Under existing law, there are programs providing assistance for, among other things, emergency housing, multifamily housing, farmworker housing, veteran housing, home ownership for very low and low-income households, and downpayment assistance for first-time home buyers.

This bill would require all state and local programs designed to facilitate home ownership or residence, as specified, to include manufactured homes, to the extent feasible. The bill would deem a California Housing Finance Agencys loan program to comply with this provision if it includes manufactured housing in conformance with specified guidelines. The bill would make related legislative findings and declarations.

Under existing law, there are programs providing assistance for, among other things, emergency housing, multifamily housing, farmworker housing, veteran housing, home ownership for very low and low-income households, and downpayment assistance for first-time home buyers.

This bill would require all state and local programs designed to facilitate home ownership or residence, as specified, to include manufactured homes, to the extent feasible. The bill would deem a California Housing Finance Agencys loan program to comply with this provision if it includes manufactured housing in conformance with specified guidelines. The bill would make related legislative findings and declarations.

Under existing law, there are programs providing assistance for, among other things, emergency housing, multifamily housing, farmworker housing, veteran housing, home ownership for very low and low-income households, and downpayment assistance for first-time homebuyers home buyers.

This bill would require all state and local programs designed to facilitate home ownership or residence, as specified, to include manufactured homes. homes, to the extent feasible. The bill would deem a California Housing Finance Agencys loan program to comply with this provision if it includes manufactured housing in conformance with specified guidelines. The bill would make related legislative findings and declarations.

Under existing law, there are programs providing assistance for, among other things, emergency housing, multifamily housing, farmworker housing, veteran housing, home ownership for very low and low-income households, and downpayment assistance for first-time homebuyers.

This bill would require all state and local programs designed to facilitate home ownership or residence, as specified, to include manufactured homes. The bill would deem a California Housing Finance Agencys loan program to comply with this provision if it includes manufactured housing in conformance with specified guidelines. The bill would make related legislative findings and declarations.

Under existing law, there are programs providing assistance for, among other things, emergency housing, multifamily housing, farmworker housing, veteran housing, home ownership for very low and low-income households, and downpayment assistance for first-time homebuyers.

This bill would require all state and local programs designed to facilitate home ownership or residence, as specified, to include manufactured homes. The bill would make related legislative findings and declarations.

 UNFINISHED BUSINESS  

Bill No: SB 329

Author:

:

Vote:

SENATE TRANS. & HOUSING COMMITTEE: 11-0, 4/18/17

AYES: Beall, Cannella, Allen, Atkins, Gaines, McGuire, Mendoza, Morrell, Skinner, Wieckowski, Wiener

NO VOTE RECORDED: Bates, Roth

SENATE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE: Senate Rule 28.8

SENATE FLOOR: 40-0, 5/30/17

AYES: Allen, Anderson, Atkins, Bates, Beall, Berryhill, Bradford, Cannella, De León, Dodd, Fuller, Gaines, Galgiani, Glazer, Hernandez, Hertzberg, Hill, Hueso, Jackson, Lara, Leyva, McGuire, Mendoza, Mitchell, Monning, Moorlach, Morrell, Newman, Nguyen, Nielsen, Pan, Portantino, Roth, Skinner, Stern, Stone, Vidak, Wieckowski, Wiener, Wilk

ASSEMBLY FLOOR: 78-0, 9/7/17 - See last page for vote

SUBJECT: Manufactured homes: financial assistance programs

SOURCE: California Manufactured Housing Institute

DIGEST:

This bill requires all state and local programs designed to facilitate home ownership or residence to include manufactured housing.

Assembly Amendments add that the provisions of this bill apply to state and local programs, to the extent feasible.

