Senator Kamala Harris has introduced a bill that would give tenants a refundable tax credit if their rent exceeds thirty percent of their income. This would be a dollar for dollar refund of at least one month's rent payment. You can google this by using her name and Rent Relief Act.. California legislators are particularly interested.

OK then. I don't see a problem except it's kind of a vote buying scheme at an important midterm when our country's leadership is at stake.

If their rent is over 1/3 of their income, they shouldn't be renting such an expensive place to begin with.

Woah. This is a federal thing?!

From an article--

Harris was joined in the introduction by Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), and Maggie Hassan (D-NH).

Later on--

A report by the National Low Income Housing Coalition illustrates that there is a shortage of 7.4 million affordable rental units for America’s 11.4 million extremely low-income families. According to California’s Department of Housing and Community Development, nearly 1/3 of California renters (3 million California households) are rent burdened, and California has the third highest rents in the country. More than 1.5 million households are severely rent burdened and more Americans than ever are renters. The share of US households that were renters climbed to 35 percent in 2012, up from 31 percent in 2004.

Under Harris’ Rent Relief Act, the refundable tax credit will be available to individuals who live in rental housing and pay more than 30% of their gross income for the taxable year on their rent including utilities. Eligible individuals would qualify for the tax benefit by determining the total amount spent yearly on rent, taking into account the family’s annual income, and a rate of the federal government’s established fair market rent controls.

Individuals who live in government-subsidized rental housing could claim the value of one month’s rent as a refundable tax credit. Subsidized rent is normally capped at 30% of a person’s income, making them eligible for the tax benefit for rent-burdened residents. The Rent Relief Act would give much-needed relief to lower income residents.

Ummmmm, if you can’t afford to live there, DON’T!

Why should subsidized housing people, who already don’t pay out of pocket the fair market value of rent, get EVEN MORE handouts?

If people want socialism go north or south of our boarders, or move to England or Germany there you can enjoy socialism at it best. Sen Harris with rent rebate for people who can not afford their rent. hmmm live with in your means. Of course does it surprise you with the left coast mindset. If they had their way there would be a federal rent control mandate for ALL rental units in 50 states.

" can you understand why this housing is so expensive? "

Yes, I can. Look to the arithmetic of supply & demand.

Here in CA, we have a severe shortage of housing. While I know where the benchmark of 30% of income comes from, I also understand how low-income families cannot find housing that they can afford.

CA has failed to build housing to accommodate the increase in population. They thought that they could solve the price increases that result from excessive demand by legislating rent control, but they have now learned about the damage that rent control does: it doesn't stop acceleration of rents, it results in dilapidation of housing stock and (worst of all) it discourages building of new supply which forecloses any opportunity for the problem to be solved in the future.

A local millionare who runs a project collecting money for AIDS services is bankrolling a statewide initiative to repeal rent control restrictions, like vacancy decontrol and exemption for condominiums and single-family houses.

Now, Harris and Feinstein want to get the federal government to kick in some funding to make up for CA's lack of action in dealing with the problem when they should have.

The problem of unaffordable housing is very real and no landlord should ignore it or make fun of it. When the population cannot afford housing, governments is forced to step in to try to ameliorate the problem in their inept way, and that is guaranteed to affect landlords in the form of restrictions on their freedom. Thus, it ultimately becomes the landlorda' problem.

Without figures and calculations, I expect that expatriation of all illegal immigrants would solve (at least temporarily) the present housing crisis in CA by freeing up enough housing units to reduce demand and make it more commensurate with the supply.

I think one of the problems is from economic congestion.

Look at Silicon Valley. (aka Santa Clara and San Mateo counties.) Its population was a bit under 140k in 1920. WWII hits-- it's a bit under 290k in 1940. WWII ends-- the population almost doubles to 526k in 1950. A lot of GI's are coming back, going to school (hello, Stanford!), buying up cheap land, settling down. In the next 10 years, it more than doubles, and goes up above 1.1 million by 1960. (Hello, Lockheed Martin! Hello, Apollo program! Hello, Cold War!) In the next 10 years, you're within hailing distance of 1.8 million people by 1970. 1980 crosses 2 million people. 1990 breezes past 2.4 million. 2000 chugs past 2.7 million. 2010 makes it past 2.8 million. Estimates lurched past 3 million in 2015.

