Home Dreams Fading

By Claudia Rreed - Sonoma Index-Tribune 5/22/07

Sonoma Valley homes out of reach This is the second in a three-part series on the Valley's housing crisis. The numbers tell the story. As of the 2000 census, approximately 64 out of every 100 Sonoma County households owned their home. At today's prices, only seven out of 100 families could afford to make the same purchase, according to Jim Leddy, president of the Sonoma County Housing Coalition. "What's unique about our era right now is moderate-income buyers are put in same position as low-income were a decade ago," said John Lowry of Burbank Housing Development Corp., a company that specializes in low-income housing. The much-publicized downturn in Northern California real estate prices may not offer much local relief. According to the bulletin Sonoma County Real Estate Trends, the median price for a single-family home declined in 2006 but only to $580,000. There was a similar drop in the price of a condominium unit - to $363,000. Real estate statistics compiled for the Valley by Sonoma's Trinity Episcopal Church pegged the median housing price in the City of Sonoma at $689,000 and the price in the Springs at $575,000 in 2004. The city's Web site reports a median price of $618,000 for the whole Valley in 2005. Today's current multiple listings for the Valley, posted online by Frank Howard Allen Realtors, show only two homes priced at less than $395,000, an older home in El Verano and a fixer-upper in Agua Caliente. Another six cost just under $400,000. Eight more are priced between $400,000 and $475,000. The rest range from $475,000 into the millions. Of the condominium units, three range between $259,000 and $299,999; another six between $319,000 and $399,900. The rest begin at $409,000 and go up from there. "Who can buy?" Leddy asked. "You're not making $15 an hour if you're able to afford that kind of house." One local solution has been sweat equity housing, a concept in which low- or moderate- income owners substitute 30 hours of building labor a week for a cash down payment and qualify for 30-year loans from the California Housing Financial Agency of 3 to 5.5 percent, depending on income. Additional financing comes from city and county partnerships with private developers, who oversee the building process. "Wild Flower is the latest one. It was finished about a month and a half ago," said City Councilmember Ken Brown. "It's absolutely, totally awesome. If somebody wasn't going to swing a hammer they could order paint, or order materials, or go for deliveries. There's a job for everybody." Lowry, who worked on the partnership between Burbank and the city, agreed. "They do a lot of the work: carpentry, concrete, windows, doors, cabinets, landscaping, cleanup ... It can take a year to build a house. They work as a group, not just on their own home. It's mutual self-help housing." Even the disabled, Lowry said, have jobs to do or arrange to have their hours filled by volunteer friends and family members. Over the past few years, Burbank has organized construction of three sweat-equity housing developments: Wild Flower in the city with 34 units on Napa Road, Via Hermosa in the Springs north of Verano Avenue with 27 small stucco detached houses or duplexes and Encinas Del Verano in El Verano with 12 units on El Niño Court. Those 73 homes, however, don't begin to resolve the housing shortage. "We do a little advertising and typically get three times as many interested (as there are houses)," Lowry said. After determining who is truly eligible and able to put in what amounts to a second job, the company holds a lottery to determine who will have the opportunity. "We could build three times what we've done," he said. "The demand is tremendous for it. I'll bet we could do 6,000 in the county; 300 in the Valley over time. People want to own a home and they'll work hard to get it." There are also long waiting lists for more conventional housing reserved for low- and moderate-income buyers. The 13 houses at Casa Primera are gone. So are the 16 homes at Marcy Court, the 18 at Palm Court, and the 34 homes at the Sonoma Commons. City ordinances require a certain percentage of the units in a major housing development be reserved for low- or moderate-income buyers, but those homes, too, disappear almost as fast as they're built. "It's seems like there's definitely more demand than there is product," said one city staffer. "Two or three times a week somebody comes in looking for units." The best ownership hope for many lower-income residents is still a mobile unit in a trailer park. So far, however, there is nothing preventing a park owner from subdividing the property into for-sale spaces. While mobile owners can't be forced to move, only low-income tenants remain under rent control protection after subdivision. So far, there is no law preventing market-rate increases for moderate income tenants. Similarly, low-income - but not moderate-income - renters may qualify for help in purchasing the land under their mobile homes through the state's Mobile Home Park Resident Ownership Program. The program can finance from 50 to 95 percent of the purchase cost through a 30-year 3 percent loan and sometimes offers no-down-payment and deferred-payment options. Another possibility, offered by Resident Owned Parks Inc., involves purchase of the entire park by the nonprofit company, which would then own and operate it. Space rentals would be kept low, the company promises, and used to pay off the purchase loans. After the loans are paid off in full, both ownership and management responsibility would be transferred to a "nonprofit homeowners association." There appears to be nothing guaranteeing the homes eventually sold would be reserved for low- or moderate-income people. A moratorium on mobile-home park conversion is on the June agenda of the Sonoma City Council.