ANALYSIS:

Existing law:

1. Establishes a number of programs at the Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) and the California Housing Finance Agency (CalHFA) to make housing more affordable to California families and individuals, including the following main programs:
   1. Multifamily Housing Program, which funds the new construction, rehabilitation, and preservation of permanent and transitional rental homes for lower income households through loans to local governments, non-profit developers, and for-profit developers.
   2. Joe Serna, Jr., Farmworker Housing Program, which funds the development of ownership or rental homes for agricultural workers through grants to local governments and non-profit organizations.
   3. CalHome Program, which funds downpayment assistance, home rehabilitation, counseling, self-help mortgage assistance programs and technical assistance for self-help and shared housing through grants and loans.
2. Establishes a federal and state low-income housing tax credit program (LIHTC), which provides an indirect subsidy to incentivize the private development of affordable rental housing for low-income households.

This bill requires all state and local programs designed to facilitate home ownership or residence, including loan origination and repayment programs, downpayment assistance, and tax credits, to include manufactured housing to the extent feasible. A CalHFA loan program is deemed to comply if it includes manufactured housing in conformance with a government sponsored enterprise’s guidelines and CalHFA’s lending partners’ guidelines.

Comments

1. Purpose of the bill. According to the author, mobilehome parks and manufactured home communities are in constant decay and in high demand. In many cases, manufactured homes are the last bastion of affordable housing. Manufactured home communities house many seniors, immigrants, and individuals on fixed incomes. Many of these residents are in difficult financial situations where they could be one day away from homelessness. Even though low-income families live in mobilehome parks, parks they are not considered affordable housing. Thus, residents are excluded from resources to improve the homes, such as energy efficiency or replacement of new manufactured homes. Improving the housing stock in manufactured home communities will improve the quality of life of these residents rather than maintaining the aluminum 1970 models that are found across the state.

A recent HCD report noted that advances in technology and regulation have resulted in high-quality homes, with greater energy efficiency than past generations, and at cost that is 10 to 20 percent per square foot less than conventionally built homes. Prospective homeowners and residents should have an opportunity to apply for state and local housing programs regardless of whether they seek to purchase a manufactured or traditional single family home. To the extent that state and local programs fail to include manufactured housing, those programs may effectively prevent some applicants from purchasing an affordable manufactured home within their community.

1. Is this really a problem? According to the sponsor and supporters, this bill permits state and local housing programs that offer down-payment assistance and tax credits to include manufactured housing. It appears that all HCD programs already permit manufactured housing projects to qualify for funding. Under federal law, LIHTC may be used to finance manufactured housing that is affixed to a foundation (real estate) and rented (not sold) to the residents, however it prohibits tax credits from funding traditional parks where one party owns the land and rents spaces to homeowners. Given that federal law supersedes state law, this bill would not change these existing prohibitions.
2. Opposition. Writing in opposition to a prior version of the bill, the California Association of Realtors (CAR) would like to see this bill apply only to programs on a forward looking basis. According to CAR, single-family homes only receive about 20% of the existing affordable housing program funding. This bill requires every agency managing affordable housing funding to re-open regulations to include manufactured housing with existing operational programs, thus diverting limited resources away from single-family housing.

FISCAL EFFECT: Appropriation: Fiscal Com.: Local:

According to the Assembly Appropriations Committee:

1. Negligible state costs to HCD. All applicable programs in HCD, including rental programs, already include manufactured homes.
2. Negligible state costs to CalHFA. Under this bill, CalHFA must only include manufactured homes to the extent allowed under federal law and lending partner guidelines. Most loans for manufactured housing will continue to be excluded from CalFHA programs under this bill because CalHFA's lending partners do not provide lending for manufactured homes that are on a separately-owned lot.

SUPPORT: (Verified 9/7/17)

California Manufactured Housing Institute (source)

Golden State Manufactured Home Owners League

Western Manufactured Housing Communities Association

OPPOSITION: (Verified 9/7/17)

