SACRAMENTO, CA — Governor Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 2089, authored by Assemblymember Chris Ward (D-San Diego), to streamline California’s welfare property tax exemption process and reduce unnecessary administrative burdens on affordable housing providers.
The welfare exemption provides critical property tax relief for qualifying nonprofit affordable housing developments. AB 2089 improves the process by allowing county assessors to accept electronic signatures and requiring counties to make annual tenant-income recertification forms available by November 15 each year.
“Every dollar we can keep invested in affordable housing is a dollar that can help preserve homes and keep people housed,” said Assemblymember Chris Ward. “AB 2089 makes commonsense improvements to an unnecessarily complicated process, saving affordable housing providers time and money while providing greater consistency and transparency across California.”
“With operational costs continuing to rise, savings from the welfare tax exemption are critical to the financial health of affordable housing developments,” said Jimar Wilson, Enterprise Community Partners VP and Southern California Market Leader. “AB 2089 is an important step to streamlining the exemptions process while also providing greater transparency, and we are grateful for this progress.”
“As California's nonprofit housing finance experts, the California Housing Partnership sees firsthand the challenges housing providers face in assembling the complicated layers of financing needed to get new affordable homes over the finish line,” said California Housing Partnership Associate Director, Policy Advocacy Tiyesha Watts. “The welfare property tax exemption is a lifeline for nonprofit housing providers to make their developments pencil, but the rules are complex and their local application, uneven. Thanks to Assemblymember Ward’s leadership, AB 2089 will make several small but meaningful improvements to the exemption process that should save time and money and prevent displacement of residents from their homes.”
AB 2089 also extends an existing provision through the 2028–29 fiscal year that allows certain rent-restricted units to continue qualifying as lower-income housing when a tenant’s income later increases, helping preserve stability for residents and affordable housing developments.