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SEPTEMBER NEWSLETTER · ISSUE NO. 2
Cheaper, Faster, and Built to Last
News, data, and resources from the Home Is Here outreach and engagement effort at Alameda County Housing and Community Development
| | FROM THE DIRECTOR “Measure A1 taught us a great deal about what it takes to finance and build affordable homes in Alameda County, including how much time and money goes into assembling the funding for each project. This month we are sharing what we learned and the tools we are building in response, including a regional factory-built housing collaborative the state has chosen to fund. I also recently joined housing officials and public servants from across California on a trip to Vienna, a city that has provided high-quality, affordable housing at a scale few places have matched. We came home with practical lessons about keeping public investment in the community and planning for the long term, and I look forward to sharing them with you in the coming weeks.” Michelle Starratt, Director, Alameda County Housing and Community Development |
This Month: Cheaper, Faster, and Built to Last
In September, Alameda County HCD is focused on what it costs to build affordable housing and how long it takes. Land, construction, design and permitting, financing, and the work of assembling public funding each add to the cost of a new home. Together they shape how many homes our region can build and how long residents wait for them.
Measure A1 gives the County a decade of project data to learn from. Since voters approved the bond in 2016, the County has invested $425 million from it in affordable rental housing, building more than 4,000 new affordable homes, including over 1,300 for households exiting homelessness. The same data shows where time and cost accumulate. The State is moving toward simplified affordable housing financing, including a single application for state funds, and Alameda County is working to address the same challenge at the local jurisdiction level through SHIFT, the County’s approach to building affordable housing faster, in more places, and at lower cost. The resources below share those findings and the tools we are building in response.
New Outreach and Engagement Resources
| ▲ | A $3 million state grant for factory-built housing. The California Strategic Growth Council approved a $3 million Factory-Built Housing Regional Pilot Program Planning Grant to a regional collaborative led by StopWaste, with Alameda County’s SHIFT program serving as the funded proving ground for factory-built middle housing. The proposal earned the highest score of any Planning Grant among 65 applications statewide. Over the next three years, partners from Alameda and San Francisco counties will evaluate sites, document permitting pathways, design financing for small factory-built projects, and train developers and building officials. Read the announcement or learn about SHIFT. | | ▲ | The Development Simulator. An interactive tool that lets you build a sample affordable housing project, see what it costs and who pays for it, and then test how simpler funding, pre-approved designs, factory-built construction, lower-cost land, and better loan terms could change its cost and timeline. Open the Simulator. | | ▲ | Issue Brief No. 2: Learning from Measure A1. Our second issue brief examines how Measure A1 projects braided together their funding, introduces embedded subsidy as a new measure of the value of an affordable home, and describes how SHIFT applies those lessons. Read the brief. |
Inside the Development Simulator
The Development Simulator is a tool meant to communicate some of the potential savings Alameda County HCD is working to realize through policy development and implementation. It works in three steps. First, choose a project type, size, affordability level, and financing. Second, review the development cost by component, the sources that pay for it, and the separate funding commitments a developer has to win. Third, simplify how the public money arrives, how the building gets built, where the site comes from, and how the mortgage is underwritten, then compare the result with the same project built today.
 | | A small missing-middle project built today compared with the same project built with SHIFT’s tools: one upfront public loan, fee waivers, factory-built construction, and County-enhanced mortgage terms. Illustrative estimates for educational purposes. |
The simulator’s defaults draw on academic research, including the Terner Center for Housing Innovation’s analysis of how each additional funding source affects the cost and timeline of California affordable housing, and on real-world data from the 56 rental developments in the Measure A1 portfolio. That portfolio data will be published in HCD’s upcoming Measure A1 Annual Report 5.
| | HOW TO USE THE SIMULATOR The Development Simulator is an educational tool. Every project is unique, and actual costs, timelines, and funding structures depend on the site, the market, the development team, and many other factors. Its estimates are intended to show the direction and approximate scale of potential savings and to help point us toward targets. They should not be read as a budget or a prediction for any specific project. |
7.1 capital layers braided together by the average Measure A1 development | | $246M estimated cost of layering local, state, and federal funds across 56 Measure A1 developments | | $10.56 in tenant rent savings over 55 years for each $1 of Measure A1 funding, on average |
Figures from Issue Brief No. 2, based on the HCD Cost of Complexity and embedded subsidy models. Estimates, not audited results.
