AB 812 Affordable Housing for Artists CA for the Arts Tool Kit.

In March of last year, I wrote a report of the AB 812  Affordable Housing for Artists in your Cultural Districts Plus Women of Impact which was an interview with Edwin Borbon, Legislative Director for the office of Assembly member Tasha Boerner who presented the bill. Later in June, 2024, the North County Arts Network invited Tracy Hudak from California for the Arts to present this policy in more detail. Now in July of 2025, we have the California official tool kit guide for any cities or counties to help with the AB 812 process.

I attended a webinar on affordable housing for artist specifically the AB 812 policy presented by Tracy Hudak, and her team including Jean Johnstone, co-author of the toolkit and policy advisor. Jennifer Lovehorn, Chief Cultural Affairs Officer for Civic Arts at Berkeley joined in with her examples of the progress made in northern California. 

They covered what AB 812  does and doesn’t do, what it requires, what terms you need to know to understand the policy, and a bunch of resources available through links in the toolkit. It was a chance to ask questions and share some knowledge in this very complicated area of housing. Basically, they hope that AB 812  might streamline the already existing policies, but more hopefully, it prioritizes artists for affordable housing in general and  sets precedent for the importance of keeping artist in or near existing cultural districts.

AB 812  really starts with the California Cultural District’s program, which is administered by the California Arts Council. The program was established in 2017 by designating 14 districts across the state as a 5-year pilot program. They recently closed application for the next round of 10 more districts. But there is hope for future rounds. Assembly member Tasha Boerner from San Diego, and her team developed AB 812 as a tool to help arts communities work with their local governments to make affordable housing more easily available to eligible artists who live in either a locally designated cultural or within a ½ mile radius of state designated cultural districts.

In AB 812, up to 10% of whatever percentage of affordable housing units there are, will be eligible for artists and cultural workers in housing developments in cities that can pass an ordinance or a resolution for a Cultural District.

Just a note: An ordinance is voted on and becomes law. it is a state-sanctioned and legally defensible process. A resolution, which is also voted on is much easier to obtain, but is not law and can easily be undone. Remember a city or county council is elected and so changes often, but if an ordinance it is set, it is law.  

Three things have to be included in this ordinance that includes affordable housing.

1.     It has to be consistent with the local tenant preferences to prevent displacement act.

2.     It has to have a provision that prohibits any existing tenants from being evicted in favor of an artist.

3.     It must include fair and comprehensive vetting process defining who is an artist and that they are eligible for affordable housing.

Plus it has to be near or in the cultural district and conform to the local inclusionary zoning policies while being aware that California law prohibits discrimination. If there are zoning issues. you might have to change regulations in terms of noise, or late night hours of activities or for light industrial or even looking at tax increment financing. Working with the community development officials will help you sort through these requirements

Establishing a cultural district and passing an ordinance, both require political support, action, and votes. Luckily, California lawmakers get really excited about cultural district. So, the toolkit also provides strategies and case-making resources to build political will for all those steps. It’s critical to identify local champions and partners. You need votes, literally, for ordinance and cultural districts so, developing relationships with elected officials is vital. Potential champions include community foundations, neighborhood councils, your business improvement districts, your chambers of commerce, etc. And also, of course, arts commissions, or even planning commissions and other commissions as well. It is also important to have a grassroots strategy to educate the public and increase public will and support through letters to the editors, digital campaigns, press events, collective taking action, letter writing, making public comment, etc.

AB 812  allows the city to decide on much of fine turning of the ordinance.  Best practice says that a panel or committee should make decisions about who is or is not an artist. Artist should be ranked (not a value judgement of the quality of the work) but compared to who lives there now or who has been pushed out remembering the goal is to keep  artists in their cultural community.

