Congrats, Cali

Here is a link to the editorial I analyzed: https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-01-19/ceqa-exemption-affordable-housing

Growing up in a small town in Nebraska, I didn’t see many homeless people or people struggling with housing. I came from a town that helps each other when we’re struggling. We offer work when we can or work with people till they can get payments for housing.  When visiting bigger cities like Seattle it’s completely different from my small hometown. I see the little colonies made of tents and tarps and people on every corner asking for spare change. There are people on every corner begging for money or some kind of help. It’s a strange sight to see coming from a small town.

Bigger cities like Los Angeles are also covered in tent cities filled with people that have no permanent housing, but with a new bill some areas are changing. An editorial in the Los Angeles Times warns that the state of California is going to make it harder to block homeless and affordable housing for its citizens, which is a step in the right direction.

Before I analyze this editorial and go into my comments on it, I want to give some background behind it. This will make it easier for myself and hopefully others to understand. So far, just from the title I can tell I can get behind this idea. Why make it harder for people to find shelter when they’re already struggling? We should be helping people who are struggling because that’s what I would want from others if the roles were reversed.

A new bill, the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), that was signed a few months ago by Governor Gavin Newsom is going to make building homeless housing faster and easier in the city of Los Angeles. Eventually, they want to expand the bill to the state of California. The bill will also block any lawsuits from people trying to block these homeless shelters being built in their neighborhoods. The city wanted to put a 154-bed shelter on an abandoned bus yard and someone tried filing a lawsuit against it. A judge threw it out. Many shelters have been requesting the same protection to help give these people a warm place to stay.

Assemblyman Miguel Santiago is proposing the Assembly Bill 1907 that would protect these shelters and housing projects that are for low-income renters. A bill like this would assure low-income and once homeless dwellers that they will continue to have a warm house to live in. The bill if passed would be terminated in 2029

A bill like CEQA would take some of the worry off of the residents living in the shelters and low-income housing so they can focus on getting a better paying, stable job that will help them to focus on providing for themselves and their family. Sometimes I don’t understand why some states and cities make it so hard for homeless people to have shelter. I don’t understand why some places try to make it hard for any person to be successful. Sometimes it’s just hard enough focusing on paying bills, living a healthy lifestyle, and having enough time to enjoy yourself. I feel like I‘m struggling with working two jobs, being a full-time student, and paying bills.

The article states that in a count done in 2019 for the state of California had over 150,000 homeless people who are unsheltered. This was a 16% increase from the year before. There’s so many people sleeping in cars and on sidewalks, and states need to realize this is a serious problem. We’re in a crisis and we need to do something to fix it or the situation is only going to get worse.

There is a growing number of homeless residents living in the state of California. If the state wants to slow that number down, then the state needs to make an effort to expand on the number of low-priced housing units. In the state of California one in three households are spending more than half of their income on rent. This leaves most families so close to losing their homes. Sometimes I fear if my rent every went up or if I decided to live on my own and not with roommates I wouldn’t be able to afford my rent. It also scares me since I want to move to Washington how it will affect me. Will I be able to afford a small home with a minimum wage job? Will I have to work more than full time and possibly have more than one job? I even worry about this kind of stuff like money and housing while living in Kearney where the rent isn’t that high.

If California built more housing that was reserved for low-income families then it would help get homeless people off the streets and could help prevent some of these low-income residents from ending up homeless. Most low-income families struggle to keep up on payments but giving them the option of this housing has potential to help these residents from becoming homeless. The state has already put up billions of dollars that is going towards the development of the affordable housing it’s just a matter of keeping these projects away from bureaucracy.

CEQA was formed over 40 years ago and is used as a way to inform, protect, and empower the public by forcing these building developers to expose the environmental effects and potential harm the projects might cause. This bill is important to keep residents informed of what people of power are trying to do in the area. Bills like CEQA help keep these higher up people dependable. It has also been vital to making numerous projects better since the start of CEQA.

Residents of California don’t have to worry about CEQA every being a problem, just about how the laws are being used or often times, abused. It often seems that people with power are known to abuse their power to get what they want, even if it means taking away potential housing opportunities for some people. Some people are known to slow down projects with costly lawsuits that aren’t doing anything to manage environmental protection.

CEQA projects still have to meet state standard codes, local ordinances, and building standings. Just because it’s a program that can build houses fast, doesn’t mean they can do it without proper regulations. Builders still have to check for environmental issues like soil contamination and earthquake faults that are going to potentially damage the future homes being built there. Since there are some CEQA exemptions that make it so they don’t have to go through all the steps to build housing, it makes it a little easier and faster to get people off of the streets and into an actual home. This is ideally the main goal, get as many people off the streets and into safe housing as quickly as possible.

Overall, I think this bill is going to be successful. Not just for the process to building these low-income housing faster, but for providing a secure place for these people to live. It will take off some of the stress from these low-income and no income families and give them a much-needed break. This bill will benefit some of the residents who need help the most.