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Low-income housing urged for SR Station Area Plan

By GEORGE LAUER
THE SANTA ROSA PRESS DEMOCRAT
Article published - May 25, 2007
Santa Rosa's "extreme makeover" plans for downtown drew sharp criticism Thursday, almost all of it from people urging the Planning Commission to add affordable housing and green building standards to the 20-year plan.
Close to 100 people, many of them wearing green stickers saying "Housing for All" and Build It Green," raised hands in agreement with calls to add specific numbers for affordable housing units and to adopt environmentally friendly building requirements.
Organized by the Accountable Development Coalition, a group of 13 organizations, speaker after speaker urged the commission to require 20 percent low-income housing, 20 percent low- to moderate-income housing and 60 percent market-value housing.
"Our concerns in this plan are aroused not by what's in the plan, but what isn't in it," said Julia Prange, representing the coalition.
In addition to affordable housing and green building standards, she urged the commission to add pedestrian and bicycle accommodations and to pay attention to mass transit needs.
Several other special interest groups -- from the Council on Aging to a member of the city school board -- called for affordable housing requirements.
Among the approximately 70 speakers was Bill Kortum, the dean of Sonoma County environmental activists. He called the downtown plan an opportunity to develop "a model of transit-oriented development."
"I urge you to listen to the suggestions you're hearing tonight," he said.
After listening to about three hours of testimony, commissioners asked planning staff to examine possible amendments to deal with affordable housing, green building and other issues raised at the hearing, among them parks, parking and bicycle accommodations.
The meeting was the final public hearing for the Santa Rosa Downtown Station Area Plan, a mammoth proposal to create a denser, more urban downtown centered around a proposed commuter rail line.
The plan calls for taller, denser buildings than allowed elsewhere in the city, with businesses on the ground floor and living quarters above, all built around a commuter rail line known as SMART, for Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit.
The Santa Rosa station in Railroad Square is expected to be the busiest of 14 stops on the line that would run between Cloverdale and Larkspur.
The 70-mile rail system is still a proposal, not a reality. Marin and Sonoma voters failed to come up with enough votes in November. The issue probably will be on a ballot again next year.
The Planning Commission plans to certify the plan's environmental impact report at an upcoming meeting. The commission then will make a recommendation to the City Council.
The Downtown Station Area Plan calls for 3,249 residential units, nearly 2,300 of them within a mile-wide circle extending from a train station proposed for Railroad Square.
City planner Ken MacNab said the downtown development study, funded by a $450,000 grant from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, is part of an attempt "to create a transit-supported environment" by building up instead of allowing Santa Rosa to sprawl at its edges.
The development envisioned in the downtown plan would accommodate an estimated 6,000 residents above the 210,000 now expected to call Santa Rosa home by 2020.
Although the plan was developed with the commuter train in mind, city officials said it can be pursued even if the tax is never approved.
The underlying idea is to de-emphasize reliance on automobiles by developing high-density residential, commercial and office buildings along major rail and transit corridors.
Most of that development would be concentrated in two areas, downtown west of E Street and in mostly industrial areas along Cleveland Avenue, Wilson Street and Sebastopol Road that are bisected by the railroad tracks.
You can reach Staff Writer George Lauer at 521-5220 or george.lauer@pressdemocrat.com

