​The California Mortgage Relief Program offers up to $80,000 in assistance to residents within specific income limits who have missed at least two mortgage payments or have overdue property taxes.
At the end of July, the delinquency cutoff date for missed payments was expanded from March 1 to Aug. 1, 2023.

“We understand many homeowners are still grappling with the financial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Rebecca Franklin, president of the CalHFA Homeowner Relief Corp., in a statement. “Resetting the delinquency date means more families can now qualify for our program.”
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But due to limited outreach efforts, the program has gone somewhat under the radar, officials and advocates acknowledge. They say they are trying to get the word out to the many struggling homeowners who may benefit. 

They add that because of requirements including mortgage type and size, qualifying for the money can be more difficult in the Bay Area — one of the most expensive housing markets in the country. And even for those who may qualify, the application process can be daunting, advocates say.
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Here’s a look at the program and advice from officials and advocates on how to find out if you qualify, how to apply, and what to do if at first you don’t succeed.

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Fair Housing Advocates of Northern California (FHANC), based in Marin County, California is a unique agency, that proudly participates in both the Fair Housing Initiatives Program (FHIP) and is a HUD-approved Housing Counseling Agency (HCA). FHANC provides bi-lingual fair housing counseling services, pre-purchase counseling/education, mortgage foreclosure prevention services and advisory and training services across Marin, Sonoma, and Solano county.

Last year, FHANC provided counseling or education services to 4,843 clients. 80 percent of their fair housing clients were Latiné and Black/African American and 95 percent are extremely low to low-income. Issues of fair housing choices, equal opportunities, and inclusive communities free from discrimination remain central to FHANC and the work they do for their clients.
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For these reasons, Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) is at the core of FHANC’s values and mission. As an HCA and FHIP agency, FHANC positions itself to address AFFH in a distinct way by:

• Conducting education and outreach to the community so that people understand the issues as featured here: Fair Housing Literature - Fair Housing Advocates of Northern California.
• Hosting an annual Fair Housing Conference in which topics are centered around AFFH and systemic discrimination. Previous conference topics have included reparations, appraisal discrimination, and source of income discrimination.
• Advocating for fair housing laws and policies and providing meaningful input in a variety of ways, including public participation in important policy decisions and processes centered around fair housing legislation such as California’s Housing Elements requirement, tenant protections and the Fair Chance Act.
• Collaborating with partners at the local, state, and federal level to remove barriers for fair housing. For example, FHANC works with Marin County on affirmative marketing strategies for recipients of Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funding. They work with applicants to ensure that they understand their role in AFFH and how they can ensure that people least likely to apply to their programs receive directed outreach.

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Airbnb, the short-term-rental behemoth, announced today that it’s putting “Rooms”—the concept that basically jump-started the sharing-economy movement back in 2008—front and center on its platform. 
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This “touches the soul of the company,” said Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky in a press conference ahead of the announcement. Though the company has always offered travelers the ability to book a room in a shared space—the original Airbnb proposition—those lower-budget stays took the backseat over the past decade as the company emphasized its inventory of entire houses and apartments, and even staffed luxury villas.

With the relaunched Rooms, Airbnb is highlighting these shared spaces in a tab right on the home screen, allowing travelers to more easily search for them. It’s also eliminating some of the discomfort around staying with a stranger by including a “Host Passport” alongside each listing, which includes biographical info about the host, along with dating app-style prompts about their personality. 
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This focus on Rooms could help the company earn back goodwill from travelers who have become increasingly vocal about rising prices on Airbnb. (The average daily rate of an Airbnb listing has increased 36% since 2019, according to David Stephenson on the company’s most recent earnings call.) Currently, Airbnb has one million Rooms on its platform, with an average price of $65 a night, said Chesky. Along with Rooms, the company is also introducing new features that make it easier for travelers to see the total price of a stay for any style of accommodation, to avoid sticker shock. They’re part of a larger push by the company to fix some of its core design issues.

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Section 8 vouchers have been one of the federal government’s landmark responses to unaffordable housing for half a century. But too often in California, families sit on a waitlist for years only to see their once-golden ticket expire before they can find a home.

A fresh batch of emergency vouchers became available last year to address growing housing insecurity during the deadly COVID-19 pandemic — and local and federal officials watching their rollout believe the new vouchers’ features already offer some promising solutions to a broken system.
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Housing choice vouchers, added in 1974 to Section 8 of the federal Housing Act of 1937, allow low-income tenants to pay only 30% of their income toward rent and utilities while Uncle Sam shoulders the rest. These vouchers have helped pay rent for more than 300,000 households in California this year, totaling $1.9 billion in assistance.

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​A settlement has been reached with one of the parties named in a lawsuit that grabbed national attention for its allegations of racial bias in a Marin County home appraisal.

A nonprofit fair-housing legal advocacy group that brought the federal lawsuit with the homeowners announced a settlement deal with AMC Links LLC, a Utah-based appraisal management company named in the December 2021 federal lawsuit brought by homeowners Tenisha and Paul Tate-Austin. Terms of the agreement are confidential.

But the case is ongoing against the other defendants — appraiser Janette Miller and her San Rafael company, Miller and Perotti Real Estate Appraisals Inc. of San Rafael, according to Caroline Peattie, executive director of Fair Housing Advocates of Northern California.

