Mission Statement

The Department of Housing and Community Development’s (HCD) mission is to ensure that all Oakland residents have decent and affordable housing in healthy, sustainable neighborhoods with full access to life-enhancing services.

Learn more about who we are and what we do here.

SERVICE IMPACTS &

EQUITY CONSIDERATIONS

Enhancements 

Affordable Housing & Homelessness Solutions

1. Add $10M of Local Housing Trust Fund awards from CA Housing and Community Development (HCD), 5% of which are expected to be the City’s allocations for administration and staffing costs associated with project delivery and oversight. The non-administrative portion of the CA HCD funding award will be used to bolster funding available to fund restricted new construction affordable housing developments via the City’s Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA) process. With this increased funding, approximately 60-75 additional affordable housing rental units with long-term affordability restrictions will be funded.
   • Equity Consideration: HCD’s NOFA process for funding affordable housing construction advances the City’s racial equity by facilitating the development of housing units serving low, very low, and extremely low-income households, many of whom are comprised of BIPOC household members who have disproportionately high rent burdens and are subject to displacement pressures. These affordable housing units have long-term affordability restrictions that keep them available as a community resource for fighting displacement pressures for a minimum of 55 years.
2. Add 1.0 FTE Legal Administrative Assistant and 1.0 FTE Management Assistant to provide legal and administrative support that are critical to the daily operations of the Rent Adjustment Program. Both positions are needed to provide better support to communities that have been negatively impacted by racial disparities. The addition of these positions ensures that the division will be able to continue to provide high level critical services to Landlords and Tenants to the City of Oakland.
   • Equity Consideration: Black residents are disproportionately affected by the pandemic and housing crisis and 8.14 times more likely to receive eviction notices than other renter-occupied housing units. Black residents also spend more than 30% of their annual income for rent, 1.67 more rent burden than white households. The services that the Rent Adjustment Program provide are critically important to the City's anti-displacement efforts.
3. Adds $1.75M to support legal services and/or anti-displacement interventions ($250,000 of which is to be used for direct rental assistance) for Oakland tenants, especially those at 30% and below the Area Median Income (AMI).
   • Equity Consideration: The majority of Oakland residents are tenants, and Oakland’s BIPOC communities are disproportionately tenants who are rent-burdened where more than 30% of their monthly income is spent on housing. The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed great housing instability among tenants, with an estimated 30,000 tenants at risk of eviction. This money will support efforts to keep at-risk tenants housed beyond the federal Emergency Rental Assistance program that is expected to end summer 2022.
4. Add $425K for Legal Services for Prisoners with Children.
   • Equity Consideration: This is a council amendment approved at budget adoption and an equity statement was not developed for this item.
5. Adds $9.5M Homekey Round 3 grant funding for Permanent Local Housing Allocation (PLHA) Units for Oakland residents experiencing homelessness.
   • Equity Consideration: This is a council amendment for a new grant approved at budget adoption and an equity statement was not developed for this item.

SIGNIFICANT BUDGETARY CHANGES

FINANCIAL INFORMATION

POSITION INFORMATION