Issues: Affordable Housing

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Needed: more housing choices
for all San Diegans

By Ken Sauder, Chair of the San Diego Housing Federation
June 22, 2006

Buying a home may be the American dream, but it's pure fantasy for too many workers in San Diego who struggle to even find affordable rent.

This reality frustrates workers such as Mario Cordoba, a young supervisor for a catering company who, along with his wife and daughter, had to live in his mother's house for a year because area rents were beyond their means. Mario was luckier than most. He got on a waiting list for a new affordable housing community and made it in. Thousands of other working families aren't as fortunate.

Although shelter is a basic need for all of us, finding housing at all levels of affordability becomes more difficult every day. When it comes to choosing a home in San Diego, nearly all choices fall in the high-priced category.

Consider the following stark statistics:

The median price of new and resale single-family homes and condominiums is $520,000, and $862,000 for a new detached single-family home – a 350 percent increase since 1996.

Apartments converted into condominiums are pricey at an average cost of nearly $340,000.

An average, two-bedroom apartment is now priced at $1,245 per month, nearly double the average rent of $643 in 1990. Units built since 1998 average more than $1,500 per month.

According to SANDAG, buyers here now need an annual income of about $134,000 to afford a median-priced single-family home. But the county's median household income is $64,273 – less than half what is needed. If you rent, the picture isn't any prettier. The income needed to afford a modest two-bedroom apartment ($1,158 per month) is $46,320 a year – or $22.27 an hour. The average hourly wage for renters in San Diego County is $13.71.

This gap between income levels and housing costs is troubling. Lower-income families often “double up” under one roof. Parents work multiple jobs to meet the mortgage payment or rent. Workers commute extreme distances to find more affordable places to live, a daily difficulty that exacerbates employee turnover. And among the very low-income families that find decent housing, 65 percent are paying up to 50 percent of their household income, which leaves little to cover the rest of life's essentials.

As long as these people remain faceless, it's easy for many of us to dismiss them. But these are the same people who are integral to our economy and impact our lives every day. They are teachers, bus drivers, medical aides, mechanics, security officers, carpenters and pastors, to name just a few.

The simple, difficult truth is we need more housing choices for San Diego's work force and particularly low-income workers. SANDAG projects that over the next 30 years our region's population will grow by about 1 million people and a half-million jobs. Although in the 1970s and 1980s housing grew at about the same rate as population and employment, since the 1990s it has not kept pace with the demand.

In 2002, California voters approved Proposition 46, which authorized $2.1 billion in bonds for affordable housing developments statewide. Proposition 46 funding brought 2,147 affordable apartments into the San Diego market. Federal tax credits facilitated the development of another 965 family and senior apartments. Unfortunately, this development has barely dented the demand and Proposition 46 dollars have all but dried up.

There's a glimmer of hope on the horizon with Proposition 1C, a statewide housing bond measure headed for the November ballot that would:

Continue construction programs begun under Proposition 46.

Provide infrastructure, parks, and transit-oriented improvements that would provide incentives for smart growth developments.

Provide amenities to help neighbors welcome new housing into existing communities.

San Diego's leaders, employers and voters need to bury the myths of affordable housing. Such communities being built now house working individuals and families interested in getting ahead and restoring financial balance to their lives. They are contributing members of our regional work force. Affordable housing communities – new and rehabilitated – are attractively designed, upgrading neighborhood appearances and value.

Doubters need drive no further than Beyer Courtyards in San Ysidro, La Costa Paloma in Carlsbad or Cantebria senior apartments in Encinitas to gain a new appreciation for what affordable housing communities have become.

Clearly, housing is vital to our community and economy. We are treading into deeper troubled waters in San Diego County unless we find ways to provide more choices sooner rather than later.

Sauder is chair of the San Diego Housing Federation and president of Wakeland Housing and Development Corp., a nonprofit affordable housing developer.

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