The consequence of historical housing discrimination, coupled with exclusionary housing policies, means families of color simply don’t have much of a chance to build wealth or help the next generation with down payments.
CalHFA has been successful with our down payment assistance program. We also provide closing cost assistance for low- and moderate-income Californians. These effectively have helped first-time home buyers with more than $600 million in assistance over the past three years, giving them access to over $10 billion in mortgages. In 2020 alone, CalHFA helped more than 9,000 Californians achieve homeownership, with 68% of those being families of color.
We also recently released our accessory dwelling unit financing product, which is a grant for up to $25,000 to cover pre-development costs. And it is a grant — not a lien on their property like some of the other programs that have been developed. We’re targeting lower-income homeowners and low equity homeowners, with the goal of ultimately increasing their equity and providing them with another source of income. It will also help increase the rental housing stock that our state is sorely lacking. It’s a triple threat.
We started this program with $19 million, then Governor Newsom gave an additional $81 million through his California Comeback state budget. We now have a total of $100 million available for these grants and I’m challenging my team to get this money out as quickly as possible.
