August 5, 2014 - It will provide projects within San Diego County with $31.5 million, within Los Angeles County with $23.1 million, within Bay Area counties with $9.9 million and within Orange County and the Inland Empire with $5.6 million, leaving an untargeted balance of $31.5 million, according to the framework released this summer.
A combined effort by CalVet, California Department of Housing and Community Development and the California Housing Finance Agency, the veteran’s housing program derives its funding from a pair of ballot issues: Proposition 12 (2008), intended to help veterans buy single-family homes, and Prop. 41 (2014), to support multifamily housing.
The program expects to begin doling out funds in June 2015, according to the California Department of Veterans Affairs.
It will take public comment on its draft guidelines beginning in September. It has targeted November for the release of final program guidelines, an initial Notice of Funding Availability and application.
Workshops will be held in November and December, with March 2015 tentatively set as an initial application deadline.
The funding is the first installment of about $545 million that will be paid out over several years in an effort to stem the tide of homelessness in the nation’s largest veteran population.
The program’s goals are to:
- Provide for the acquisition, construction, rehabilitation and preservation of affordable multifamily supportive housing, transitional housing and rental housing;
- Provide at least half of the funding to provide housing for veteran households with extremely low incomes;
- Prioritize projects housing that combine housing with services such as job training, mental health and drug treatment, case management, care coordination and physical rehabilitation; and
- Establish and implement programs focusing on homeless veterans or veterans at risk for homelessness.
For more detailed information about the program is available online, including the draft program framework and a PowerPoint presentation on that framework.
More information is also available online.
The League of California Cities supported AB 639 (Perez), which restructured Prop. 12, and the subsequent Prop. 41.
