SACRAMENTO – An Assembly Bill aimed at increasing the number of affordable housing units for senior citizens in California has passed with bi-partisan support from the Senate Committee on Transportation and Housing.

Assembly Member Lori Saldaña (D-San Diego), Chair of the Assembly Committee on Housing and Redevelopment and the bill’s author, said that the state is facing a serious shortage in affordable senior housing.

“This shortage affects people we know – parents, grandparents and friends,” Saldaña said. “This is an especially acute problem for renters 62 and older, over half of whom make less than $20,000 a year.”

Saldaña said that at that income level, seniors can only afford to pay about $500 per month for rent. The market -rate rent for a one-bed­room apartment in California is $972 – or nearly twice that amount.

Saldaña’s bill, AB 927, will make projects specifically targeting seniors more competitive in the application process for the state’s Multifamily Housing Program. Funds from Proposition 1C would help to ensure that existing programs, including the Multifamily Housing Program, have access to the resources necessary keep these projects viable.

According to the state Department of Housing and Community Development, slightly more than one-tenth of the units developed through the Multifamily Housing Program since its creation in 2003 were developed specifically for seniors. These units are simply not enough to meet the growing demand.

AB 927 is co-sponsored by Aging Services of California, Housing California, the Congress of California Seniors, AARP California and the California Commission on Aging.

The bill will now be considered by the Senate Appropriations Committee.