The Legislature finds and declares all of the following:

(a) Local housing trusts are locally developed responses to regional housing needs and are responsive to local control.

(b) Local housing trusts have an excellent record of accomplishment of serving as efficient vehicles for disbursing resources at the local level.

(c) As of January 1, 2006, there were 21 city and nine county housing trusts throughout California producing thousands of units of affordable housing, through the utilization of millions of dollars of locally generated funds, resulting in the leverage of millions more for the development of affordable housing.

(d) Housing trusts are local sources of revenue for affordable housing and very often are a direct result of local constituencies coming together around affordable housing. These relationships are often long term and include a broad set of community players that go beyond the traditional supporter of affordable housing.

(Added by Stats. 2006, Ch. 892, Sec. 1. Effective September 30, 2006.)