The Sonoma Collaborative’s Housing Affordability Roadmap is a welcome addition to the discussion about affordable housing and the challenge to dramatically increase it. The Collaborative is a project of the Sonoma Ecology Center, focused on the preservation and creation of additional Affordable Housing in Sonoma Valley and brings together a diversity of organizations and entities to explore the subject. We applaud their efforts. There is a dead end in their plan, however. It’s called money.
It is money that supports the creation of Affordable Housing, and without sufficient funding, it does not get built. Back in the 1990s, housing for people who could otherwise not afford it was called “subsidized housing,” and it was the government that subsidized it. Redevelopment funds provided by the State of California’s property tax revenue required that 20 percent of such funding be used for subsidized housing only, and on that basis Sonoma County and its cities created many projects with affordability covenants lasting 25 or 35 years.
The term “subsidized housing” fell into disfavor; it smacked of socialism and was replaced by the more neutral term “affordable housing,” but the need for subsidies remained. When redevelopment agencies were dissolved during Governor Jerry Brown’s final term in office, most jurisdictions did not find ways to replace the revenues the agencies had provided. The creation of Affordable (subsidized) Housing ground to a halt.
Nonprofit housing corporations like Burbank and MidPen stepped into the breach, but they too needed government money to make a project pencil out. Their projects were built where and when land or money was contributed, reflecting the economic reality that Affordable Housing is never as profitable as market-rate housing.
Although the City of Sonoma created an Affordable Housing Trust Fund in 2017 to provide some money for Affordable Housing, the money in that fund has grown very slowly. It was used during the Covid-19 pandemic for rental assistance, and recently to help preserve some housing that has reached the end of its affordability covenants.
The State of California imposes targets for the creation of Affordable Housing to each jurisdiction under the Regional Housing Needs Allocation process (RHNA), but does not provide any funding. Accordingly, the pace of development is glacial.
Providing funding is a matter of political will by decision-makers, both locally and statewide, and unfortunately, that political will is not willing. Sure, there’s plenty of talk about housing for low-income wage earners and dozens of new laws passed regulating development, but when it comes to setting spending priorities, money for Affordable Housing rarely is allocated.
Government costs increase every year, and the County and its cities are always strapped for cash. Raising sales taxes is a common solution but hurts the people most who have the least money for housing. Something has to change if we expect a different result.
So far, the City of Sonoma has seen the creation of only a handful of Affordable Housing units during the first two years of its current eight-year RHNA cycle, and those only because of inclusionary requirements placed on developments of five or more units. Preserving the affordability of units whose affordability covenants lapse is creditable, but does not count toward satisfying RHNA. The State is totally out of sync with local jurisdictions; it makes demands that can’t be met without funding.
The funding for Affordable Housing needs to increase dramatically, or the dead end will remain.
Putting a few hundred starter homes at SDC would be a great way make a dent in the problem. No hotel.
And the solution is? We all know the problem…what is the solution? And if we think production of affordable housing was hard before, just imagine how much harder it is now with the cost of materials skyrocketing with tariffs. We all know the problem; that’s not news. WHAT IS THE SOLUTION??
As someone who has been in the affordable housing space for many many years, the answer is not a mystery. The answer is treating housing as a RIGHT that has to be provided for, monetarily by the Federal and State budgets. There is plenty of debt available, but insufficient equity. Our Federal government prioritizes military spending, not spending for positive lives of its citizens. We live under capitalism. They make “socialism” the buggyman. The real buggyman is capitalism…. that said, we can still change the priorities of our capitalist government with a mass movement combined with the correct elected officials. We live in a society where actors, singers and sports stars earn a bazillion dollars, when workers (from waiters to teachers etc) earn too little to make ends meet. These are our society’s priorities. We all live here, so we better be honest and own that reality!
We need articles that discuss solutions, not that rehash the obvious problems. Thank you.