Every week at All Saints Church we put our faith into action. This week we are urging our state legislators and Governor Gavin Newsom to support substantial and transformative change in housing policies.

Between 2011 and 2017, LA built only 1 home for every 5.55 jobs created in our region. Combined with widespread apartment bans, even in job-rich urban centers, LA County has a shortage of more than 800,000 new homes, as well as over  60,000 unhoused neighbors living on the streets. More than half of renting families have had to cut back on basic needs to afford rent, and many have gone into debt just to stay sheltered. With the Covid-19 pandemic being far from over, housing the unhoused, helping families stay housed, and expanding housing affordability should all be top priorities for 2022.

We have achieved critical successes in paring back exclusionary zoning and legalizing more homes in 2021, but we must do more to fix the housing crisis. We need additional reform to legalize more homes near jobs, make building homes easier, fund affordable housing, and strengthen tenants’ rights. Housing reform will help reduce rents, end homelessness, and shorten commutes – it benefits all of us.

In addition, we are making a specific request for our legislators and governor to support three pieces of legislation:

• AB 854 (Lee) will close loopholes in the Ellis Act. The Ellis Act was passed to help long-term owners of rental property exit from the rental market. The act has been abused by bad actors who don’t actually want to exit the rental market, but simply want to flip properties. Allowing for mostly low-income, senior and disabled tenants to be evicted from their homes through no fault of their own and taking rental housing off the market. AB 854 will stop predatory evictions which have continued through the pandemic.
• AB 889 (Gipson) will require corporate landlords to report their identities and make that information accessible to the public and make it harder for bad actors to skirt responsibility for their profit-driven buying practices and rental conditions.
• AB 1199 (Gipson) will impose a tax on the largest corporate landlords and discourage the further consolidation of property ownership in the hands of a few, while addressing the impacts of this consolidation by supporting relief for tenants and small mom and pop landlords, homebuyer education, affordable housing and homelessness, and job training.

Please send a letter to your state legislators and the governor demanding real, substantial, transformative change in housing.

Options to Take Action:

1. Download a PDF copy of this Action Letter to sign and mail to your members of the California State Senator, the California State Assembly and Governor Gavin Newsom.
2. You may adapt the message and/or the action letter for your email.
3. Use the action in support of housing reform on the Abundant Housing LA website.

Use the following links to find:

Your members of the CA State Assembly, https://www.assembly.ca.gov/assemblymembers and

Your members of the CA State Senate, https://www.senate.ca.gov/senators    

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If you ever need to look up your member of the U.S. House of Representatives or your U.S. Senators check here: www.house.gov and www.senate.gov.