Sacramento politicians want to force a welfare housing project in your neighborhood – Here's how you stop them

Carl DeMaio

Special to the Village News

Consider this scenario: you open the newspaper and learn that a massive government-subsidized housing project for low-income and homeless individuals has been proposed for your neighborhood.

Because you are concerned that the project is too dense for your local roads to handle – and you fear that these projects are highly associated with increased crime – you immediately contact your local city council representatives to urge them to vote against approving the project.

Unfortunately, you’re in for quite a shock. Your local city council representative tells you Sacramento politicians passed new laws stripping them of their ability to reject these controversial projects and you get absolutely no say in the matter. The project is a done deal – live with it!

In fact, several laws passed since 2019 give state welfare bureaucrats the power to force cities and counties to approve these controversial projects to meet arbitrary housing density goals. Two other laws – SB 9 and SB 10 – have eliminated single-family zoning in California and allow developers to put up to 10 units each parcel previously zoned for one unit.

Worse, if projects are government-subsidized and rent-controlled, they escape even more local oversight and approvals.

Currently there is just one protection still standing in the way of these state politicians in their crusade to put a low-rent housing project in your area: the state constitution.

Currently, Article XXXIV of the state constitution requires majority approval by the voters of a city or county for the development, construction, or acquisition of a government-subsidized welfare housing project. Specifically, the state constitution requires the following:

California politicians are placing the Senate Constitutional Amendment (SCA-2) on the ballot in the March 2024 statewide election to repeal Article XXXIV – and eliminate your right to vote down the controversial project. If passed, SCA-2 will be the final nail in the coffin of homeowners having any say in what projects are forced into their neighborhoods.

Worse, state politicians know that voters overwhelmingly oppose these dense and controversial government-subsidizing housing projects in their neighborhoods. But you can bet the politicians will give SCA-2 a highly deceptive ballot title to try to fool voters into approving it – something that says SCA-2 will be the “magic bullet” that solves the housing crisis that state and local politicians have created with costly and unnecessary regulations.

In reality, a Yes vote on the SCA-2 initiative would simply eliminate local control and allow Sacramento bureaucrats to force-feed bad projects into neighborhoods that don’t want them. Maintaining local control allows cities and counties to support or not support projects that fit with the character of the community and maintain certain standards and quality of life.

There’s no doubt that California needs to address the problem of housing costs – but most of the costs stem from unnecessary state regulations – and nothing in SCA-2 fixes that problem.

I urge you to join the campaign opposing SCA-2 by visiting http://www.KeepHousingLocal.com.

Carl DeMaio is Chairman of Reform California and host of the drive-time radio show The DeMaio Report on KOGO 600AM.