Special Reports : opportunitynowsv – excerpt

California finance expert Tom Rubin analyzes MTC’s proposed $10–20 bn bond measure, which would chuck some greenbacks at jurisdictions in the name of developing/preserving affordable housing. Not only does the measure lack clear performance metrics (um, are we talking 100 or 10,000 units produced?), but it neglects key market problems—suggesting instead we hand gov’t (more) cash to figure everything out. An Opp Now exclusive.

Opportunity Now: Is it just us, or does the Metropolitan Transportation Commission’s latest proposal to invest—cough—$10–20 billion in “affordable housing” in California feel a bit déjà vu? This isn’t the first time they’ve attempted something like this, right?

Tom Rubin: MTC has been working on this big housing bond concept for years now.

Pre-Covid, their plan via CASA was to provide $2.4 billion annually in housing from about 12 different sources. However, there wasn’t much information made available about how many houses CASA would reap, and when. What made the situation even more difficult was, since it was officially a private sector thing (involving community groups and nonprofits, although public interests were represented at the table), there were not open meetings and records weren’t publicly available. Nevertheless, CASA died for a couple of reasons, COVID being one of them…(more)