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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMINUTES - 11132012 - HA C.03PDF Return C. 3 To: Board of Supervisors From: Date: November 13, 2012 Contra Costa County Subject:Articles Regarding Affordable Housing Action of Board On: 11/13/2012 APPROVED AS RECOMMENDED OTHER Clerks Notes: VOTE OF SUPERVISORS AYE:John Gioia, District I Commissioner Candace Andersen, District II Commissioner Mary N. Piepho, District III Commissioner Karen Mitchoff, District IV Commissioner Federal D. Glover, District V Commissioner ABSENT:Geneva Green, Tenant Seat Commissioner Contact:925-957-8028 I hereby certify that this is a true and correct copy of an action taken and entered on the minutes of the Board of Supervisors on the date shown. ATTESTED: November 13, 2012 , BY:, Deputy RECOMMENDATIONS ACCEPT articles regarding affordable housing issues. BACKGROUND ACCEPT articles regarding affordable housing issues. FISCAL IMPACT This is for informational purposes only and has no fiscal impact. CONSEQUENCE OF NEGATIVE ACTION None. AgendaQuick©2005 - 2022 Destiny Software Inc., All Rights Reserved Overview of Articles 11-13-12 Lancaster, Rights Groups Settle Section 8 Discrimination Suit - This article gives an update on the discrimination case in Lancaster County. This circumstances surrounding this case were similar to what occurred with Antioch several years ago. How Housing Narrows the Achievement Gap Housing Prices and Income Inequality - These two articles discuss different research projects that illustrate the importance of affordable housing on educational and economic opportunities. Obama, Romney Offer No Clear Path on Sequestration - This article provides a broad discussion of sequestration. If sequestration takes place, the housing authority, and almost all federally funded agencies, will face funding cuts effective January 1, 2013. LANCASTER, RIGHTS GROUPS SETTLE SECTION 8 DISCRIMINATION SUIT Los Angeles Times – 10/11/2012 – By Ann M. Simmons Activists had accused the city of trying to drive out nonwhite low-income tenants. The two sides agree to work together to ensure fair rental practices. -- Civil rights activists have dropped a lawsuit against the city of Lancaster that alleged discrimination against nonwhite recipients of public housing vouchers, and agreed to a settlement that commits both sides to work together to ensure fair rental practices. Wednesday's announcement puts to rest what had threatened to be a lengthy battle over race and housing in the Antelope Valley. "What we agreed to do is … put down our rifles and pick up our shovels and use that energy to grow the city," said Lancaster Mayor R. Rex Parris. The clash was sparked by the use of sheriff's deputies and special housing investigators — partially funded by Los Angeles County — in an aggressive effort to target violators of the terms of federal Section 8 housing vouchers in the Antelope Valley. Activists called the effort a pretext for driving out Section 8 tenants, most of whom are black. Local officials vehemently denied that, and the dispute laid bare the festering racial tensions in the high desert. Members of the Antelope Valley-based Community Action League, a civil rights group, and the California State Conference of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People sued both Palmdale and Lancaster in federal court in 2011, saying city officials were waging an "unrelenting war" against low-income families who receive housing vouchers. The NAACP also filed a discrimination complaint with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Soon after, the L.A. County Board of Supervisors stopped funding additional housing investigators in the two cities. Palmdale then settled its portion of the lawsuit without admitting wrongdoing. Lancaster continued to fight, however, and in June the NAACP said it was withdrawing the complaint with the housing department to focus on the civil case against the city. Lancaster officials had argued that their enforcement efforts were legitimate given local concerns that voucher recipients were being disproportionately directed to their area. And they insisted that many were guilty of violations of Section 8 rules. But under the compromise detailed at Wednesday's news conference at the Lancaster Museum of Art and History, city officials said they had agreed to form a working group with civil rights representatives to scrutinize city rental ordinances and regulations for "disparate impact" on tenants who use Section 8 housing vouchers or landlords who rent to them. The group will also review any proposed relevant ordinances and present any concerns to the City Council. The five-year agreement contains a provision that the plaintiffs will return to court if the city fails to meet its obligations. Activists praised Lancaster for committing to end what they termed a "rhetoric of conflict." Parris called the working group "an opportunity to put diversity into the leadership of the community." Catherine Llamon, director of impact litigation at Public Counsel, the public interest law firm representing the plaintiffs, credited Parris for making a dramatic turnaround on the issue, changing the tone of the conflict and bringing a settlement. About 2,400 low-income black and Latino families use the federally subsidized rental housing vouchers in Lancaster. After the NAACP filed suit, Lancaster filed a complaint against the county and its housing authority, alleging that the agency unlawfully favors African Americans in granting vouchers under Section 8 of the federal Housing Act. City