Senate Housing Committee debates homelessness, transit zoning and housing tools; most measures moved to next committees

The California State Senate Housing Committee met to consider a broad slate of housing bills and heard lengthy testimony on homelessness, zoning near transit, accessory dwelling units (ADUs), mobile‑home park recovery after wildfire and other housing reforms.

Senator Catherine Blake Spear opened the hearing with SB 16, a bill refocused on ending unsheltered homelessness. “We need to focus all efforts on getting to functional 0 in street homelessness,” Senator Blake Spear said, urging the state to plan and provide funding tools to reduce the number of people sleeping outdoors. Witnesses from the New California Coalition and Dignity Moves described interim, non‑congregate housing models that they said move people off the streets more effectively than tents. Micah Weinberg, policy director at the New California Coalition, described the state’s share of the nation’s unsheltered population and urged an outcome measured by people off the streets rather than dollars spent. Elizabeth Funk, CEO of Dignity Moves, urged the committee to support “interim housing” that can be scaled quickly. The author accepted committee amendments and the committee recorded that SB 16 moved forward to the Health Committee as amended (committee vote recorded in the hearing record; subsequent roll call in the transcript shows SB 16 advanced to the next committee).

The committee then spent a substantial portion of the hearing on SB 79, Senator Scott Wiener’s proposal to increase housing capacity near high‑quality transit. Wiener framed the bill as an effort to upzone land around “our best transit” and to make such parcels eligible for state streamlining; he said the change would support lower vehicle miles traveled and expand access to…