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Humboldt County HAG Formed

New housing group says action needed
James Faulk The Times-Standard
04/27/2007
EUREKA -- Housing for All, a new housing advocacy group, is asking the county Board of Supervisors to put into action concepts that they believe will help address the lack of affordable housing in Humboldt County.
The group held a press conference at the Humboldt County Courthouse Thursday to announce its mission to bring solutions to the table in the ongoing debate over how to provide housing for all income levels, but especially the poor.
Citing figures from the U.S. Census Bureau, the group pointed out that Humboldt County has the highest percentage in the state of people paying more than 29 percent of their income for housing, at 57.5 percent of renters.
”These people are living more on the edge,” said Kermit Thobaben, a Housing for All spokesman.
A broad range of housing is necessary, he said, including homes and apartments for low- and very-low income households.
”The market has been able to provide housing for people in the higher incomes range, but not for moderate, low- and very-low incomes,” said Rebecca Price-Hall.
Nearly everyone rents at some point in their lives, and it's pivotal that those choices are available, Thobaben said.
Housing for All wants to ensure that the Board of Supervisors takes action soon to make sure there are housing choices for everyone in the county over the next 20 years, Thobaben said.
The press release announcing Thursday's event seemed to take on the recently filed Humboldt Sunshine lawsuit against the county.
But during the press conference, organizers said they weren't against anyone -- rather they're fighting to give a voice to people normally outside the process -- the poor, the people who are living on the edge and paying too much of their income for housing, Thobaben said.
The group is not in a position to question motivations for that suit, he said.
”We're not against anybody, but we're for movement and action,” said Thobaben. “I would hope that these parties could look at our points and find some common ground.”
The most important of these, the group says in its press release, is a strong and effective inclusionary zoning policy.
”If we in Humboldt County are serious about providing affordable housing, then all new developments must include a variety of housing types to meet the needs of all income levels,” the release states.
The group said it intends to speak for those who often don't or can't speak for themselves in the Humboldt County General Plan update process.
Box:
Recommendations
* Establish strong inclusionary zoning policies to require that new residential developments include a percentage of housing for moderate, low- and very-low incomes.
* Identify a greater supply of buildable sites with appropriate infrastructure for higher-density housing that is affordable to moderate, low- and very-low income families.
* Identify sites available for homeless shelters and transitional housing.
* Create overlay zones with higher density allowances and provide incentives for providing low- and very-low income housing.
* Encourage mixed-use zoning, mixed-income developments and a broader variety of housing types.
* Reduce or eliminate minimum house size requirements, allow smaller lot sizes, and revise setbacks, lot coverages, parking requirements and solar shading ordinances to accommodate higher density developments.
* Ensure that lots appropriated and reserved for low-income housing are not used for any other kind of development.
* Provide regulatory clarity and public support for
those developers who are willing to take on the difficult task of providing low- and very-low income housing.
James Faulk can be reached at 441-0511 or jfaulk@times-standard.com.