officials argue that at least 70% of Lancaster's housing subsidy recipients are African American, compared with about 14% who are Latino. Yet blacks account for slightly more than 20% of Lancaster's 157,000 residents, whereas Latinos make up about 38%. Parris said Wednesday that the city would continue to press that complaint. "We haven't compromised in any way on Section 8," he said. "I still think that the way the county of L.A. administers this program is deplorable. What we recognized is that we should work on improving it instead of using it to fight each other." HOW HOUSING NARROWS THE ACHIEVEMENT GAP Deseret News -- 10/29/2012 -- Compiled by Mercedes White It's hardly news that an achievement gap exists between children from high-income and low-income families in the United States. Although policymakers, politicians and educators work tirelessly to decrease these differentials, new evidence suggests the gap is actually growing. In a 2011 study, Sean Reardon, professor of education at Stanford University, found that "the achievement gap between children from high- and low‐income families is roughly 30‐40 percent larger among children born in 2001 than among those born twenty‐five years earlier." While in-school initiatives tend to receive the bulk of policy attention, programs that affect children’s lives outside school walls may be just as important. A study by Heather Schwartz found that placement of low-income housing is one out of school investment that can have a huge impact on children from financially disadvantaged backgrounds. Schwartz tracked 850 children from low-income families in Montgomery County, Maryland. Montgomery ranks among the top 20 wealthiest counties in the nation and has the 16th largest school district in the nation. The zoning policy in Montgomery County requires real estate developers to set aside a portion of the homes to be allotted for public housing. As a result, families with incomes below the poverty line have been able to live in Montgomery County's affluent neighborhoods and send their children to schools where the vast majority of students come from middle- or upper-class families. Just as there is a big achievement gap among children from different backgrounds, there is a gap between low and high poverty schools. At low poverty schools there tends to be more stability, more experienced staff and administrators and more parental involvement. Scwartz found that public housing students who are able to attend schools in more affluent areas outperformed their peers who did not have the same opportunity. From the report: "The longer students attended low poverty schools, the better they performed relative to their peers. After seven years, children living in public housing who attended Montgomery County’s most affluent half of elementary schools performed eight points higher in math and five points higher in reading than otherwise similar public housing children who attended schools where more than 20 percent of the student body qualified for free or reduced-price meals than otherwise similar public housing children who attended schools where more than 20 percent of the student body qualified for free or reduced-price meals." Schwartz even found that the benefits of attending a low poverty school exceed attending a higher spending but also higher poverty school. For example, the county spends $2,000 extra per pupil at the neediest schools. However these investments don't touch the benefits of simply attending a low poverty school. "Children living in public housing enrolled in low poverty schools still performed better over time than public housing children in extra resource schools." HOUSING PRICES AND INCOME INEQUALITY At the NYT website -- 10/17/2012 – BLOG – by Binyamin Appelbaum Why is the gap between rich and poor in America yawning ever wider? The issue is urgent. As my colleague Annie Lowrey writes, there is growing evidence that income inequality impedes economic growth. And one interesting explanation boils down to the high price of housing. A recent paper by researchers at Harvard University argues that the prohibitive cost of living in the areas with the greatest economic opportunities has forced low-wage workers to migrate instead to areas with inferior opportunities. “The best places for low- and high-skilled workers used to be the same places: California, Maryland, New York,” said Peter Ganong, a doctoral student in economics, who wrote the paper with Daniel Shoag, a professor of public policy. “Now low-skilled workers can no longer afford to move to the high-wage places.” In this account, people aren’t moving to the Sun Belt because they want to live there. They are moving because they can’t afford to live in Boston. And the result isn’t just second-best for them; it also slows the pace of economic growth. Basically, the economy works best when people can move where their skills are most valued. But for low-skill workers, the high price of housing means the cost of living in those places often exceeds the benefits of working there. The trends are beautifully illustrated by three time-lapse graphics: http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~ganong/motion.html The first shows that average incomes by state converged between 1880 and 1980 as low-skilled workers moved to wealthier states. The second shows the pattern of migration, which has changed significantly over the last 30 years. The third shows the increase in land-use regulations in rich states. And here’s the crucial point: It doesn’t have to be this way. High housing prices are the result of public policies that