Housing: Workforce Housing Pilot Program.

Existing law, among several affordable housing programs, establishes the Local Housing Trust Fund Matching Grant Program, administered by the Department of Housing and Community Development, for the purpose of supporting local housing trust funds dedicated to the creation or preservation of affordable housing. Existing law authorizes the department to make matching grants available to cities and counties, or a city and county, and existing charitable nonprofit organizations that have created, funded, and operated housing trust funds. This bill would create the Workforce Housing Pilot Program, pursuant to which the department, subject to the appropriation of funds for that purpose, would award grant funding to eligible recipients, as defined, for the predevelopment costs, acquisition, construction, or rehabilitation of rental housing projects or units within rental housing projects that serve, and for providing downpayment assistance to, persons and families of low or moderate income. The bill would require all grant funds to be matched on a dollar-for-dollar basis, unless the eligible recipient is suffering a hardship and is unable to generate the matching funds. The bill would require the Department of Finance to determine whether an eligible recipient is suffering a hardship. The bill would require the Department of Housing and Community Development, on or before December 31 of each year in which grant funds are awarded, to provide a report to the Legislature regarding the number of grants awarded, a description of the projects funded, the number of units funded, and the amount of matching funds received. The bill would require the pilot program to operate until all appropriated funds have been awarded. The bill, upon the depletion of appropriated funds, would require the department to submit a report to the Assembly and Senate committees on appropriations evaluating the need for housing of persons and families of low or moderate income in areas that received grant funds and a recommendation on whether the pilot program should continue.