Great, now we get to pay our mortgages and others', too.
How about a break for taxpaying property owners?

Bet you're nowhere near as upset for having to pay for 45's trips to Mar-A-Lago...*on the taxpayer's money*

@Robyn

You mean Prop 13?

Have they learned nothing from the last short sale/ foreclosure debacle? Not everyone is meant to own a home and certainly we've seen that homeowners with zero skin in the game have zero incentive to not default on their mortgage.n And we the taxpayers first subsidize the home purchase, then subsidize the bank bailout after all the defaults.

According to the article, these loan funds are available as a result of passing this Measure A in 2016:

"To provide affordable local housing for vulnerable populations including veterans, seniors, the disabled, low and moderate income individuals or families, foster youth, victims of abuse, the homeless and individuals suffering from mental health or substance abuse illnesses, which housing may include supportive mental health and substance abuse services, shall the County of Santa Clara issue up to $950 million in general obligation bonds to acquire or improve real property subject to independent citizen oversight and regular audits?"

Now just curious - which of those groups will be PURCHASING "affordable" housing in Santa Clara County? Those people need affordable rentals, there is nothing available to purchase that's affordable. Another ridiculous plan to squander our money. And yet - there's no money to fix our roads...

True. The programs for "affordable" ownership housing have always been just for show. Few benefitted. Everyone else paid. Politicians bragged. And things just got worse.

YIMBY,
No one paid my mortgage, insurance, fees, bonds and taxes but me. You may recall the times that property values fell. No one bailed me out when the value was lower than the loan. I did not walk away from the loan. Many did the same.
Each era has its challenges.
Prop 13 merely set a limit on tax increases for home owner/occupiers. Everything else related to homeownership goes up.
As it is, the large employers, including the Government, subsidize their workers with up to $5,000 per month housing expense.

Prepare to pay the fair market value or continue renting.

@Robyn

That is another discussion. Any wasteful, unnecessary spending of our tax dollars should be exposed and stopped.

In order to be able to subsidize "first time home buyers", you must have a policy that supports construction of owner-occupied housing as being far more important than rental housing. MV could learn a lot from the housing policies of Los Altos. Buyers make far, far more fiscally and developmentally conservative residents than renters. Home buyers have "skin in the game" and a strong financial incentive to prevent MV from becoming a rental housing ghetto. In short, looking at the long-term "sustainability" of MV, homeowners are far more stable and responsible than renters because they'll want to preserve quality of life in MV, whereas renters are transients with no skin in the game other than rent control.

Strictly symbolic. $25 million won't go anywhere in a market where even condos are selling for well over $1 million. Why did they even bother? "Do something, anything!!!" comes to mind.

@Robyn

Prop 13 allows you and others exactly like you who think you're not getting any help to continue living in your house that you likely would have had to sell due to the rising property values increasing your taxes. That would have put the property back on the market and add some churn to put downward pressure on prices. You then use your subsidized position to protest housing being built for others and block new developments, which causes prices to rise even more while you're shielded from the affects.

You got housing, but you're sure making it impossible for anyone else to.

Robyn also is just spewing lies, as usual, if she's claiming that people get $5K / month for housing expenses from their employer on any sort of large scale. Maybe a CEO or something?

If you're not lying, Robyn, please point me to the widely available Government perk that provides $60K / year in housing expenses.

Not lies. Ask Facebook and Google executives and armed services officers stationed in the Bay Area about it.
They are the ones who told me about the housing benefit. I do not know how widespread the benefit is to these people. You might ask them.
Then, there are the forgiven loans to employees of the El Camino Hospital and health insurance benefits which can amount to a few thousand dollars every month, at our expense. And the local government sweetheart loans to employees, ie., Sunnyvale public employees like the City Manager and others.
Prop 13 is not the only reason people cannot afford to buy houses here.
These are just a few examples. With a liitle research you can find more.
LOL, I am not a liar.

Robyn, it's very convincing that your only evidence is "nuh uh, the executives at Facebook and Google told me so." I'm sure your Uncle works at Nintendo too, and you're totally not just lying about this.

Than you Robyn. Those are a few real examples that I also know of. They are together a low proportion of all employees around here. (is there a 'Near Facebook' $10,000 employees housing bonus, or is that past or an urban myth?) The Superintendent of Palo Alto school district gets a $1M or $2M housing 'no payments loan', the same for the past County schools Superintendent. The Los Altos School superintendent does not [he just gets his mother's inherited-house Prop 13 tax rate I hear].

But Robyn - it makes no sense to me to get a giant tax break on my $2M+ house. That break just accumulates to MY HEIR'S Benefit, and provides not-much benefit to the community where I live. Shouldn't it be - DEFERRED TAX and then it is deducted from the equity-at-death (of course, that also has a tax-runaround) OR BETTER, move my rear from here and retire someplace more appropriate for non-working folk.