Linking Social Equity and Smart Growth

WorldChanging TeamMarch 31, 2007
by Worldchanging SF local blogger, Holly Pearson:
Peter Cohen has witnessed the unnoticed darker side of the Smart Growth movement as much as anyone in the Bay Area has.
As Director of the Community Planning Program at the non-profit organization Asian Neighborhood Design (AND), which works with community groups, neighbors and residents of San Francisco in the development and revitalization of their communities, Peter is one of a handful of urban planning professionals in the Bay Area who are working to create mechanisms for linking new public benefits, such as affordable housing and community facilities, to urban infill development projects. The aim is to minimize and mitigate the unintended negative socio-economic impacts of the kind of development promoted by progressive models of urban planning like Smart Growth, New Urbanism, and Transit-Oriented Development (TOD).
Although the driving objectives of these movements are to curb sprawl and build compact, environmentally sustainable communities, promoting densification and encouraging a high concentration of new development in older city neighborhoods can unintentionally result in gentrification. Many neighborhoods that are located near city centers and have vacant or underutilized land that’s suitable for relatively dense new development have historically been home to lower-income, working-class populations. When policy frameworks and economic incentives are enacted to attract new development in these areas, they often have the inadvertent effect of driving up housing costs and changing the demographics of communities, sometimes to the point of pushing long-time working-class residents out of the neighborhood.
It’s a phenomenon that Peter Cohen has observed increasingly during the recent development boom years in San Francisco. AND’s Community Planning Program focuses its efforts on the city’s lower-income eastern neighborhoods, including Chinatown, the Tenderloin, South of Market, the Mission, Bayview Hunter’s Point, and Visitacion Valley. Each of these neighborhoods has experienced the pressures of new development to some extent -- some have already undergone widespread gentrification while others are just starting to deal with these issues.
According to Peter, most advocates of Smart Growth and other current models of sustainable urban development don’t pay much attention to the sociological impacts on existing neighborhoods. He explains, "There’s an attitude among a lot of the planning community in San Francisco that density is good for density’s sake -- that a denser city is inevitably a better urban environment. My response is that density is not necessarily inherently good. You also have to look at issues of diversity, accessibility, and livability." Even if new development patterns bring about positive physical changes to an urban landscape, like better access to public transportation and greater energy efficiency, if factors like ethnic diversity and affordability are sacrificed, then has sustainability really been achieved?
But the Smart Growth and TOD models and encouragement of new urban infill development don’t have to be at odds with social equity. A new approach that’s being tested in San Francisco is to create and codify mechanisms that redistribute wealth directly from development profits to those sectors of the community that have historically lived in central city neighborhoods and older city suburbs. It’s about meeting community needs. It’s about respecting and benefiting the existing residents of a community and maintaining diversity while accommodating growth, increasing density, and creating compact, transit-accessible neighborhoods.
So how can these more holistic objectives be achieved on the ground? What possible new approaches might allow new infill development while ensuring the continued socio-economic vitality of existing neighborhoods? That’s what Peter Cohen’s Community Planning Program and other like-minded groups in the Bay Area have been trying to answer.
Peter Cohen was instrumental in drafting the proposed "Better Neighborhoods Plus" legislation—an enhanced version of the City of San Francisco’s Better Neighborhoods program. One of the ideas that Better Neighborhoods Plus sought to accomplish was to link the impact of new development with mitigation measures which benefit the community, and ensure that these mitigations are financed as part of a neighborhood plan. The proposed legislation was designed to apply to six designated areas for which the City has already initiated neighborhood planning processes: Mission, Showplace/Lower Potrero Hill, East SoMa, Central Waterfront, Upper Market/Octavia, and Inner Geary Boulevard. But it was also intended to establish more general standards to be used for all long-range planning initiatives.
As part of the neighborhood planning and implementation process, Better Neighborhoods Plus called for:
Preparation of a Neighborhood Baseline Conditions and Needs Analysis, which would identify existing shortfalls in infrastructure and community amenities that are lacking in a neighborhood, such as transit, open space, housing, neighborhood-serving businesses, and community facilities and other key amenities.
Preparation of a New Development Impacts Analysis. The topics addressed through this analysis could include a much wider array than is conventionally done in planning studies which typically focus on urban design, transportation and public service infrastructure, thereby allowing for a more comprehensive assessment of the impacts of new development on a community.
Recommendation of a Public Improvements Plan and Funding Strategy, including proposed funding mechanisms. Examples of the types of public improvements that could be funded under Better Neighborhoods Plus include affordable housing, economic development and employment training, community facilities and services, open space, and historic and cultural resources protection. Suggested strategies for paying for and mitigating the impacts include new development impacts fees, utilization of existing funding sources, and other funding from special benefits districts.
Although the Better Neighborhoods Plus legislation did not pass, the important result of this initiative is that the ideas have been articulated and framed as a methodology, and the issue of integrating social equity and community development goals with new urban development projects has entered the local planning dialogue.
A related initiative with a successful outcome is a recently adopted City ordinance, which was a piece of that sweeping Better Neighborhoods Plus proposal, which requires closer interaction between agencies in implementing public improvements that are promised in new area plans for the City’s eastern neighborhoods. Peter Cohen and AND’s Community Planning Program were involved in the crafting of this relatively simple ordinance, the purpose of which is to enhance the participation of various City departments and agencies (e.g. the Municipal Transportation Agency, Department of Public Works, Redevelopment Agency, Mayor’s Office of Community Development, Department of Recreation and Parks, etc) in the preparation and implementation of community benefits plans. It’s also intended to provide a means by which the various parties interested in neighborhood improvement programs can stay informed and provide input and support. The ordinance provides a mechanism for coordination between the departments and for dialogue with the community, in the hopes that these relationships will streamline the delivery of community benefits for those areas of the city that are most in need of improvements.
This past fall the City also strengthened its inclusionary housing ordinance, now one of the most progressive in the state, and AND’s Community Planning Program was involved in the technical analysis behind drafting the ordinance and advocating for its passage. One of the studies being produced by an interdisciplinary working group brought together by the city was a Residential Nexus Analysis. A draft of that study shows that the development of market-rate housing does generate significant demand for affordable housing, a finding which supports the City’s inclusionary policies and provides a foundation for future actions towards affordable housing. So public benefits mechanisms to further increase affordable housing are still needed, and are in the works. One mechanism that is being explored as a part of various planning proposals is the recapture of benefits conferred by the private sector on properties, through rezoning or other City actions. The City is exploring strategies of securing a portion of that benefit so that it can be rededicated back into the community, in the form of needed low-cost housing, open space, or other amenities for the community.
Another victory for Peter and AND in the effort to promote more equitable development was a resolution recently passed unanimously by the Board of Supervisors which articulates a public policy framework for preparing and evaluating new neighborhood plans for the city’s eastern neighborhoods. The policies outlined apply to the Mission, East SoMa, Potrero Hill and the Central Waterfront, though the policy sentiment is really applicable citywide, and they relate to objectives such as the development of new affordable housing, the retention and expansion of industrial and other working-class jobs, and the promotion of arts venues as well as work spaces and affordable housing for artists.
"All these initiatives are pieces of a puzzle that I think is moving the policy framework towards more of an equitable development outcome," says Peter.
In order to further advance these efforts, Peter and other planning experts who are concerned about social sustainability agree that urban and regional planning needs to become more proactive, addressing not only land use considerations from a regulatory standpoint, but also looking at the relationship between the physical form and socio-economic conditions of cities and actively seeking to promote sound community development principles. Understanding that new development, and specifically more compact forms of urban development, are necessary in order to accommodate future growth, reduce traffic and sprawl, protect open space and air and water quality, and preserve our high standard of living in the Bay Area, Peter would like to see developers become "enlightened capitalists." This means developers who fully consider and understand the range of impacts that arise when new development is introduced into existing neighborhoods, and who recognize the importance of preserving affordability, enhancing community assets, and protecting less tangible qualities like neighborhood character

Want a mix of housing? Require it!