Three Findings Worth Repeating
Issue Brief No. 2 highlights three findings we hope partners will carry into their own conversations this month:
| ▲ | Each funding source adds time and cost. Research from the Terner Center estimates that each additional public source in a California affordable housing project adds about four months and $20,460 per home. The average Measure A1 development delivered 76 homes for $60.4 million by braiding together 7.1 layers of capital, 5.4 of them public. Applying the Terner Center estimates, securing those public layers may have added roughly $4.4 million, about 7 percent of the budget, and around ten and a half months before construction could begin. Those same sources are what allowed Measure A1 to fund as many homes as it did, and many carry requirements that help serve specific populations. | | ▲ | Affordable homes return measurable value to tenants. HCD developed a new measure, embedded subsidy, to capture the rent savings tenants receive relative to market rents over a property’s affordability term, typically 55 years. On average, each $1 of Measure A1 funding is estimated to generate $10.56 in rent savings for tenants over that term. That money supports household financial security and circulates in the local economy. | | ▲ | Simpler delivery can lower the cost per home. SHIFT pairs a single upfront per-home loan with pre-approved designs, streamlined approvals, and a pool of qualified developers to build small multifamily buildings affordable to households earning 60 to 80 percent of Area Median Income (AMI). Using the full toolkit, HCD anticipates SHIFT projects could cost at least 25 percent less per home than the Bay Area standard for new affordable construction, currently around $850,000 per home. |
On the Podcast
Podcast host Aaron Tiedemann, Housing Specialist at HCD, talks with Carrie Shores Diller, founder and principal architect of Inspired ADUs, about the challenges and opportunities of building in new ways in the Bay Area. Inspired ADUs is the County’s program partner in implementing SHIFT, and the conversation covers what it takes to move pre-approved designs, small multifamily buildings, and new construction methods from concept to construction. Listen to the episode.
In the News
| ▲ | Proposition 37 would create a loan program for middle-income buyers of new homes. The measure on the November 3 ballot would allow the California Housing Finance Agency (CalHFA) to sell up to $25 billion in revenue bonds to fund second-mortgage loans covering up to 17 percent of the price of a qualifying newly built home, for households earning up to twice the typical income in their area. Homeowners’ loan payments would repay the bonds. The San Francisco Chronicle editorial board examined the measure on September 15. Read the LAO analysis or read the Chronicle editorial. | | ▲ | California moves to a single application for affordable housing financing. In July, Governor Newsom signed Assembly Bill 179, which modernizes the state’s affordable housing finance system with a one-stop-shop application process and includes provisions to reduce development impact fees on new housing. Read the Governor’s announcement. | | ▲ | The Legislative Analyst’s Office reviews the state’s housing funding system. A March 2026 LAO budget brief describes how state affordable housing funding has long been spread across several entities and analyzes proposals to consolidate it. Read the brief. |
Get Engaged
Home Is Here is about building our network for effective outreach and engagement. Here are three ways to plug in this month:
Join the network. We want to hear who you are and how you are connected to your community. Fill out the network form (and forward it to a friend) to help us understand how to support the people in our community telling the story of why housing matters.
Show up. HCD is ready to support you by attending or promoting events and meetings where the story of housing should be represented. Suggest an event, and we will do our best to attend or refer a qualified storyteller to speak, listen, or participate.
Provide feedback. HCD is committed to providing useful, high-quality resources to our peers and community members. We welcome your feedback on any of these resources, including the Development Simulator.
Looking Ahead
Each month through November carries one key message, building toward the 10-year anniversary of the Measure A1 housing bond. Upcoming themes and releases:
| COMING SOON | Lessons from Vienna. A short video series from a recent trip to Vienna with housing officials and public servants from across California, sharing lessons from the city’s long record of affordable housing. | | OCTOBER | Home Is for the People Who Make This County Work. Homeownership and aging in place, with a focus on older adult communities. | | NOVEMBER | Ten Years of Proof: Housing Is Public Infrastructure. The Measure A1 10-year anniversary and a look at what comes next. |
Stronger and thriving communities start with a safe and secure place to call home. Questions or ideas: Stefani Katz, Stefani.Katz@acgov.org Alameda County HCD · 224 W. Winton Ave., Suite 108, Hayward, CA 94544 · 510.670.5404 |
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