Thumbs up: A boost for affordable housing

We've said it before: the solution to Sonoma County's housing and homeless problem is more housing. The biggest need is affordable housing, such as the 500-unit apartment complex planned for the site of the Journey's End mobile home park, which burned in the Tubbs fire in 2017. As part of a federal spending law passed in December, Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, secured $100 million worth of tax credits for affordable housing in California counties hit by wildfires. The tax credits could help finance as many as 1,200 new affordable housing units, according to local officials and home builders.

But as we noted in a recent editorial, local officials feared that proposed state guidelines would siphon the tax credits away from Sonoma County and other counties that sustained major wildfire damage in 2017 and 2018. On Friday, however, state Treasurer Fiona Ma promised that they would be distributed only in the 13 counties that Thompson intended. “We want to make it crystal clear that these tax credits are going to help counties that have been devastated by disasters,” Ma said. Thumbs up.

You can send a letter to the editor at letters@pressdemocrat.com.