic levels than any point over the last two years.
Democratic leaders are reportedly still working to revive the spending package. The Hill reported on Monday that the bill would be "significantly altered" from, and "likely" under a different name than the House-passed Build Back Better Act.
No matter what bill passes, Khanna said housing must remain a priority.
"We have to create a more equitable society," Khanna said. "The first step to that, one of the first steps, is having affordable housing."
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