Article published - Apr 2, 2007 by Chris Coursey
The Santa Rosa Press Democrat
It makes sense to concentrate new development downtown, as city officials envision with the Station Area Plan that was reviewed last week by the Santa Rosa Planning Commission.It's a positive step to plan for 3,249housing units and 6,000 extra residents close to the city's core. It's a wise move to pair that residential development with 300,000 square feet of shops and restaurants and 200,000 square feet of office space.But there's a big hole in this plan, and it flies in the face of its theme of "transit-oriented development."Nowhere does it require affordable housing.Some city officials take issue with that statement. The plan, after all, includes as part of its "vision" a statement that it will "provide for a range of housing choices and support a diverse population." There's even a line that states, "Housing is affordable ... "But having a vision of affordable housing is a lot different than having a requirement for it.Santa Rosa Mayor Bob Blanchard says affordable housing "is a valid issue" and it will be "a subject of discussion and review.""You've got to have it," he said.But he and other city officials have said in the past that affordable hous- ing already exists downtown. They also have said that by allowing higher densities and a mix of housing types downtown there will be a mix of housing prices.Both of those statements are true. But the affordable housing that exists downtown is a tiny fraction of the amount of new housing proposed in this plan. And unless developers are required to produce affordable units, does anyone really believe that a single new home will be sold or rented for a penny less than what the market will bear?Santa Rosa's inclusionary zoning ordinance requires developers either to include below-market-rate housing in their projects or pay an "in-lieu" fee to a fund the city uses to subsidize housing elsewhere.The 650 downtown acres included in the Station Area Plan aren't exempt from that ordinance.The problem is builders only are required to include affordable hous- ing if the project is larger than 15acres - and none of the properties within the plan area is that big, said city planner Ken MacNab.Further, the city exempts "mixed- use" projects from the ordinance, based on the expectation that multi-story projects with ground-floor retail or office space will include a mix of sizes and styles of housing, thereby creating a mix of prices.But the "mix" created so far ranges from high-priced to higher- priced. Developers predict condos in three high-rise buildings approved along Third Street will sell for $400,000 to $1 million. Monthly rents in a new mixed-use building off of College Avenue range from more than $1,300 for a one-bedroom apartment to almost $2,400 for some two-bedrooms.No doubt the developers will be able to charge those prices, but at what cost? Who are the people who will be able to pay them?The key priority of the Station Area Plan is to create "transit- oriented development" downtown. It is designed to provide more places to live close to a future commuter railroad, and place residential development closer to jobs.But empty-nest retirees living in downtown penthouses aren't going to fill the seats on a commuter train, and the waiters and baristas and clerks who work in all those new downtown businesses aren't going to live in $600,000 condos.If city officials truly want variety downtown - young and old, singles and families, retirees and office workers, shoppers and sales clerks - then they need to create housing that is affordable to people with a variety of incomes.And the only sure way to get that is to require it.