The artist has to supply proof of income. For example, the artist income does not have to all come from art. One of the interesting educations from this webinar was about affordable housing in general. The term affordable housing is actually a very specific, and it refers to below market rates. This is based on AMI (area median income). Affordable is 30% or less of your income. So anything over that is considered a rent burdened. More than 50% of your income can mean you are qualified to be subsidized by the government or other renters if you’re in a mixed-income development.

If was suggested you can look to existing local policy to see if artists are already established as a priority. Perhaps your community has an approved cultural plan which identifies that access to affordable housing is an issue. Maybe the creative economy has been identified as an important sector in terms of economic strategy

This is because, even without AB812, artists can be eligible for either 

• set aside (worked out in a development agreement) 
• or word force housing (because of the needs for your profession).

Neither are eligible for state or federal funding but they can be prioritized by a city. 

• A tenant preference ordinance is a local law that gives certain groups priority when applying for affordable housing units, i.e. Veterans, houseless, etc. They are established if a local government finds that a group is especially at risk of displacement and needs priority access to affordable housing more broadly across a region.  But they require a strong justification under fair housing laws, and involve a long and rigorous process to establish.

The toolkit has lots of examples from Jennifer Lovehorn, Chief Cultural Affairs Officer for Civic Arts at Berkeley. For example, she reported that the state and federal tax codes do specify artists with tenant preference.  The toolkits supplies all of these examples and even sample surveys and the wording could be helping in writing your ordinance.  Berkeley has been working for 10 years on this priority and only in September is a vote for their drafts ordinance coming up as a possibility. I suggest reading this draft as it is the first one I have seen for the AB812 requirements and is a good guide to what one looks like. 

One of the best parts of a webinar is the questions at the end, because these clarify and even raise interesting additional information.

What is the role of a neighborhood council in this process?  Neighborhood council could be a key partner in establishing a cultural district, and helpful in solidifying relationships to elected officials. They can make the case for the need for artist housing and how that aligns with other localized goals in that district,

Are culture bearers or arts workers qualified under these definitions? Yes, as this is one of those discretionary items that the city can decide and yes, it would fall under best practices. Another thing cities decide is what happens if the artist can no longer work as an artist. Remember not all housing is live/work, so best practices might mean that artist can stay if it is just a live space.

Is it possible to adopt an AB 812 ordinance without establishing policy? Yes, you don’t need a policy as it is a state law. You just need the ordinance.

Why is it important to have conducted an artist survey or census that identifies housing as key challenge? You will need that data and also looking at the land use plans and the general city plan if you want to apply for a grant to help you fund this whole process. In particular, a survey to show how income disparities affect different groups within a population is major and may need a separate consultant. 

Please refer to the following resources:

·       Webinar Recording

·       Webinar Slide Deck

·       AB 812 Implementation Toolkit, Version 1.1 *Updated version! We made some improvements based on the webinar discussion*

·       CAC Recording Cultural Districts Overview Video

Arts for Healing is now ready for Social Prescribing

Diane Mandle, sound therapy

Adrienne Hundley from Art Pharmacy recently held a webinar about a new pilot program in San Diego for San Ysidro Health .  They have partnered with the funder Catalyst to provide a brand new art prescription program. This is a game changer and we all know research has proven how the arts are good for the mind and then the body. She pointed out that, “We are hard wired for art.” It  now only lowers our blood pressure,  it connects us to community

There are lots of outside creative arts therapist. Some are actually located in hospitals and clinical health care centers.  But patients don’t always know about them. Social prescribing with the arts is a way for the care provider to prescribe the arts knowing that Art Pharmacy will be able to match the right choice of art to the patient. .

For the pilot, the patience’s care provider writes the prescription. San Ysidro Health will send a request to Catalyst to validate the funding and then it will be sent to Art Pharmacy who will make recommendations for a selection of activities. A care navigator will book and monitor the patient through a year’s activities on average one a month. Funding is for 2 people for the patient can be accompanied. There is an end survey and statistic are looking extremely good with high rates of participation and improved well-being and social connectedness i.e. less loneliness.

