California Realtors’ Fair Housing and Equity legislative package addresses housing barriers
The California Association of Realtors on Monday unveiled a Fair Housing and Equity legislative package designed to help address ongoing fair housing and equity issues that persist, especially for communities of color. The package is part of C.A.R.’S “Californians Need Housing Now” initiative, which urges the Legislature to enact policies that address California’s worsening housing affordability and availability crisis with increased housing supply and fair housing reforms. Specifically, the bills address the historic and ongoing inequities facing black, indigenous and people of color (BIPOC) that have made it harder for these communities to access and afford housing in California.
“Realtors are on the front lines fighting to overcome California’s housing supply and affordability crisis, which includes ensuring fair housing opportunities for all people,” said C.A.R. President Dave Walsh. “This legislative package is a critical first step in what must be an ongoing effort to eliminate discrimination and other barriers that have historically prevented so many families from realizing the economic and societal benefits that housing provides.”
Fair Housing and Equity legislative solutions include requiring California real estate professionals to take implicit bias training, removing discriminatory language in property records, prohibiting discrimination against people living in affordable housing and repealing Article 34 of the California Constitution.
C.A.R. recently released a report showing less than half of black households earned the minimum income needed to purchase a home as compared to whites, illustrating the homeownership gap and wealth disparity for people of color, women, people with disabilities, indigenous people and members of the LGBTQ community.
“California Realtors seek to address not only the severe shortage of housing, but also the critical issue of fair housing. Our state needs housing today, and it must be housing for all, without bias toward a person’s wealth, sex, race, culture, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability,” said Joanne Fraser, president of the Silicon Valley Association of Realtors.
C.A.R.’S Fair Housing and Equity Legislative Package includes:
• AB 491 (Gonzalez) which will ensure that multifamily properties provide the occupants of affordable units the same access to common entrances, common areas, and amenities that are available to the occupants of market-rate units and do not isolate affordable units to a specific floor or area.
• SB 263 (Rubio), which requires a licensee’s continuing education requirement to include a two-hour course on implicit bias training for real estate licensees, including actionable steps licensees can take to prevent implicit bias. It also requires the current fair housing training to include participation in interactive training where role play scenarios are used to illustrate live-experiences from the perspective of both a consumer and a licensee.
• SCA 2 (Wiener, Allen) seeks to repeal Article 34 of the California Constitution in its entirety. Enacted by voters in 1950, Article 34 requires any development comprised of “low-rent,” i.e., affordable dwellings, financed in whole or in part by federal, state or local government, be approved by voters in the jurisdiction where the project is located.
• AB 633 (Calderon), which adds California to the list of states that utilize the Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act (UPHPA), an act promoted by the Uniform Law Commission. Under current law, if several heirs jointly inherit a property and there is no will, trust or other method of conveying the property at the time of the owner’s death, one heir can go to court to force the sale of the entire property, often at below-market rates. Furthermore, heirs, particularly those financially disadvantaged, have been taken advantage of by predatory persons who buy small shares and then force these below-market sales at which they purchase the property.