Roseland redevelopment should not be for the rich

By MAGDALENA RIDLEY - ROSELAND RESIDENT
Santa Rosa Press Democrat - Mar 18, 2007

Now that development in Roseland is on hold until we have an annexation plan, governmental officials sure seem serious about helping out. After years of neglect, it's suddenly all about fixing it up over here.
Toxic waste will be cleaned up and parks will finally appear, paid for with tax revenue from the redevelopment to come. It sounds beautiful.
Instead of people getting drunk in front of the boarded-up grocery store, I can see families strolling around a spacious plaza. Alongside the Joe Rodota Trail, storefronts and apartments could replace old warehouses and truck-storage yards. Where there are empty lots, we could have playgrounds or mixed-use buildings. I can imagine all of us Roseland residents smiling ear to ear as we walk around our clean, reinvested community.
Except redevelopment isn't that warm and fuzzy. Go to any recently redeveloped area and you can see how the original residents are excluded. In the beginning it is all about helping the neighborhood, but developers are interested in profits. Affordable housing and broad sidewalks are not nearly as profitable as expensive condos and luxury retail spaces.
When a place is driven by "economic feasibility" and "market demands," it gradually becomes too expensive for the very residents who were to benefit from the increased services and improved infrastructure in the first place. Which is why affordable housing is so important.
People live in second-rate neighborhoods because they are cheaper. Roseland is special because it has found ways to thrive in spite of that second-rate status. What has flourished here is a multicultural bastion of locally owned businesses and working-class residents. We should embrace that. The very idea of this unique community disappearing into a fog of high rents and chic stores makes me want to hold on tight to the dilapidated buildings, crummy roads and occasional shady characters.
Developers certainly won't mandate preservation of Roseland's working-class character. Sadly, it seems the city won't either. Santa Rosa requires only that 15 percent of any new housing development be affordable, and even that is easily waived. In mixed-use projects, there is no requirement. Citywide, new developments have been geared to the wealthy for just that reason - it is too easy to not bother with affordable housing.
But somebody has got to work in the grocery stores and do oil changes and teach school, and they deserve to live in nice places too. The Accountable Development Coalition, a broad group of local organizations that advocate for policy on developmental issues, has made an affordable housing recommendation for the Downtown Station Area Plan: 40 percent affordable units - 20 percent for individuals making under $42,000 a year, and 20 percent for individuals making under $63,000 a year.
These recommendations would be a good starting point for affordable policy in Roseland, and, really, they should be applied citywide. If we want our kids and workers to live here, we cannot just build luxury units in all the convenient spots and leave Burbank Housing to pick up the slack wherever it can.
Redevelopment in Roseland should include parks and a plaza and a community center. Existing occupied structures and our small businesses should be preserved. We should have police who are on foot. Most importantly, we must push for affordable housing. Redevelopment here could be amazing. It could be a chance to revitalize what is downtrodden and at the same time reinforce what is great. It could be a chance to sow hope instead of despair. Roseland and its residents, especially the kids, could finally get some acknowledgment and respect.
People talk about wanting to end the gang problem and stop crime and lower dropout rates, but they still want to treat the lower half of the economic spectrum like we are disposable. Redevelopment cannot magically erase the problems associated with not having money, but neither should it chase off everyone but the affluent. It should not be just another way in which the lower half is told they don't matter - especially here in Roseland, because we've already heard it enough.

Santa Rosa Settles Fair Housing Lawsuit

Halfway house, council reach agreement
By MIKE MCCOYTHE PRESS DEMOCRAT 3/14/07
Saying the city could ill afford to lose a costly lawsuit, the Santa Rosa City Council agreed Tuesday to pay $66,500 in damages and legal fees and to allow more people to live in a clean-and-sober halfway house.
"This is something we are being forced to do," Councilman Mike Martini said of the decision to allow The Living Place to house 12 people at its facility on Franklin Avenue.The group home opened in 2003. Within a few months, its operator, Jonathon Fong, became embroiled in a dispute with the city over whether he needed a use permit to operate the facility. While the city won that round, Fong sought to house 13 people in the home.
Two years ago, both the Planning Commission and council granted the facility permission to house up to 10 people, a combination of clients and staff. Fong filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, alleging that the limit violated the federal Fair Housing Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act as it applied to recovering alcoholics and drug addicts.
City Attorney Brien Farrell said Tuesday that rather than spending an estimated $300,000 on a lawsuit it could lose, the city reached an out-of-court settlement to allow Fong to boost his occupancy to 12 people. The settlement, unanimously approved by the council Tuesday, requires the city to pay Fong and his attorneys $32,500 in damages and $34,000 in legal fees. It also restricts the number of cars owned by residents of the house to nine, requires the addition of two parking spaces on-site and requires the operators to provide a hot-line phone number for neighbors to use if problems arise.
City planner Noah Housh said neighbors who attended a recent meeting said their primary issue is the "overall number" who will be living in the seven-bedroom home, near the corner of Lewis Road." Otherwise, they said the people there have been operating in a pretty respectful way," Housh said.
No neighbor showed up to speak against the settlement. David Grabill, a local attorney, said the settlement will provide additional space for those seeking recovery from alcohol and drug addictions. He urged the council to approve the settlement, which he said would allow the clientele "to be treated, not criminalized."

