Sacramento, CA – With the Secretary of State having certified the final qualified initiatives for the Nov. 6 ballot and proposition numbers assigned, the campaign to pass the statewide Veterans and Affordable Housing Act (Prop. 1) announced today combining efforts with supporters of the No Place Like Home (Prop. 2) bond measure to ensure the success of both measures this November.

“It is clear that an affordable housing and homelessness crisis of the magnitude California faces requires multiple solutions, and bringing the Veterans and Affordable Housing Act and No Place Like Home together as vital, complementary measures allows voters to maximize opportunities to build affordable housing for veterans, working families, people with disabilities, Californians experiencing homelessness and people living with mental illness,” said Lisa Hershey, Executive Director of Housing California and co-chair of the campaign.

“More than 134,000 people are languishing on our streets and huddled on sidewalks and in alleys without a home. As many as a third of the people living in these unsafe conditions are living with an untreated mental illness. By building safe housing under these two measures we can help people get the treatment and housing stability they need to stay off the streets,” said Maggie Merritt, Executive Director of the Steinberg Institute and a sponsor of No Place Like Home.

In the last 10 years, housing costs have skyrocketed, demand for affordable housing has surged and homelessness rates have swelled.

The campaign steering committee for this joint effort includes: California Housing Consortium, Housing California, Silicon Valley Leadership Group, State Building and Construction Trades Council of California, California Association of Veterans Services Agencies, Steinberg Institute, Dignity Health, Senate Pro Tem Toni Atkins, Senator Jim Beall, Assemblymember David Chiu and others to be announced in the coming weeks. Strategic leadership of the campaign will be provided by TBWB Strategies and Koenig Consulting, who look forward to working with Legislative leadership and other partners to help pass both of these important initiatives.

Governor Jerry Brown and California’s Legislature put the Veterans and Affordable Housing Act (Prop. 1) on the November 2018 ballot as part of a multi-pronged strategy in the 2017-18 State Budget to address the crisis faced by one in three California families who can’t afford the cost of housing, including veterans, low-income families and seniors, survivors of domestic violence and other vulnerable populations. 

Under the 2018-19 State Budget, the Governor and Legislature placed No Place Like Home (Prop. 2) on the November 2018 ballot to build permanent supportive housing for Californians with a serious mental illness who are homeless or at great risk of becoming homeless.

The Veterans and Affordable Housing Act is already backed by a broad coalition of veterans’ organizations, affordable housing advocates, business and labor leaders, cities, environmental groups and many more committed to helping Californians have safe, affordable homes.