(a) The Legislature finds and declares that, as a result of public actions involving highways, public facilities, and urban renewal projects, and as a result of poverty and the spread of slum conditions and blight to formerly sound neighborhoods, there exists within the urban and rural areas of the state a serious shortage of decent, safe, and sanitary housing which persons and families of low or moderate income, including the elderly and handicapped, can afford. This situation creates an absolute present and future shortage of supply in relation to demand, as expressed in terms of housing needs and aspirations, and also creates inflation in the cost of housing, by reason of its scarcity, which tends to decrease the relative affordability of the state’s housing supply for all its residents.
(b) To provide a decent home and suitable living environment for every California family is the basic housing goal of state government. The Legislature recognizes that the California Statewide Housing Plan shows the magnitude of this goal by documenting a substantial need for rehabilitation of existing housing, demolition and replacement of severely dilapidated housing, construction of new apartments, houses, and mobilehomes, construction or rehabilitation of housing for year-round hired and seasonal farmworkers as well as housing for migrant farmworkers, and the provision of financial assistance to a substantial number of lower income households in order to meet standards for affordable rent or housing cost. Private enterprise and investment, without governmental assistance, cannot economically achieve the needed construction of decent, safe, and sanitary housing at rents or purchase prices which persons and families of low or moderate income can afford, nor can it provide the urgently needed rehabilitation of existing housing. The Legislature also recognizes the need to provide assistance to persons and families of low and moderate income and very low income households to purchase manufactured housing and to cooperatively own the mobilehome parks in which they reside and the need to increase the supply of manufactured housing affordable to persons and families of low and moderate income and very low income households.
(c) The shortage of decent, safe, and sanitary housing is inimical to the safety, health, and welfare of the residents of the state and sound growth of its communities.
(d) In order to remedy such shortages, it is the intent of the Legislature in enacting this division to provide a comprehensive and balanced approach to the solution of housing problems of the people of this state.
(e) This section shall not be interpreted as requiring state actions to meet housing goals without legislative authorization, or as requiring such legislative action.
(Amended by Stats. 1982, Ch. 466, Sec. 73.)