By Ruth SOWBY

State Senator Anthony Portantino was the man of the hour at the Sept. 27 meeting of the Glendale City Council. The Senator, City of Glendale Mayor Ardy Kassakhian and councilmembers posed for photos with a giant replica check for $23 million, made out to the “3 Cities Housing Trust” for affordable housing.

“The high cost of housing has had a devastating affect on Californians, especially on lower income and workforce households in Glendale, Burbank and Pasadena,” said Portantino.

“The City of Glendale is incredibly grateful to the governor for recognizing the tri cities’ creative approach to bringing more affordable housing to our region,” said Kassakhian. “Glendale is ready to get to work with our neighboring cities of Burbank and Pasadena to help meet the housing needs of vulnerable individuals and families in the region.”

The three cities – Burbank, Glendale and Pasadena – have nearly 3,000 affordable housing units in the combined development pipeline, including permanent supportive housing, senior housing, workforce housing and affordable home ownership units. Due to insufficient local funding, the backlog of affordable housing projects has been unable to be completed.

SB 1177, authored by Senator Portantino, creates a regional housing trust that would be administered by a joint powers authority (JPA) composed of Glendale, Burbank and Pasadena. Under the bill, the JPA would be allowed to request and receive private state funding allocations. The JPA would also be allowed to authorize and issue bonds to help finance affordable housing projects for persons and families of extremely low, very low and moderate-income households.