Dear friends,

SB 423 just passed the Assembly Housing Committee, thanks in part to your calls and emails. That's great news. But we still have a lot of work ahead to pass this important legislation.

Sen. Scott Wiener's SB 423 extends and expands the provisions of SB 35 to 2036. This landmark housing bill, passed in 2017, has produced thousands of new subsidized affordable homes across California. That includes 2,000 homes in San Francisco alone.

But SB 35 expires in 2025. SB 423 extends it to 2036 and ensures the law continues to reduce housing costs by helping to accelerate construction of new, affordable and mixed-income homes in the places they’re most needed.

California YIMBY is launching a major grassroots campaign to help SB 423 pass the Assembly Natural Resources Committee and then pass on the Assembly floor. Last month we helped pass it in the State Senate. Its passage in the Assembly is not a sure thing. We need your help.

Send a message to your Assemblymember urging them to vote YES on SB 423!

Illustration of a construction worker rolling out the red carpet for an apartment building

Since its original passage, SB 35 has allowed for streamlined, ministerial approval of nearly 20,000 homes across our state – the majority affordable to low-income residents.

Extending SB 35 is valuable in itself. But SB 423 does even more to help bring more homes to cities across California that are suffering from the housing shortage and affordability crisis.

Where SB 35 excelled at expediting subsidized homes for low-income people, SB 423 expands the provisions of SB 35 to enable more mixed-income housing – so middle-income workers who don't qualify for housing subsidies can also benefit from the law.

These provisions include requiring strong labor standards that guarantee good wages and benefits for construction workers, while allowing greater contractor flexibility to ensure (well paid!) workforce availability.

And since SB 35 only applied in jurisdictions that failed to meet their state housing goals for specified income levels, mixed-income housing often never qualified – in large part because the goals themselves were too low. California YIMBY and our partners helped pass stronger housing goals that will ensure many more mixed-income projects will qualify under SB 423.

In addition, SB 423 includes "high resource" coastal communities that had been exempted from SB 35, such as Santa Cruz, Coronado, Venice, and Santa Monica. This will help make it possible for more Californians to live in areas with great schools, walkable neighborhoods, good jobs, and amenities like parks and health care services.

We've helped build a broad coalition to support SB 423. The California Conference of Carpenters is one of the bill's co-sponsors – and union carpenters have shown up in big numbers at rallies across the state to support this bill. The Laborers, several other construction unions, and SEIU California have also joined in support of SB 423.

The Greenbelt Alliance is also backing this important bill, as are our other co-sponsors, the California Housing Consortium, LISC, and the Inner City Law Center. It's a growing coalition. And we're going to need everyone’s help to overcome the opposition.

The same provisions that make SB 423 so promising for new housing are drawing fire from critics who don't want new housing in their communities. The League of California Cities has spoken out against it, and some of the usual suspects in those high resource communities on the coast are hoping to gut the bill before it passes the Assembly.

The next committee hearing for SB 423 is in Assembly Natural Resources on July 10. That's just two weeks away. Now is the time to make your voice heard.

So, if you're ready to help build more affordable housing across California and support good wages for the workers who build it, send an email to your Assemblymember today urging them to vote YES on SB 423!

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Thank you for your advocacy, energy, and passion that helps us make a California that's more affordable and equitable for everyone.

Gratefully,

Brian

Brian Hanlon
President and CEO
California YIMBY

California YIMBY is a movement dedicated to ending our state’s housing crisis and building a more inclusive, affordable, and accessible state for ALL Californians. If you were forwarded this email, you can join our movement here. DONATE NOW » Want to keep track of housing issues and the YIMBY movement? Sign up for the HomeWork, our newsletter here.

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