California Association of Realtors

ASSEMBLY FLOOR: 78-0, 9/7/17

AYES: Acosta, Aguiar-Curry, Travis Allen, Arambula, Baker, Berman, Bigelow, Bloom, Bocanegra, Bonta, Brough, Burke, Caballero, Calderon, Cervantes, Chau, Chávez, Chen, Chiu, Choi, Chu, Cooley, Cooper, Cunningham, Dababneh, Dahle, Daly, Eggman, Flora, Fong, Frazier, Friedman, Gallagher, Cristina Garcia, Eduardo Garcia, Gipson, Gloria, Gonzalez Fletcher, Gray, Grayson, Harper, Holden, Irwin, Jones-Sawyer, Kalra, Kiley, Lackey, Levine, Limón, Low, Maienschein, Mathis, Mayes, McCarty, Melendez, Mullin, Muratsuchi, Nazarian, Obernolte, O'Donnell, Patterson, Quirk, Quirk-Silva, Reyes, Ridley-Thomas, Rodriguez, Rubio, Salas, Santiago, Steinorth, Mark Stone, Thurmond, Ting, Voepel, Waldron, Weber, Wood, Rendon

NO VOTE RECORDED: Medina

Prepared by:

9/8/17 10:36:31

**** END ****

SENATE THIRD READING

STR Bill Id:SB 329

Author:(Leyva)

As Amended Ver:June 29, 2017

Majority vote

SENATE VOTE: 40-0

SUMMARY: Requires all state and local programs designed to facilitate homeownership or residence to include manufactured housing, to the extent feasible. Specifically, this bill:

1. Requires all state and local programs designed to facilitate homeownership or residence, including loan origination and repayment programs, downpayment assistance, and tax credits, to include manufactured housing, to the extent feasible.
2. Provides that a California Housing Finance Agency (CalHFA) loan program is deemed to comply with the above requirement if it includes manufactured housing in conformance with a government sponsored enterprise's guidelines and CalHFA's lending partners' guidelines.
3. Makes a number of findings and declarations regarding the importance of manufactured housing as a source of affordable housing, and that programs that facilitate home ownership should include manufactured housing.

FISCAL EFFECT: According to the Assembly Appropriations Committee:

1. Negligible state costs to HCD. All applicable programs in HCD, including rental programs, already include manufactured homes.
2. Negligible state costs to CalHFA. Under the bill, CalHFA must only include manufactured homes to the extent allowed under federal law and lending partner guidelines. Most loans for manufactured housing will continue to be excluded from CalHFA programs under this bill because CalHFA's lending partners do not provide lending for manufactured homes that are on a separately-owned lot.

COMMENTS:

Need for the bill: According to the author, "most purchasers of manufactured homes own their home as personal property and lease a home site in one of the 4,500 manufactured housing communities in California. Those purchasers may face significant difficulty in finding a "chattel" loan for their home purchase and, even when a lender is found, may be subject to more stringent requirements than would apply to the financing of an identical home built on site. SB 329 ensures that prospective homeowners and residents are eligible for all state and local programs designed to facilitate home ownership or residence regardless if their choice of housing is manufactured housing."

Background: Statewide, over 540,000 manufactured homes provide affordable housing to more than 1.4 million residents. Supporters of the bill point to HCD's recent draft housing report which found that "advances in technology and regulation have resulted in high-quality [manufactured] homes, with greater energy efficiency than past generations, and at a cost that is 10 to 20% per square foot less than conventionally built homes." Prospective homeowners and residents should have an opportunity to apply for state and local housing programs regardless of whether they seek to purchase a manufactured or traditional single family home. To the extent that state and local programs fail to include manufactured housing, those programs may effectively prevent some applicants from purchasing an affordable manufactured home within their community.

This bill would require all state and local programs designed to facilitate home ownership or residence, including rental programs, to include manufactured housing to the extent feasible. It appears that all existing HCD programs already permit manufactured housing to qualify for funding. Under federal law, the low-income housing tax credit program (LIHTC) may be used to finance manufactured housing that is affixed to a foundation (and therefore considered real estate) and rented to residents, however it prohibits tax credits from funding traditional mobilehome parks where one party owns the land and rents spaces to homeowners. Given that federal law supersedes state law, this bill would not change these existing prohibitions, but would prevent state LIHTC requirements from becoming more restrictive than federal law. It is unclear how this bill would apply to other state or local housing programs that facilitate home ownership or residence, as this is a broad category and encompasses a wide variety of ownership and rental housing programs.