In Miami, a tangled tale of lost public housing

from the Christian Science Monitor
March 08, 2007
By Richard Luscombe

The feds are set to take control of a local agency amid charges that millions in public money were wasted or stolen.
MIAMI
When Caprice Brown and her three children were evicted six years ago from their rundown apartment in one of the most depressed areas of Miami, they were promised a sparkling new housing development that would revitalize the community.
Instead, they ended up in a single room of her aunt's already crowded house nearby. With little money for food and stripped of housing benefit vouchers, she slept on the floor while her sons aged 13 and 10, and her 11-year-old daughter shared the room's only bed. Then in January, she and her children moved into a private rental apartment.
Six years after the evictions, the 42-acre site in Liberty City that used to be their home remains demolished, fenced off, and abandoned.
Ms. Brown is among thousands of victims of one of the nation's biggest housing scandals, which saw millions of dollars of public money lost, squandered, or stolen while the Miami-Dade Housing Agency failed to deliver on promises of affordable new accommodations for its poorest citizens.
Hundreds of families were made homeless or simply disappeared from the system. They were waiting for help from an agency riddled by mismanagement and corruption, which is now the subject of a federal investigation that could have implications for low-income housing policy nationwide.
Meanwhile, the waiting list for public housing in one of America's most expensive cities for real estate has grown to more than 41,000 names.
"I'm angry about the lies that were told to us," says Brown. Her family was one of more than 850 uprooted when the agency pulled down the crumbling Scott Carver public housing project to make way for a partly government-funded revitalization project that was never built.
The stalled Scott Carver Homes project, for which the local authority accepted $35 million of government money, is the worst of many missteps dating back to 1998 that brought the agency to the attention of the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
An audit released last week confirmed massive misuse of public funds, tax irregularities, and countless incidents of sloppy or suspicious recordkeeping. The agency, for example, employs only about 690 workers, yet 1,811 appeared on payroll records, 115 of them with Social Security numbers belonging to deceased individuals.
Another criticism was that at least $12 million was paid to developers, through a nonprofit corporation set up by the agency, for housing projects that were never started or were delayed. One developer, Oscar Rivero, faces criminal charges of taking $740,000 meant for 54 low-income houses in Little Havana to buy himself a luxury home in south Miami.
A second, Raul Masvidal, was arrested last Friday on charges of grand theft and organized fraud. Among his alleged crimes? Skimming $150,000 from public money to buy himself a sculpture of a watermelon.
HUD secretary Alphonso Jackson's response was to send a "hit squad" of seven investigators to Miami, and he announced last week that he intends to take the rare step of ordering a federal takeover of the agency's finances and services. Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Alvarez is resisting, claiming that the county had turned a corner by replacing the agency's leadership with a new director of housing and team of experienced advisers.
"We've taken the most aggressive steps we possibly can, and I don't believe the federal government can do a better job," Mr. Alvarez said in a statement.
Those steps include new plans for the Scott Carver site that would see all 850 of the demolished units replaced. The original plan was to rebuild less than half that number.
The tug of war, however, goes far beyond local authority complacency and cuts to the heart of government policy toward public housing for the nation's poorest residents, experts say.
When it was set up in 1993, the Hope VI program was designed to inject federal funds into areas where public housing was "severely distressed," such as Liberty City, and build new developments mixing private and public accommodation.
But only 60 of the 237 projects funded with about $5.7 billion of government money nationwide have been completed. Meanwhile, many displaced families who were given vouchers to help them pay rent in the private sector lost their benefits through complications in the system.
Voucher problems exacerbated delays to Hope VI projects, says Chuck Elsesser, a board member of the National Low Income Housing Coalition and an attorney with more than 30 years' experience in affordable housing legislation. "When you look at the projects around the country, you ask two questions: Did it get built, and did the people come back?" he says. "A few do, but a lot get lost. In a short space of time families who had been living without any problems for decades were losing their subsidies and becoming homeless.
"Even with vouchers, you've got to have a landlord that will accept them. In Miami, they were sending people out into one of the hottest housing markets in the country. It didn't work here, and it did work in other areas," Mr. Elsesser adds.
Now some are urging Congress to do away with the program altogether. "Neither the housing agency nor HUD has done right by the people when it comes to Hope VI," says Tony Romano, organizing director of the Miami Workers Center, which is supporting displaced families. "The plan from the beginning was a failure. It's not about finishing what they started. It's time for a whole new plan."
Mr. Romano cites a study by the Research Institute for Social and Economic Policy at Miami's Florida International University that shows that more than half of 187 former Scott Homes residents interviewed lost their benefits, known as Section 8 vouchers.
Donna White, a spokeswoman for HUD, acknowledges problems but says it is unfair to judge the program by what happened in Miami. She points to Atlanta, Chicago, and Tampa, Fla., as areas where projects have been successful. "In some cities it hasn't been a nightmare. In some it has," she says. "I wouldn't like to paint a broad stroke on the program."
The program was never intended as an instant fix, says Susan Popkin of the Urban Institute's Metropolitan Housing and Communities Center, who has studied five Hope VI projects nationwide. "In Chicago, it started out a mess but over time it began working. But it took a strong support system and a lot of oversight to get there," she says.
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The Housing Bubble Starts to Burst

