Affordable Housing

By Tom "Manure Man" Lynch

Sonoma County Housing Advocacy Group Candidate Survey Committee Questions January 21, 2008

The Sonoma County Housing Advocacy Group ("HAG") has been advocating for affordable housing and housing for persons with special housing needs such as farmworkers, persons with disabilities, and homeless persons for more than 10 years. As part of our advocacy work, we frequently endorse candidates for local and state offices who we believe will support efforts to address the housing needs of all persons in the area they seek to represent.

The Board of Supervisors plays a key role in setting and implementing housing policies for the whole county. We understand that you are a candidate for Sonoma County Fifth District Supervisor. Congratulations! To assist us in deciding which Fifth District supervisorial candidate to endorse in 2008, we would very much appreciate receiving your written answers to the following questions about affordable housing:

1. Do you believe the County is currently doing an adequate job of promoting affordable housing?

I think Sonoma County and the city of Santa Rosa are making progress in some of the incorporated areas of central Sonoma County...still inadequate for a variety of reasons. In the unincorporated areas of Western Sonoma County one could almost say there is an abysmal failure. Consequences of a lack of affordable housing in our rural villages is leading to poor commute patterns with increased green house gas emissions; threatens to close more of our small schools due to a lack of students and a continuing loss of younger and retired members of our community who no longer can afford to live among us. There are remarkable statistics showing a loss of 25% of our young families since 1990 as well as fewer registered voters in the 5th District today than in 1996.

How could it do a better job? Please discuss.

Sonoma County is one of the least affordable housing areas in the country due to the high value of houses (even with the downturn with prices) relative to the low wages of much of the work force. More than half of the workers in Sonoma County earn less than $15/hr. To build "affordable apartments" there is a unit cost approaching $400,000; also in West County there are many limits with available infrastructure, zoning, and suitable parcels.

Part of any solution to increase affordable housing in the unincorporated/incorporated areas of the 5th district needs to include creative and innovative solutions. One method is to encourage more second dwelling units and SRO single room occupancy units as part of existing dwellings. Any relaxed regulations and subsidies toward this goal should include "affordability covenants" to continue to make these units available to lower income tenants.

2. How can the County provide more funding to support affordable housing? Alternatives include 1) increase the level of funding from redevelopment programs (currently 20%); 2) adopt a tax on real estate transfers; 3) increase fees on new residential and commercial construction to support affordable housing; 4) Other. Please describe any approaches which you believe would be effective.

As a twice elected member of the Russian River Redevelopment Oversight Committee and vice-chair of the RRROC Housing Subcommittee I support increased percentage of redevelopment funds toward affordable housing over and above the 20% minimum allocation rule. A tax on real estate transfers and/or increased fees on construction may be counter-productive harming the local economy, discouraging new construction and unfairly burdening home buyers making their purchase less affordable under the pretense of making more affordable housing.

Many times our tax dollars are not being leveraged to best effect to provide more affordable housing; with redevelopment sometimes up to 40% of our monies are used through project administration. Perhaps we could do better in some sort of public/private partnership like subsidies for homeowners to create second units. Also I think more monies could be raised and it would be more fair and equitable to have a ballot measure (we should at least try) that would provide money...a little bit from a lot of sources.

3. Do you feel the County should support construction of housing for farmworkers? Please discuss whether and how the County can help in this effort.

It's appalling the state of housing for the "invisible homeless" Latino's working for our agriculture, businesses and homeowners throughout Sonoma County. Seasonal workers should be allowed to live in small encampments of trailers with bathroom facilities. It is to our shame that there are people living and working in Sonoma County without a roof over their head and a place to go to the bathroom.

4. Persons with disabilities face many challenges with respect to their housing needs. How can the County insure that persons with mental and physical disabilities are adequately housed?

We can continue all efforts to help families look after the needs of family members living with disabilities. Of course encouraging and assisting anyone become independent. More money and resource could be allocated if we were to reduce some of the more costly County staff time with non-profits, volunteer and faith based groups and outsource to private business where competitive. Maybe some of the overtime allocated to public safety would be better used to look after the mentally ill with special needs to keep them out of the criminal justice system. In some respects we have criminalized mental illness putting an unfair and inappropriate burden on public safety servants to jail a large percentage of prisoners who are mentally ill.

5. How do you balance the need for affordable housing with environmental concerns about traffic, air quality, global warming?

Providing housing for those who work in our communities helps reduce green house gases through having to commute from afar; reduces air pollution from auto emissions, "vests" members in our community increasing the amount of community volunteers (...fire districts bemoan the lack of volunteers due to a lack of affordable housing, the younger generations used to be the backbone of our local fire departments),

I have been involved with the housing issue for 30+ years. As a member of the RRROC I have spent a great deal of time working toward practical solutions that will benefit the most people with the best allocation of our resources. As a member of the Sonoma County Economic Development Board I have encouraged more affordable housing. Right now we are suffering the effects of the law of unintended consequences. A lack of affordable housing in our communities is responsible for a loss of some of the best and brightest of our young as well as a loss of older workers and retirees moving away from their home out of economic necessity. We are moving into a recession on the threshold of a demographic event called the retirement of the baby boomers with 76 million of us retiring with no money set aside in Social Security and Medicare other than a bunch of phony IOU's. There is not going to be the resource for housing that there once was and we all need to work together in creative and innovative ways to solve problems.

Thank you for your good works!!

With respect, Tom Lynch