This study examines California's nonprofit housing developers and the supports they need to address California's need to preserve and expand its supply of affordable housing. California's need for affordable housing is urgent. In 1990, over 2 million rental households (48% of all California renters) paid in excess of 30 percent of their income on housing. In 1995, 71% of very low income Californians paid more than 50% of their income on housing.

Not only is housing scarce for poor renters, but it is often unaffordable. Affordable housing is generally measured as housing costing no more than 30% of a household’s income. Although this is a generally acknowledged criterion, it is still important to note that this measure glosses over the variation among households. Thus, 30% of income for households with very low income doesn’t leave significant resources for other needs, while the same does not hold true for middle and upper middle income households.

In the face of this need, federal programs are scarcely funded or are being dismantled. The State of California has no urban programs and no policy for affordable housing other than Low Income Housing Tax Credits. California's nonprofits are operating against great odds in funding uncertainties and often face political antagonism as well.

This research analyzes the state of the nonprofit housing sector in California with particular focus on understanding both California-wide trends and challenges as well as regional variations which have important implications for local, state, and federal policies addressing affordable housing.

This report contains four major parts: a section on California's nonprofit housing developers, a report on San Francisco Bay Area nonprofits, a report on Southern California nonprofits, and a report on rural nonprofits.

Over the past 25 years, the creation of 150,000 new common interest communities has made 30,000,000 Americans members of "private governments." The spread of these common interest developments has created a quiet revolution in the structure of neighbor relations, local government, and land-use control. Stephen E. Barton's and Carol Silverman's, Common interest communities: Private governments and the public interest, offers us one of the first books addressing the complex nature of these increasingly widely-used i nstitutions.

The domestic household service sector of contract gardening dominated by Mexican immigrants in Los Angeles constitutes an important and under-examined component of the city's informal economy. Mexican immigrant gardeners, like Latina domestic workers and Latino day laborers, represent an important and undervalued labor source in this global city and other U.S. cities and suburbs. While domestic help has historically been a privilege of the affluent, the middle-class, since the World War II era, has also acquired the financial means to hire immigrants and racial minorities to perform traditional household duties. Due primarily to the American obsession with the front lawn, the increased influx of low-wage immigrants to the U.S. since the mid-1960s and the structural shift from a manufacturing-dominated industrial complex to a new, service-dominated economic complex during the past several decades, the demand for contract gardeners has become an integral part of local neighborhoods. Although this informal niche provides positive benefits to local neighborhoods--i.e., the (re)production of greener, healthier and aesthetically pleasing communities--scholars and urban planners have traditionally ignored this group. Moreover, scholarly publications and popular narratives commonly frame Mexican immigrants, including paid gardeners, domestic workers and day laborers, as a homogenous group of marginalized individuals who occupy low paying jobs associated with low social status and lack of upward mobility (i.e., "immigrant jobs").

To address the scholarly shortcomings in the social science literature and debunk the pejorative popular views of Mexican immigrant gardeners, this dissertation provides a complex and nuanced interpretation of this informal niche. This dissertation re-conceptualizes this informal service sector from a homogenous group of immigrant workers to a heterogeneous group (i.e., immigrant workers and petty-entrepreneurs). It also re-frames the popular narratives of Mexican immigrant gardeners as ignorant, passive agents who perform simplistic, labor-intensive activities to intelligent, social agents with agency who engage in complex social relations and economic transactions in the informal economy.

My main finding, and contribution to the social science literature, centers on how the two sub-groups that I examine in this dissertation--immigrant workers and petty-entrepreneurs in an informal economic niche, with similar low socio-economic backgrounds--differ in their outcomes because they self-organize in different economic models based on the availability of their strong social ties or migrant networks and the hierarchical nature of these webs of social relations. Migrant networks refer to co-ethnic ties that link and bond immigrants in the receiving and sending countries. These inter-personal networks consist of immediate family, extended family, friends and hometown associates.

Specifically, my main finding and contributions to the literature consist of four important, interrelated components. First, this dissertation focuses on an understudied group in the academic fields of immigration and ethnic economies: Mexican immigrant entrepreneurs. While much research has been conducted on specific immigrant groups with high rates of entrepreneurship in the U.S., such as Koreans, Chinese, Japanese and Cubans, less research has been conducted on Mexican immigrant entrepreneurs.

Secondly, this dissertation focuses on an understudied sector in the academic fields of the informal economy and urban planning: informal, small-scale enterprises in U.S. cities. While recent scholarly studies in this country's informal economy explore many economic sectors and industries, such as construction, garment, electronics and retail, few research projects focus on immigrant-owned, small enterprises as economic vehicles for upward mobility.

