URGENT! Help Protect Measure E for Affordable HousingMay Newsletter
We are deeply distressed by the current Mayor’s proposal to divert “uncommitted Measure E resources” to uses other than the affordable housing that was promised to San José voters when they approved it in 2020 (see SBCLT letter to HCD). Measure E is a real property transfer tax that passed based on City Council’s explicit promise to use it to address the City’s desperate affordable housing crisis. We are calling to support maintaining the current Measure E expenditure plan as is!
The City Council’s current Measure E allocation plan, adopted in 2022, calls for 75% of it to be spent on affordable housing, including creation of deed-restricted permanent affordable housing through preservation. The other 25% is to be spent on homelessness prevention, rental assistance, and unhoused support programs. The Mayor’s budget proposal calls for diverting all uncommitted Measure E affordable housing funds to his other priorities: moving unhoused people out of sight, increased police staffing, and establishing “no-encampment zones.” This would effectively zero out new affordable housing for 2023-24 and signal a major shift in priorities. Interim housing and shelters are effective temporary measures, but do not work if people have no permanent housing to move to afterward.
Part of the “uncommitted Measure E funds” the Mayor is proposing to divert, include $24,609,040 for acquisition and rehabilitation which is crucial to advancing preservation work in San José – especially after City Council rejected the COPA proposal (Community Opportunity to Purchase Act) on April 25, 2023!
In 2022 consultants from HR&A were hired to support the San José Housing Department in releasing the Request for Proposals (RFP) for the Acquisition/Rehabilitation component of Measure E. South Bay CLT has been working hard to build our organizational capacity to be ready to access such funds, including successfully acquiring our first property, a brightly colored 4-unit complex on Reed St this past February, and are also working to acquire an 18-unit property, The Virginian Apartments, in the historic Mayfair neighborhood. (See letters of support from tenants and owners). We urge the City Council to keep the balanced approach of the current Measure E expenditure plan and release the acquisition/rehab RFP as soon as possible!