Arguments in opposition: The California Association of Realtors (CAR) requests that the bill be amended to only apply to prospective, not existing, programs. According to CAR, single-family homes only receive about 20% of the existing affordable housing program funding. This bill requires every agency, department, or bureau managing affordable housing funding to re-open regulations to include manufactured housing with existing operational programs, thus diverting limited resources away from single-family housing.

Analysis Prepared by: Rebecca Rabovsky / H. & C.D. / (916) 319-2085 FN: 0001300

Date of Hearing: July 19, 2017

ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS

Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher, Chair

SBPCA Bill Id:SB 329

Author:(Leyva) – As Amended Ver:June 29, 2017

Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program: No Reimbursable: No

SUMMARY:

This bill requires all state and local programs designed to facilitate homeownership or residence to include manufactured housing, to the extent feasible. Specifically, this bill:

1. Requires all state and local programs designed to facilitate homeownership or residence, including loan origination and repayment programs, downpayment assistance, and tax credits, to include manufactured housing, to the extent feasible.
2. Provides that a California Housing Finance Agency (CalHFA) loan program is deemed to comply with the above requirement if it includes manufactured housing in conformance with a government sponsored enterprise’s guidelines and CalHFA's lending partners’ guidelines.

FISCAL EFFECT:

1. Negligible state costs to HCD. All applicable programs in HCD, including rental programs, already include manufactured homes.
2. Negligible state costs to CalHFA. Under the bill, CalHFA must only include manufactured homes to the extent allowed under federal law and lending partner guidelines. Most loans for manufactured housing will continue to be excluded from CalFHA programs under this bill because CalHFA's lending partners do not provide lending for manufactured homes that are on a separately-owned lot.

COMMENTS:

1. Purpose. According to the author, "most purchasers of manufactured homes own their home as personal property and lease a home site in one of the 4,500 manufactured housing communities in California. Those purchasers may face significant difficulty in finding a “chattel” loan for their home purchase and, even when a lender is found, may be subject to more stringent requirements than would apply to the financing of an identical home built on site. SB 329 ensures that prospective homeowners and residents are eligible for all state and local programs designed to facilitate home ownership or residence regardless if their choice of housing is manufactured housing."
2. Background. Statewide, over 540,000 manufactured homes provide affordable housing to more than 1.4 million residents. HCD's recent draft housing report found that advances in technology and regulation have resulted in high-quality manufactured homes, with greater energy efficiency than past generations, and at a cost that is 10 to 20 percent per square foot less than conventionally built homes.

Under existing law, there are a number of programs within HCD and CalHFA aimed at making housing more affordable to families and individuals, including the Multifamily Housing Program, the Joe Serna, Jr. Farmworker Housing Program, and the CalHome Program. There are also federal and state low-income housing tax credit programs which provide incentives for the private development of affordable rental housing.

The author wants to ensure that manufactured homes are a viable option for state and local housing programs.

1. Arguments in support. Supporters argue that prospective homeowners and residents should have an opportunity to apply for state and local housing programs regardless of whether they seek to purchase a manufactured or traditional single family home. They note that to the extent that state and local programs fail to include manufactured housing, those programs may effectively prevent some applicants from purchasing an affordable manufactured home within their community.
2. Arguments in opposition. The California Association of Realtors (CAR) wants the bill to only apply to prospective, not existing, programs. According to CAR, single-family homes only receive about 20% of the existing affordable housing program funding. They argue that this bill requires every agency, department, or bureau managing affordable housing funding to re-open regulations to include manufactured housing with existing operational programs, thus diverting limited resources away from single-family housing.