“We are in the discovery phase now, and the case is set for trial for fall of 2023,” Peattie told the Business Journal in an email Wednesday.

According to the complaint, Miller’s appraisal of the home was based on the race of the couple, who are Black, and Marin City neighborhood. The couple bought a Pacheco Street home in Marin City for $550,000 in December 2016 and refinanced it in 2020.

Miller valued the home at $995,000. The couple thought that was low and had another appraiser evaluate it. But first, they removed indications of the racial background of the owners. That valuation came in $1.48 million, close to the median market value for Marin at the time, court documents said.

Attorneys for Miller and her firm filed an answer in mid-September to an amended complaint, denying the allegations and calling for a jury trial.

The real estate industry has been coming to terms with bias in the business in recent years. The National Association of Realtors issued new guidelines in 2020 to guard against discrimination.

And earlier this month, the California Association of Realtors issued an apology for its endorsement in the 1950s and 1960s of “racial zoning, ‘redlining’ and racially restrictive covenants” and opposition to the state’s first fair-housing laws.

Peattie said her organization has filed two other administrative appraisal complaints about racial bias. One is with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity group, and the other with California’s Civil Rights Department.
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She said the agencies are investigating the claims, but the matters haven’t been resolved yet.

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If this week is any indication, Attorney General Rob Bonta is on a mission.
On Wednesday, he announced that his office would conduct an independent investigationinto last year’s redistricting in the city of Los Angeles following the explosive publication of a secretly recorded meeting in which three city council members and an influential labor leader could be heard making racist comments, insulting their colleagues and plotting how to draw city council district boundaries to consolidate Latino political power.

• Bonta said in a statement: “The decennial redistricting process is foundational for our democracy and for the ability of our communities to make their voices heard — and it must be above reproach. The leaked audio has cast doubt on a cornerstone of our political processes for Los Angeles.” 
• Nury Martinez, who stepped down as council president on Monday, announced her resignation Wednesday. Gov. Gavin Newsom applauded the move, but stopped short of calling on Kevin de León and Gil Cedillo, the other council members present at the meeting, to resign. The governor’s reticence marks a sharp departure from other top Democratic officials: President Joe Biden on Tuesday said all three council members should step down. 

Also Wednesday, Bonta issued an update on his office’s efforts to limit the spread of fentanyl, a super-powerful synthetic opioid largely responsible for record-high fatal overdoses in California. Since April 2021, Bonta said, his office has seized more than 4 million fentanyl pills and nearly 900 pounds of fentanyl powder and performed more than 200 arrests. 

• The update may have also served as an implicit clapback at Nathan Hochman, the Republican former federal prosecutor running against Bonta for attorney general. Hochman has repeatedly slammed his Democratic opponent for failing to act aggressively on fentanyl, including in a campaign ad that says California has seen a 2,100% uptick since 2016 in the number of residents under age 24 dying from fentanyl poisoning.

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SONOMA COUNTY, CA — Section 8 renters in three North Bay counties including Sonoma face widespread discrimination, a newly released report alleges.

Tests conducted in Sonoma County revealed the highest incidence of race discrimination (63 percent) and source of income discrimination (88 percent), with 92 percent revealing at least some evidence of either or both, according to the Fair Housing Advocates of Northern California (FHANC) study’s findings.

California residents receiving housing choice vouchers (also known as “Section 8”) are protected from discrimination under amendments to the California Fair Employment and Housing Act made in January 2020.
The amendments made it illegal to discriminate against or exclude tenants and applicants because they have a Section 8 voucher.

Housing providers in Solano County evidenced the least discrimination, with 32 percent of tests revealing evidence of race discrimination and 44 percent revealing evidence of source of income discrimination.
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MARIN COUNTY, CA — Section 8 renters in three North Bay counties including Marin face widespread discrimination, a newly released report alleges.

Two thirds of Marin landlords in eight municipalities revealed at least some evidence of discrimination based on race, income, or both, according to the Fair Housing Advocates of Northern California (FHANC) study’s findings.

The San Rafael-based nonprofit investigated properties in Greenbrae, Kentfield, Larkspur, Mill Valley, Novato, San Anselmo, San Rafael, and Sausalito.

California residents receiving housing choice vouchers (also known as “Section 8”) are protected from discrimination under amendments to the California Fair Employment and Housing Act made in January 2020.
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The amendments made it illegal to discriminate against or exclude tenants and applicants because they have a Section 8 voucher.

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MARIN COUNTY, CA — A Marin landlord has agreed to comply with state law and pay a fair housing advocacy group $25,000 after allegedly refusing to accept housing vouchers, the state’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing said Wednesday in a news release.

A housing discrimination complaint filed by Fair Housing Advocates of Northern California (FHANC) precipitated the agreement, the DFEH said.

The complaint alleged that the owners of Bon Air Apartments, a large Greenbrae apartment complex refused to rent to prospective tenants who would have used housing choice (formerly known as Section 8) vouchers to help pay their rent.

State law prohibits discrimination based on a tenant’s source of income, including use of a housing choice voucher.

The dispute was resolved through mediation with the DFEH’s Dispute Resolution Division.

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