Thirdly, by developing and coining a typology of informal economic models and markets in Los Angeles' contract gardening niche, this dissertation contributes to a better understanding of how an understudied immigrant group creates informal institutions to pursue upward mobility opportunities in U.S. cities. This typology includes the following models and markets: (1) Informal Petty-Capitalism (IPC) model; (2) Informal Master-Apprentice (IMA) model; and (3) Informal Gardener Markets (IGMs).

Fourthly, this dissertation also uncovers how these social actors utilize their migrant networks in a hierarchical or rank order manner for differentiated outcomes (i.e., immigrant workers and petty-entrepreneurs). Moreover, it reveals how Mexican immigrant gardeners who migrate from low socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds organize and govern themselves in the informal economy, providing a paradigm for similar immigrant groups to emulate and improve upon throughout American cities and suburbs.

By better understanding the existing social capital, rich resources and sophisticated forms of organization that Mexican immigrant gardeners possess, scholars, policy makers, planners, civic and community leaders will be better informed to assist this group and other immigrant groups in a collaborative and strategic manner to improve the working and living conditions of all historically disenfranchised groups in American cities. Thus, in lieu of formalizing the contract gardening service sector with high entry costs, strict government regulations and coercive laws, which inevitably lead to the criminalization and further marginalization of this informal niche, as a society, we need to support and provide informal immigrants with the tools, resources and incentives they need to better incorporate them into American society.

A study of San Francisco Bay Area nonprofit housing devel­ opers shows that they have the organizational capability to be an agent of low-income ho using policy. They are relatively productive and serve predominantly very-low-income house­ holds. Their organizations tend to be well established, with significant staff levels, wide geographic service areas, and substantialgovernment support. Both the nonprofit housing developer organizations and their /ow-income housing pro­ jects depend heavily on government resources. Thus, non­ profit housing developers offer not an independent alterna­ tive to government, but rather represent a hardworking, dedicated partner.

Since 1995, the James Irvine Foundation has invested more than $11 million to support the growth and development of CRIs throughout the state -- nonprofit organizations that engage key players from business, environmental, and a variety of other advocacy groups with players from local governments and public agencies to create improvements in their regions. CRIs work on issues ranging across transportation, land use, housing, and economic development. They work in a variety of ways from developing legislation to media campaigns to practical work on particular projects. All are directed at building civic capacity and filling in gaps where government does not or cannot act. Some CRIs have been in place for years; others are more recently formed. They represent experiments in regional governance. The Irvine Foundation tapped a team of Berkeley faculty to perform an assessment of the CRIs so the foundation could target its resources in order to make them effective and sustainable over time and assist them in producing valuable outcomes for their regions.

Together the team published case studies of four major CRIs -- the Bay Area Alliance for Sustainable Communities, Joint Venture: Silicon Valley, the San Diego Dialogue and the Sierra Business Council -- as well as an analysis of regional workforce development collaboratives in California.

Professor Christensen's analysis of the San Diego Dialogue -- an organization that promotes civic discussion on the San Diego region's future -- revealed that a major element of its success was its former executive director, whose one-on-one political skills bridged the ideas and the elite networks that ultimately amplified the discourse, generating new civic knowledge and shaping the regional agenda. The Dialogue is best known for its cross-border research, which led to the installation of a rapid commuter lane for frequent border crossers. Their key finding -- that 96% of border crossings are made by frequent crossers -- demonstrated that the region is a bi-national economy and changed the way the US/Mexico border was perceived. The new outlook also provided a framework for talking about other bi-national issues such as water, energy, healthcare, manufacturing and ports of entry. Nevertheless, because the model is network-driven and depended heavily on one person facilitating the agenda, the question remains whether the fruitful connections and successful outcomes for the region can be sustained.

This essay proposes a structure and process for doing city master planning where there is no consensus on goals. It evolved from an attempt to help the city of Berkeley prepare to revise its Master Plan. Accordingly, our recommendations take into account Berkeley's unusually convoluted and polarized political situation, while affirming that the city's diversity is its richness. The proposal is meant to help Berkeley renew its tradition of innovative, respon­ sive planning. In doing so, the proposal presents a general scheme for helping cities when traditional approaches break down in discord. Key assets of the approach include flexibility, variability, and the capacity to accommodate diversity.

Since the framework is designed specifically for Berkeley's partic­ ular problem context the essay stresses how Berkeley's planning history led to its current planning impasse. The proposal follows, and we conclude with some notes on its implementation and wider applications.