Analysis Prepared by: Jennifer Swenson / APPR. / (916) 319-2081

Date of Hearing: June 28, 2017

ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON HOUSING AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

David Chiu, Chair

SBPCA Bill Id:SB 329

Author:(Leyva) – As Amended Ver:May 17, 2017

SENATE VOTE: 40-0

SUBJECT: Manufactured homes: financial assistance programs

SUMMARY: Requires all state and local programs designed to facilitate homeownership or residence to include manufactured housing. Specifically, this bill:

1. Requires all state and local programs designed to facilitate homeownership or residence, including loan origination and repayment programs, downpayment assistance, and tax credits, to include manufactured housing.
2. Provides that a California Housing Finance Agency (CalHFA) loan program is deemed to comply with the above requirement if it includes manufactured housing in conformance with a government sponsored enterprise’s guidelines and CalHFA's lending partners’ guidelines.
3. Makes a number of findings and declarations regarding the importance of manufactured housing as a source of affordable housing, and that programs that facilitate home ownership should include manufactured housing.

EXISTING LAW:

1. Establishes a number of programs at the Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) and CalHFA to make housing more affordable to California families and individuals, including the following main programs:
   1. Multifamily Housing Program, which funds the new construction, rehabilitation, and preservation of permanent and transitional rental homes for lower income households through loans to local governments, non-profit developers, and for-profit developers.
   2. Joe Serna, Jr., Farmworker Housing Program, which funds the development of ownership or rental homes for agricultural workers through grants to local governments and non-profit organizations.
   3. CalHome Program, which funds downpayment assistance, home rehabilitation, counseling, self-help mortgage assistance programs and technical assistance for self-help and shared housing through grants and loans.
2. Establishes a federal and state low-income housing tax credit program (LIHTC), which provides an indirect subsidy to incentivize the private development of affordable rental housing for low-income households.

FISCAL EFFECT: According to the Senate Appropriations Committee, pursuant to Senate Rule 28.8, negligible state costs.

COMMENTS:

Need for the bill: According to the author, "most purchasers of manufactured homes own their home as personal property and lease a home site in one of the 4,500 manufactured housing communities in California. Those purchasers may face significant difficulty in finding a “chattel” loan for their home purchase and, even when a lender is found, may be subject to more stringent requirements than would apply to the financing of an identical home built on site. SB 329 ensures that prospective homeowners and residents are eligible for all state and local programs designed to facilitate home ownership or residence regardless if their choice of housing is manufactured housing."

Statewide, over 540,000 manufactured homes provide affordable housing to more than 1.4 million residents. Supporters of the bill point to HCD's recent draft housing report which found that "advances in technology and regulation have resulted in high-quality [manufactured] homes, with greater energy efficiency than past generations, and at a cost that is 10 to 20 percent per square foot less than conventionally built homes." Prospective homeowners and residents should have an opportunity to apply for state and local housing programs regardless of whether they seek to purchase a manufactured or traditional single family home. To the extent that state and local programs fail to include manufactured housing, those programs may effectively prevent some applicants from purchasing an affordable manufactured home within their community.

Staff comment: This bill would require all state and local programs designed to facilitate home ownership or residence, including rental programs, to include manufactured housing. It appears that all existing HCD programs already permit manufactured housing to qualify for funding. Under federal law, LIHTC may be used to finance manufactured housing that is affixed to a foundation (and therefore considered real estate) and rented to residents, however it prohibits tax credits from funding traditional mobilehome parks where one party owns the land and rents spaces to homeowners. Given that federal law supersedes state law, this bill would not change these existing prohibitions, but would prevent state LIHTC requirements from becoming more restrictive than federal law. It is unclear how this bill would apply to other state or local housing programs that facilitate home ownership or residence, as this is a broad category and encompasses a wide variety of ownership and rental housing programs. The Committee may wish to consider providing state and local entities with the flexibility to determine whether the inclusion of manufactured housing is feasible.

Arguments in opposition: The California Association of Realtors (CAR) requests that the bill be amended to only apply to prospective, not existing, programs. According to CAR, single-family homes only receive about 20% of the existing affordable housing program funding. This bill requires every agency, department, or bureau managing affordable housing funding to re-open regulations to include manufactured housing with existing operational programs, thus diverting limited resources away from single-family housing.