You can look at your 1920's picture postcards of Santa Clara County. They have pretty cherry orchards, and slogans like "the valley of heart's delight." 100 years later, you've totally displaced the agriculture, and you've squeezed in almost 21.5 times the number of people into the same space.

Look at all the people who have their headquarters there. Google, Facebook, Apple, eBay, Adobe, San Disk, HP, Intel, Intuit, Oracle, Tesla, Visa, Cisco. And the others who have significant presence there-- Amazon, Dell, Fujitsu, GoPro, Groupon, Lucasfilm, Microsoft, Mozilla, Nokia, Panasonic, Paypal, Pixar, Sony, Square, Twitter, Uber, YouTube, Yelp, Zynga. And so many more that I don't recognize off the bat, but someone who reads the tech blogs would have no problems instantly recognizing.

I can see why technology would have been centered there from the 1940's through the early 90's. That's where a significant number of the brains were, who had a very specific skillset. Not all of them-- I know my grandfather worked with military computers in the 60's in Texas-- but a significant number of them came from Stanford, so it makes sense to put your business where it's easiest to find employees.

But we're not living in the 1960's anymore. Or the 80's. Or the 90's. Not only are we mobile, we have this concept of the Internet, and remote offices, and outsourcing, and all sorts of things that weren't feasible back in the day. Distance suddenly isn't an issue anymore. You can put your headquarters in Juneau, and 95% of your employees wouldn't have to live there, for a lot of these sorts of tech businesses.

But you can be making a quarter of a million here, and just be barely scraping by.

That's not a federal issue. That's a matter of too many companies driving up supply-and-demand into unrealistic territory, by all trying to exist in the same place at the same time. Yes, it's great to have the flexibility of a local talent pool so that if you need 13,000 people with a certain skillset, you've got 13,000 people with a certain skillset close at hand.

But New Hampshire and Oklahoma shouldn't be suffering because California is happy about its thriving economy, but wanting someone else to do something to help out with its quality of life/unrealistic rental rates/population density.

Crud.....More socialism, more vote buying.

I genuinely appreciate the insightful input, especially Moshe's and Deanna's. Very enlightening.

"If their rent is over 1/3 of their income, they shouldn't be renting such an expensive place to begin with."

But you still need cooks, bus drivers etc. in Silicon Valley, and they need someplace to live that they can afford. Unless you want your whole workforce to be illegals stacked ten to an apartment, or else people commuting 50 miles each way because they can't afford the area.

Ironically, my experience has been that the poorest people can make due on less - IF they WANT to. (If they don't have an entitlement attitude)

For example, to rent a room in my rooming house: The lest expensive in $120/wk. To qualify, net income must be a minimum of $800/ month. (that's 65%, I believe). They don't have a bunch of "stuff" to insure, fill with gas, maintain or repair. Utilities are included. (I wonder if the legislators even consider that)

DJ Thanks for your honest post. I also grew up...inspired.

Even though I can now "afford more" I have lived a frugal, cash only, lifestyle, longer than I care to admit. Once ingrained, it's a hard habit to walk away from. Admittedly, it also has it's....Consequences. ;)

Each potential purchase that I consider, is followed by a few questions....

Is this an impulse? TV..surround sound...gaming PC, sports car, etc. It almost always is. Wait three months before buying. If the desire is still there..Do it.

Does it involve maintenance?....How much?...and at what cost of time?...Proceed slowly.

Does it make an amazing memory...Yes?...proceed w vigor.

I think that an often repeated quote that I was reminded of recently, is far more articulate than I could ever be.....

"Using money you haven’t earned to buy things you don’t need to impress people you don’t like." Robert Quillen

:)

Can you imagine all the excess supply of housing, electricity , gas, food etc etc etc the USA would have if we removed all the ILLEGAL INVADERS that illegally occupy the USA.

Representation in the US House of Representatives is based on census data regarding the population, but is not based on the number of citizens. Solve the housing crunch, but give up a seat or two in the process? Not likely! :P

(Over 6% of the population and 10% of the workforce in California.)

I'm putting pencil to paper and having second thoughts on this here NEW gov't program.

I'm thinking now I could really jack up the rent cause tenant isn't paying for it all anyway. This could be a real boost in my cash flow...........