The mission of the Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) is to provide leadership, policies and programs aimed to the preservation and expansion of safe and affordable housing opportunities and to promote strong communities for all Californians.
In accordance with its mission statement, HCD s main responsibilities are to:
- Advocate and support housing development for all Californians. HCD develops the Statewide Housing Plan and assists cities and counties with the housing element of their General Plans. It also monitors the use of housing funds by local Redevelopment Agencies as well as provides technical assistance and statistical data to the Governor, members of the Legislature and the public. Although many parts of the department assist, the division of Housing Policy Development primarily carries out these tasks.
- Develop, administer and enforce building codes, manufactured housing standards and mobile-home park regulations. HCD registers and issues titles on mobilehomes, oversees the construction of manufactured housing, licenses the professionals who sell manufactured housing and regulates mobilehome parks. The Department also works with industry and other governmental agencies to develop building codes for both conventional and manufactured housing. These functions are primarily handled by the Division of Codes and Standards.
- Administer State and federal housing, community development and childcare facilities finance programs. HCD administers a number of loan and grant programs for these purposes. These loans and grants are awarded to local governments, non-profit and for-profit developers of rental and ownership housing, community infrastructure and childcare buildings. The Division of Community Affairs handles these programs.
To fulfill its housing administrative financing responsibilities, HCD has in place several programs that help the development and preservation of affordable housing. The programs offer loans, grants or both to localities, developers, non-profits and individuals that engage in the construction, development or rehabilitation of housing units. The overarching goal of this help is to produce more affordable housing and to increase the rates of homeownership of low- and median-income households.
HCD programs sometimes are multi-folded and thus, have funds available for more than one housing activity. For instance, a program like CalHome funds new construction, acquisition and rehabilitation of single-family and multifamily housing projects, and tenant-based assistance.
HCD works directly with local governments, counties, non-profits, for-profits, and in some instances, income eligible families and individuals, in order to allocate the financing resources needed toward specific housing uses. The best way to find the right program for a determined activity (and all of its requirements) is to consult the Loan and Grant Program Directory of HCD.
This directory lists all of the housing programs available for California by: purpose, assistance type, terms, eligible activities, eligible applicants, application procedures, and contact information for all the programs offered.
In addition to the links mentioned above, it is also important to visit HCD s website to become familiar with the housing resources the agency has developed:
- Affordable Housing Preservation: Information on the preservation of government-assisted projects at-risk of conversion to market rate, state preservation notice requirements and charts, and status reports.
- Building Codes and Standards: Information on the nine programs the Division of Codes and Standards administers which address manufactured and factory built housing issues; and employee housing, code enforcement and state housing law issues.
- Financial Clearinghouse: A source of information on over 200 housing programs, government, private lenders and foundation grants, all of which are non-HCD funding sources.
- HCD Loans and Grants: Contains a calendar of funding and links to recent developments in rental housing, guidelines for homebuyer programs, monitoring and management of HCD programs, proposition 46 and publications.
- Housing Planning and Statistics: Information on housing topics technical assistance (i.e. NIMBY resources), state housing planning (i.e. housing element), state plans and reports (i.e. redevelopment agencies report), and links to federal plans and reports.
- Income Limits: State income limits and income limits for California-administered CDBG and HOME programs.
- Redevelopment Agency Data: Reports, activities, and technical assistance for form-completion
- Registration and Titling: Laws, regulations, program activities, contacts, and investor links against fraud.
Other important HCD links:
Notices of Funding Availability: (NOFAs) Information on funding availability for HCD s programs.
Proposition 46 Programs List: Information on programs funded by the Housing and Emergency Shelter Trust Fund Act of 2002 $2.1 billion dollar bond measure .
HOUSING PRIMER