Committee amendments:

To provide flexibility to state and local programs, the Committee may wish to consider amending the bill to require all programs affected by this bill to include manufactured housing to the extent it is feasible.

The Committee amendments are as follows:

On page 2, in line 27, insert the following after "manufactured housing"

,to the extent feasible

REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION:

Support

California Manufactured Housing Institute (sponsor)

Golden State Manufactured Home Owners League

Western Manufactured Housing Communities Association

Opposition

California Association of Realtors

Analysis Prepared by: Rebecca Rabovsky / H. & C.D. / (916) 319-2085

 THIRD READING  

Bill No: SB 329

Author:

:

Vote:

SENATE TRANS. & HOUSING COMMITTEE: 11-0, 4/18/17

AYES: Beall, Cannella, Allen, Atkins, Gaines, McGuire, Mendoza, Morrell, Skinner, Wieckowski, Wiener

NO VOTE RECORDED: Bates, Roth

SENATE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE: Senate Rule 28.8

SUBJECT:

SOURCE: California Manufactured Housing Institute

DIGEST:

This bill requires all state and local programs designed to facilitate home ownership or residence to include manufactured housing.

ANALYSIS:

Existing law:

1. Establishes a number of programs at the Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) and the California Housing Finance Agency (CalHFA) to make housing more affordable to California families and individuals, including the following main programs:
   1. Multifamily Housing Program, which funds the new construction, rehabilitation, and preservation of permanent and transitional rental homes for lower income households through loans to local governments, non-profit developers, and for-profit developers.
   2. Joe Serna, Jr., Farmworker Housing Program, which funds the development of ownership or rental homes for agricultural workers through grants to local governments and non-profit organizations.
   3. CalHome Program, which funds downpayment assistance, home rehabilitation, counseling, self-help mortgage assistance programs and technical assistance for self-help and shared housing through grants and loans.
2. Establishes a federal and state low-income housing tax credit program (LIHTC), which provides an indirect subsidy to incentivize the private development of affordable rental housing for low-income households.

This bill requires all state and local programs designed to facilitate home ownership or residence, including loan origination and repayment programs, downpayment assistance, and tax credits, to include manufactured housing. A CalHFA loan program is deemed to comply if it includes manufactured housing in conformance with a government sponsored enterprise’s guidelines and CalHFA’s lending partners’ guidelines.

Comments

1. Purpose of the bill. According to the author, mobilehome parks and manufactured home communities are in constant decay and in high demand. In many cases, manufactured homes are the last bastion of affordable housing. Manufactured home communities house many seniors, immigrants, and individuals on fixed incomes. Many of these residents are in difficult financial situations where they could be one day away from homelessness. Even though low-income families live in mobilehome parks, parks they are not considered affordable housing. Thus, residents are excluded from resources to improve the homes, such as energy efficiency or replacement of new manufactured homes. Improving the housing stock in manufactured home communities will improve the quality of life of these residents rather than maintaining the aluminum 1970 models that are found across the state.

A recent HCD report noted that advances in technology and regulation have resulted in high-quality homes, with greater energy efficiency than past generations, and at cost that is 10 to 20 percent per square foot less than conventionally built homes. Prospective homeowners and residents should have an opportunity to apply for state and local housing programs regardless of whether they seek to purchase a manufactured or traditional single family home. To the extent that state and local programs fail to include manufactured housing, those programs may effectively prevent some applicants from purchasing an affordable manufactured home within their community.

1. Is this really a problem? According to the sponsors and supporters, this bill permits state and local housing programs that offer down-payment assistance and tax credits to include manufactured housing. It appears that all HCD programs already permit manufactured housing projects to qualify for funding. Under federal law, LIHTC may be used to finance manufactured housing that is affixed to a foundation (real estate) and rented (not sold) to the residents, however it prohibits tax credits from funding traditional parks where one party owns the land and rents spaces to homeowners. Given that federal law supersedes state law, this bill would not change these existing prohibitions.
2. Opposition. Writing in opposition, the California Association of Realtors (CAR) would like to see this bill apply only to programs on a forward looking basis. According to CAR, single-family homes only receive about 20% of the existing affordable housing program funding. This bill requires every agency managing affordable housing funding to re-open regulations to include manufactured housing with existing operational programs, thus diverting limited resources away from single-family housing.