The choice of mediums and type of experiences is very wide for in person or virtual or even telephone sessions.  Some sessions are for groups, other for individuals and some are participatory other as a viewer. It is a very customized services to make sure the health goals are met.

The pilot with San Ysidro Health will begin in September so they are asking for creative art therapist of all kinds to enroll with Art Pharmacy. Fill out a form showing interest, then contact will be made to fill out the enrollment form,  All sizes of non-profit, commercial and community-based organization which are already serving the public are eligible. The is no pricing structure as they recognize different types of session have different fees attached. Art Pharmacy will arrange payment.

Enrollment is ongoing and more dates can be added to the offerings. Remember San Ysidro Health has patients throughout the county and needs venue and sessions county wide. Because of their emphasis on youth and depression, extra training is available for mental health  response training August 21 online from noon to 1 pm.

During the questions part of the webinar, we also learned that the most successful sessions are the once a of month or drop in events. For youth, they like participatory events that are very hands-on. For those practitioners that work from home, it was suggested that libraries and communities center can often be the venue for those individuals with no public venue available.

Based in Atlanta, GA, Art Pharmacy, which only started in 2022, is currently working with partners in California, Connecticut, Georgia, Massachusetts, and New York. It is based on the knowledge that mental health services often leave gaps in care, particularly for populations experiencing barriers to access, cultural stigma, or a preference for non-clinical interventions.

Although there is no insurance payment yet, that means no insurance forms to fill out. But it is to be hoped in the future that insurance will pay for this essential service.

Here is just one example of a healing art provider. We are lucky to have hundreds in the region.  The California Center for Creative Renewal is a healing garden retreat center located in Encinitas founded by Ellen Speert.  It provides an environment of creativity, stimulation, safety and professionalism, balancing hands-on art experiences with goal-driven outcomes and so the perfect candidate for a listing on Art Pharmacy. I attended a workshop Art, Sound, and Words: Exploring Your Inner World. This three-component workshop  started with sound therapy with Diane Mandle where we each got our own sound bath, then a relatively unstructured hands-on clay project led by Ellen Speert and then a lesson on automatic writing by Cherie Kephart. The combined sound and word prompts were the culmination of the workshop with a shared learn session which was emotional and life confirming.

My interpretation of the sound of a drop of water hitting a pond. 

Communing with the abundant nature of this garden.

Cherie Kephart, Intuitive writing with no judgement

SD County Arts and Culture Commission retreat Key Note Speech, June 5, 2025, plus, plus, plus Arts Advocacy News

 

Laura Zucker,  Executive Director of the Los Angeles County Arts Commission from 1992 to 2017 gave the keynote address at the June retreat for the SD County Arts and Culture Commissioners.  She was there to give advice on how to build our commission to the juggernaut that is the Los Angeles is the largest County in the United States, encompassing 88 municipalities and nearly 140 unincorporated areas.  Under her guidance, the Arts Commission funded 364 nonprofit arts organizations through a two-year $9 million grant program, implemented the regional initiative dedicated to restoring arts education to 81 public school districts, funded the largest arts internship program in the country and manages the County’s civic art policy.

Zucker was very straight forward with her advice. The commission has to have a budget to function and that budget is achieved only by using political power. Every year in put on  the county budget  is requested two weeks before the budget is published. At that time the most influential leaders and campaign donors need to visit each county supervisor’s office and get them to sign a memo of support  for the requested amount needed. You need three out of the five supervisors to assure success.

To make sure you can sell your story here is some more advice:

·       Suck up to the Supervisors big time. Invite them to events to be honored and ask them to speak.  Take their pictures and get those published. Visibility is important.

·       Make sure that you broadcast all your stories. The arts are always a good news story and the county has a lot of bad news that needs to be balanced out.

·       Be the solution to a problem, which means you have to know what the platforms of the supervisors are. What do they want to achieve and how can the arts help them.

·       Embed artists in residence every department of government. Funding can come from collaborations and having artist knowledgeable about the functioning of all the issues is so helpful.