[Here's an article by Dean Baker, an economist and columnist for Truthout Online Magazine]
Is there anything as beautiful as the sound of surprised economists in the springtime? I haven't had this much fun since the NASDAQ started to deflate seven years ago.
Okay, enough of the gloating; while the collapse of the housing bubble was both predictable and inevitable, it is not pretty. Tens of millions of people will be hurt as they see much of the equity in their homes - money that most had counted on to support their retirement - disappear. Millions more will be forced out of their homes as they find that they are unable to meet the payments on adjustable rate mortgages that reset at higher rates. People who had worked hard and saved in order to become homeowners will see their dream disappear.
The timing and process of the unwinding of the bubble cannot be known, but the basic story is clear. Investors are finally realizing that the high-risk mortgages they have been holding are high-risk.
Mortgage brokers, who make their money on issuing mortgages, not holding them, had been anxious to get as many people as possible to buy mortgages. While old-fashioned bankers would demand large down payments and good credit histories, many mortgage brokers were happy to issue mortgages that they knew buyers could not pay off. Since the brokers dump their mortgages in the secondary market almost immediately after they are issued, they have little reason to be concerned about whether the buyer can actually meet the payments.
Mortgage brokers were able to entice more people into the housing market with low "teaser rates" that were often several percentage points below the market rate to which the loan would eventually reset. Many homebuyers who could meet their monthly payment on a mortgage with a 1.5 percent interest rate would be hopelessly over their heads when the mortgage reset to a 6.5 percent rate.
But, everything was fine, as long as home prices continued their rapid appreciation. If a homebuyer's income wasn't high enough to make the mortgage payment, the homebuyer could draw on the new equity created by a rising home price. As a result, delinquency and foreclosure rates remained low through 2004 and 2005, even as the number of high-risk mortgages soared.
However, the party began to end last year as house prices started to fall. The fall thus far has been relatively modest (around 3 percent nationwide), but with prices going in the wrong direction, most new homebuyers have no equity that they could rely upon to meet their monthly payments. As a result, delinquency rates began to soar in 2006. More than 10 percent of the subprime adjustable rate mortgages issued last year (the most risky category) were already seriously delinquent or foreclosed within 10 months of issuance. This is even before any of these mortgages reset to a higher interest rate.
With foreclosure rates soaring, the music is about to stop. The investors who bought up these mortgages in the secondary market are now refusing to lend more money. Credit is drying up for both the subprime and the Alt-A market, which is a notch above subprime in creditworthiness. These two segments of the housing market together accounted for 40 percent of the mortgages issued in the last two years.
If 40 percent of potential homebuyers suddenly have problems getting credit, it has to have a large impact on the housing market. Throw into the mix that the inventory of unsold homes is 25 percent higher than at the same time last year. And, the number of vacant units up for sale (normally an indication of a highly motivated seller) is up more than 40 percent compared to last year. Since house prices fell by three percent last year (six percent in real terms), it looks like we have the beginnings of a serious slide in house prices. And, a sharp fall in house prices will lead to more problems in the mortgage market.
That is the story of a collapsing housing bubble. It is not pretty. It was predictable. However, the experts either looked the other way or said everything was fine. And, the politicians pushed policies that persuaded many moderate-income families to buy overvalued homes that they could not afford. And the mortgage brokers made a fortune selling bad mortgages.
That is the way the US economy works these days. Those who mess up the economy do well, while their victims - in this case millions of moderate-income homebuyers who will lose their homes - pay the price for the experts' mistakes.
Dean Baker is the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR). He is the author of The Conservative Nanny State: How the Wealthy Use the Government to Stay Rich and Get Richer (http://www.conservativenannystate.org/). He also has a blog, "Beat the Press," where he discusses the media's coverage of economic issues. You can find it at the American Prospect's web site.

Older seniors being forced out of housing...

Check out C. W. Nevius' excellent article in the 2/25 San Francisco Chronicle:
At first it sounds hilarious. A generation gap at the retirement village between the 60-year-old Baby Boomers and the 80-plus old timers? What's the conflict? Frank Zappa versus Frank Sinatra?
But beneath the surface a nasty little battle of demographics is brewing. Sprawling retirement communities are attempting to spruce up facilities to appeal to the onslaught of Baby Boomers, while the longtime residents worry that they are subtly being nudged out the gate.
Out in Walnut Creek, where the "active retirement" community of Rossmoor is experiencing growing pains, resident Dick Hayes, 71, a former president of the Residents Association, speaks for many retirees.
"I think there is an attempt, and it may be subtle and unconscious, to get rid of the 80- and 90-year-olds,'' says Hayes.
See the full article at: http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=df7q7cfm_31ff67t8