FISCAL EFFECT: Appropriation: Fiscal Com.: Local:

SUPPORT: (Verified 5/22/17)

California Manufactured Housing Institute (source)

Golden State Manufactured Home Owners League

Western Manufactured Housing Communities Association

OPPOSITION: (Verified 5/22/17)

California Association of Realtors

Prepared by:

5/25/17 9:50:22

**** END ****

SENATE COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND HOUSING

Senator Jim Beall, Chair

2017 - 2018 Regular

Bill No: SB 329 Hearing Date: 4/18/2017

SUBJECT: Manufactured homes: financial assistance programs

DIGEST: This bill requires all state and local programs designed to facilitate home ownership or residence to include manufactured housing.

ANALYSIS:

Existing law:

1. Establishes a number of programs at the Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) and the California Housing Finance Agency (CalHFA) to make housing more affordable to California families and individuals, including the following main programs:
2. Multifamily Housing Program, which funds the new construction, rehabilitation, and preservation of permanent and transitional rental homes for lower income households through loans to local governments, non-profit developers, and for-profit developers.
3. Joe Serna, Jr., Farmworker Housing Program, which funds the development of ownership or rental homes for agricultural workers through grants to local governments and non-profit organizations.
4. CalHome Program, which funds downpayment assistance, home rehabilitation, counseling, self-help mortgage assistance programs and technical assistance for self-help and shared housing through grants and loans.
5. Establishes a federal and state low-income housing tax credit program (LIHTC), which provides an indirect subsidy to incentivize the private development of affordable rental housing for low-income households.

This bill requires all state and local programs designed to facilitate home ownership or residence, including loan origination and repayment programs, downpayment assistance, and tax credits, to include manufactured housing.

COMMENTS:

1) Purpose of the bill. According to the author, mobilehome parks and manufactured home communities are in constant decay and in high demand. In many cases, manufactured homes are the last bastion of affordable housing. Manufactured home communities house many seniors, immigrants, and individuals on fixed incomes. Many of these residents are in difficult financial situations where they could be one day away from homelessness. Even though low-income families live in mobilehome parks, parks they are not considered affordable housing. Thus, residents are excluded from resources to improve the homes, such as energy efficiency or replacement of new manufactured homes. Improving the housing stock in manufactured home communities will improve the quality of life of these residents rather than maintaining the aluminum 1970 models that are found across the state.

A recent HCD report noted that advances in technology and regulation have resulted in high-quality homes, with greater energy efficiency than past generations, and at cost that is 10 to 20 percent per square foot less than conventionally built homes. Prospective homeowners and residents should have an opportunity to apply for state and local housing programs regardless of whether they seek to purchase a manufactured or traditional single family home. To the extent that state and local programs fail to include manufactured housing, those programs may effectively prevent some applicants from purchasing an affordable manufactured home within their community.

2) Is this really a problem? According to the sponsors and supporters, this bill would permit state and local housing programs that offer down-payment assistance and tax credits to include manufactured housing. It appears that all HCD programs already permit manufactured housing projects to qualify for funding. Under federal law, LIHTC may be used to finance manufactured housing that is affixed to a foundation (real estate) and rented (not sold) to the residents, however it prohibits tax credits from funding traditional parks where one party owns the land and rents spaces to homeowners. Given that federal law supersedes state law, this bill would not change these existing prohibitions.

FISCAL EFFECT: Appropriation: Fiscal Com.: Local:

POSITIONS: (Communicated to the committee before noon on Wednesday,

April 12, 2017.)

SUPPORT:

California Manufactured Housing Institute (sponsor)

Golden State Manufactured Home Owners League

Western Manufactured Housing Communities Association

OPPOSITION:

None received.

-- END --