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Key November 2016 Ballot Initiatives Community Vision Supports:
Funding for Affordable Housing – SUPPORT
With home and rental prices skyrocketing in the Bay Area and beyond, combined with the disappearance of state funding sources, it is more important now than ever to develop local sources of capital to support affordable housing initiatives. We are supporting three county measures that will provide significant funding for affordable housing development:
- Measure A, Santa Clara County – This $950 million Homelessness and Housing Bond invests in our most vulnerable communities to end homelessness and help everyone have a roof over their head. It’s a game changing investment in permanent supportive housing, homes for very low-income seniors, veterans, families and people with disabilities, as well as working families and first-time home buyers.
- Measure A1, Alameda County – This $580 million affordable housing bond will fund development of new rental opportunities, first-time and second-chance home ownership, and an Innovation Fund to allow pre-qualification for funding and rapid response that protects existing affordability.
- Measure K, San Mateo County – A 20-year sales tax extension increasing the County’s multi-million dollar annual commitment to affordable homes to reflect the crisis seniors, veterans, families and people with disabilities are experiencing today.
Oakland Measure HH & San Francisco Proposition V – Sugar Sweetened Beverage Tax 2016 – SUPPORT
With our new programmatic focus on healthy food access, Community Vision is working in alignment with policy organizers, nonprofits and businesses that are establishing an equitable food system that ensures access to healthy, affordable, culturally appropriate food. Community Vision prioritizes projects that include substantive education and outreach components that engage local residents, building a base of consumers who become educated to make wiser choices toward healthy lifestyles, and increasing the likelihood of improved diet and health outcomes.
Community Vision supports both measures which would create a one cent-per-ounce tax on the distribution of sugar-sweetened beverages in Oakland and San Francisco, including products such as soda, sports drinks, sweetened teas, and energy drinks but exempting milk products, 100% juice, baby formula, diet drinks, or drinks taken for medical reasons. The policy includes an exemption for small business with annual gross sales less than $100,000. These policies are each estimated to raise between $6-$12 million per year that will go into the general fund and be spent on education and youth programs as guided by a panel of health experts and community members.
Proposition C San Francisco – SUPPORT
In 1992, voters approved a $350 million earthquake bond, which provided loans to retrofit brick buildings after the Loma Prieta Earthquake. Less than half of those funds were used. Those previously authorized funds can be reallocated to provide other critical life and safety upgrades, at the same time helping to preserve these buildings as affordable housing.
Proposition C would expand the eligible uses of a 1992 seismic safety bond to include the rehab of other “at-risk” multi-unit buildings, including “soft story” seismic retrofits and other fire, safety, and code upgrades, and allow non-profit affordable housing developers to acquire and convert them to permanently-affordable housing.