·       Make sure that your commission has regional impact.

·       Find out what you can do that no one else can do and broadcast that. Art issues are life issues.

Now this can’t be done all at once, but there are huge opportunities in San Diego to make a difference.

The rest of the retreat was spent discussing the strategy plan and setting new priorities. Most exciting was the discussion about the project with a $29K grant from the Local Arts Agency Learning Network  where it was proposed to hold a series of County Supervisor Arts Convening listening events.  

Pictured: County Liaison Giang Meyers, Vice Chair Bob Lehman of San Diego Museum Council, Chair Jim Gilliam, Felicia Shaw of San Diego ART Matters, guest consultant Laura Zucker of AEA Consulting and past director (1992-2017) of the Los Angeles County Arts Commission, Jennifer Jeffries of FALLBROOK CENTER FOR THE ARTS INC, Ladan Akbarnia of The San Diego Museum of Art, Sharlene O'Keefe of Poway OnStage (aka: Poway Center for the Performing Arts Foundation), and artist Jay Bell. Not pictured: Monica Hernandez of Casa Familiar, Inc., Lucas O'Connor of San Diego & Imperial Counties Labor Council, and artist Renee Richetts.

Other Arts Advocacy News:

There is a new program in North California (Oakland and SF) called GAAP which stands for Grassroots Artist Advocacy Program. GAAP is part of CA for the Arts' Regional Advocacy Infrastructure Network (RAIN), which seeks to reinforce advocacy capacity and efficacy at the local, state and federal levels by designing new models of collaboration at the local (county and municipal) level. This is a fellowship program for artist with a particular project in mind. San Diego are we ready for our own GAAP? In early 2023, they worked with  the San Diego Regional Arts and Culture Coalition now Arts Matter  by doing an assessment of what their needs are, and what their advocacy goals were for the year.  

Learn the ins and outs of leveraging AB 812 to create affordable housing for artists. There is finally a panel and a tool kit from CA for the Arts. The panelists include Tracy Hudak, Co-Author and Director of Field Engagement and Advocacy | CA for the Arts who last year gave the presentation for NCAN, AB 812 authorizes local governments to set aside 10% of any locally-required affordable housing units for artists within one-half mile of a state designated cultural district or within a locally designated cultural district. In Zoom on Wed, July 23 from noon - 1:30 PM.  Learn more here.

In the Art Conversation held for the benefit of the South Bay by Jonathon Glus in concert with the California Arts Council (CAC). Francisco Eme of The Front mentioned that border artists wanted to express other idea besides the border issues. Culture in Mexico is wide ranging and includes low riders, cuisines and fashion. Dr.  Alberto Lopez Pulido agreed with that. Sean Boyd of the Trinity Theater is having funding cuts so that his performances can't go to all the school that they visited last year. Bob Lehman from the Museum Council encouraged sharing resources and even merging with partners to survive. He suggested that funding be for multi-years so that some of the unpredictability of budgets could be avoided. There is an election for a new supervisor to take the place of Nora Vargas and you are urged to find out about all the candidates and show them how the arts can help with social issues.

We attended the CAC June meeting which was held in San Diego and also available to attend by zoom. We recommend that everyone attends at least one of these meeting to understand the process that these art profession use to support all of us. We learned so much and were inspired. Here is just one example: Governor Gavin Newson,  "We will be at California for All. We will not be divided between rural and urban, or north and south. Or coastal and inland. We will strive for solidarity and face our most threatening problems together. This will take courage, and that's a word that means different things to different people. And to me, courage means doing what is right, even when it is hard. We will strive for solidarity and face our most threatening problems together. This will take courage, and that's a word that means different things to different people. And to me, courage means doing what is right, even when it is hard. There's a spark of California, a hope. And a California courage that is born in all of us. It's up to us what we do with it Because the eyes of the world are upon us. Now, more than ever, America needs California."