discourage new development. Those policies are generally embraced by the residents of wealthy areas, who benefit, at least in the short term, from restrictions on the supply of new housing. But this paper is one more reason to worry about the long-term economic consequences. OBAMA, ROMNEY OFFER NO CLEAR PATH ON SEQUESTRATION Washington Post – 10/24/2012 -- by Walter Pincus What will the winner of the Nov. 6 presidential election do about heading off sequestration — the across-the-board reduction of $1.2 trillion in government outlays over the next 10 years? Included is $500 billion that must come from future defense spending. In the eight weeks after the polls close, a lame-duck Congress, which has been incapable of dealing with the problem for 11 months, must pass legislation that reduces the deficit by the required $1.2 trillion or the cuts in defense and non-defense spending begin to take place Jan. 3, unless Congress takes some other legislative action and the president approves it. That formidable task will be aided or complicated by the fact that the Bush tax cuts for middle- and upper-income households are also set to end Dec. 31. The fog of war is probably clearer than the mystery of what President Obama or Mitt Romney would do before this year ends to head off the cuts required by the 2011 Budget Control Act. One key player will be Obama, no matter the election outcome. Romney will be another, but only if he is president-elect. Republican and Democratic leaders in the House and Senate have so far maintained their basic uncompromising positions, though bipartisan groups of legislators have tried to find some common solutions. Both candidates have said that they want to prevent sequestration, but neither has said how he would do so. At Monday’s debate, Obama said flatly, “It will not happen,” without offering specifics. Obama will have the upper hand if he’s reelected. He can use the end of the Bush tax cuts as leverage to force a deal with Republicans. That probably would see his desired return to the Clinton-era rates for incomes above $250,000, while making permanent the current rates for those earning less. Additional revenue could come from increasing rates for estate, dividend and capital gains taxes and closing tax loopholes while reducing some corporate rates. Obama has said he could accept some cuts in domestic programs, and possibly a minimal amount in defense while agreeing to work out savings through Medicare reforms. The problem will be more difficult should Romney win. Republicans, particularly in the House, have indicated that they want to put off any sequestration action for a year, at a minimum on the defense side, to give a Romney White House a chance to come up with a new plan for taxes and spending. Obama, however, has said he would veto any such legislation. He also will have the power to let the Bush tax cuts lapse should he decide to veto any attempt by Congress to extend those tax cuts for the wealthy. Romney has been silent on what he would do. But his speeches and policy statements promise sharply increased defense spending, a 20 percent reduction in personal income taxes at all levels, along with maintaining — if not reducing — rates on dividend and capital gains taxes for the middle class. He has claimed that capping tax deductions for the wealthy and closing loopholes along with reducing non-defense discretionary spending by 5 percent will solve the problem. Most budget analysts disagree. Still, none of those steps proposed by Romney are likely to occur during the lame-duck session, leaving any solution to sequestration still pending. Meanwhile, in the campaign, Republicans are calling sequestration an Obama plan to “cut $1 trillion” from defense spending. In a TV spot released Tuesday by the Romney camp, the candidate says: “I will not cut our military budget by a trillion dollars, which is a combination of the budget cuts the president has. That’s unacceptable to me.” Romney is combining the $500 billion from sequestration with the $487 billion reduction over 10 years that was agreed to by the GOP and Democrats in the Budget Control Act. The first $50 billion portion is contained in the fiscal 2013 defense budget legislation already approved by the Republican-controlled House. On Tuesday, the day after the debate, Obama again avoided discussing the lame-duck session. Instead, he told the publisher and editor of the Des Moines Register in a phone conversation that in the “short term” sequestration would be a forcing mechanism when combined with the Bush tax cuts to solve the problem. But the president said it would take six months to get done and “will probably be messy. It won’t be pleasant.” Obama said he was “absolutely confident that we can get what is the equivalent of the grand bargain that essentially I’ve been offering to the Republicans for a very long time.” That offer has been $2.50 worth of cuts for every dollar in increased revenue. He also has proposed working to reduce the costs of our health-care programs. At the Pentagon, however, planning for sequestration is underway. At a news conference Monday at the Association of the U.S. Army convention, Army Secretary John McHugh said, “We can’t make absolute determinations because, you know, there are still a lot of things at play here.” McHugh, who spent 17 years as a Republican congressman, said he’s optimistic that after the election there will be a settlement before sequestration can hit. Capitol Hill leaders, he said, “understand the consequences of this better than most and will do everything they can to avoid it.” Let’s hope he is right.