Less "Prop 13 retired folk", less residential demand, lower residential prices, higher property tax Total Revenue because of increased sale turnover.

LOL, do some research on your own before you impugn the integrity of someone you have never met but with whom you disagree. It is unbecoming and discourages the free exchange of ideas.
I am not retired and do not intend to retire for at least 10 years.
Give Hea A Break, I like to know that my property tax will be manageable. As far as taxing upon transfer, I have no objection to reasonable taxation and assessment. It would be nice to know that the funds are not wasted by the government. But, that too, is another discussion.
Cheers!

"Do some research on your own" is the last resort for people called out on their lies. I asked you to provide evidence, and you've proven yourself unable. Thus, we must conclude, you are lying. I'm willing to be proven wrong, but that would require you posting evidence of people outside of C-suite people getting $60K / year of housing expenses covered by their employers. Cheers!

You set your own parameter, ie outside the C-suite. Look at the public documents for the local cities, and public hospitals and foundations to see who is getting the perquisites. They are published annually in your local paper and available in the library. Do some reading. You can easily find the information.
As you may know information in employment contracts is not readily available. The SEC filings for publcly traded corporations are available as are the 990s for charitable organizations. You can start there.
I believe the military information is not publicly available but it may be.
As the saying goes, "You can lead a horse to water."
Cheers!

Robyn, given that you can't provide a single link to evidence supporting your claim, it's clear that you have none and now are backpedaling having been caught in a lie. Again, post evidence of your strong claim of the Government perk covering $60K / year in housing expenses. As the saying goes, "put up or shut up."
Cheers!

@LOL how much are you paying for someone else to 'do your homework'?

Civics is not an armchair spectator sport. I will offer to do your homework for $10 per public document reference- primary source (or $2 per news article reference - secondary source). WHAT A DEAL! Payable in small bills deposited in an envelope left with the City Clerk.

Santa Clara County voters approved Measure A in November 2016 leading to the creation of Measure A which is a $950 million affordable housing bond.

This is what the voters wanted and now you have it. $25 Million to be split between 14 cities in Santa Clara County over the next 5 years.

"According to the county, the funds will reach about 250 homebuyers in the first five years" That's $100,000 to each home buyer.

O.K. let's do the math to get a perspective of how ridiculous this is.

First, $25 Million divided between 14 cities is $1,785,714.00 per city average.
So, if 250 buyers are going to receive $100,000 each, that would mean about 18 home buyers per city will be helped over the next 5 years.

So your big $950,000,000 voter bond helps 3.5 homeowners every year in your city and you voted in Rent Control which leads to the demolition of 100's of affordable apartments per year?
That was stupid.

@Give Her a Break, that's not how these things work. Robyn has made a claim which she's been unable to substantiate with evidence. The response to people asking for evidence for a claim is not "do your homework" since the burden of proof is on her. Otherwise, anyone could make a claim like "Robyn is actually from Mars" which would be as grounded in fact and evidence as the idea that government employees are taking in a $60K / year housing perk.

The fact that neither of you have actual evidence besides your cocktail party conversations with Larry Page and Mark Zuckerberg speaks loudly.

Big news, I just got off of a conference call with Larry Page, Mark Zuckerberg, and Donald Trump. They said in no uncertain terms that there's no such housing subsidy. Afterwards, they said "Robyn is a liar, and somewhat strange." I thought that last bit was uncalled for, but I'm just here reporting what they told me. I'm not going to do your homework for you, but there are recordings of the call posted online so you can hear it for yourself.

Lodging Reimbursement Rates for State Government employees from calhr.ca.gov/employees San Francisco County $250 per day and Santa Clara County $140 per day for short-term lodging for up to 60 days but subject to renewal. So that comes out to $$4200 to $7500 for a 30 day month. The State government specifies hotels and motels.
Click around, if you are not too busy, and read it.
It seems that the local employers are simply following the state government rates. As is also done with transportation expenses, ie mileage.
Cal Code of Regulations, Title 2, Div 1, Chapter 3, subchapter 1 at section 599.718, et seq. also provides guidance.
It is easy to envision the scenario where people come here for a few months to work ( 60 days and an extension for another 60 days) then return to a foreign residence and repeat every few months.
It may be argued that this is not the intent of the reimbursement scheme but that is how it plays out.
I am trying to verify the Federal rates but that is taking some time.

Business trip hotel expense reimbursement is not a rent/housing stipend.

As I stated, it may not have been the intent but that is how it is being applied in the private sector.

According to you. Still waiting on some actual proof.

Robyn, it's even worse than it looks. The short-term vehicle reimbursement covers aircraft. At $1.15 a mile, circumnavigating the globe more than 9 times for a whole month, they're getting $250K per month in living expenses paid for! This is scandalous!

Or maybe just multiplying things together and saying "it's easy to envision" isn't actually an argument, and none of these things are actually happening.