Anonymous
Bradley Court Affordable Housing in Santa Barbara (Photo: HACSB)
Source: Santa Barbara County Grand Jury
The City of Santa Barbara has long been a desired destination for living and working, for those who can afford the high cost of housing. Employers find it difficult to attract and retain qualified workers. Jobs exist here, but there is a magnified job-housing imbalance. There is not enough affordable housing. The 2019-20 Santa Barbara County Grand Jury investigated this issue and determined that the need for affordable housing has continued to increase, and the City has not maintained its commitment to provide it.
Since 2018, the legislative bodies of the State of California have been passing legislation to require cities to unfetter their permitting and zoning processes and allow housing for all income levels. If they do not, the State can overrule the cities’ regulations. The State has mandated that Santa Barbara build thousands of affordable units by 2023. Furthermore, the State of California declared not only a housing crisis but also a homeless crisis. The bulk of funding that would have assisted cities to build affordable housing is now going to help the homeless.
Santa Barbara is in a double bind. It must build the housing that the State mandates but it has fewer funding resources to do it. The City needs to recognize that it must abandon all unproductive patterns and adopt a forward-looking vision and proactive leadership for creating affordable housing.
The complete report with agency responses are posted on the Grand Jury’s website: www.sbcgj.org [or below].
A crock. All housing here is affordable when someone buys it. Too many housing units are already subsidized and a permanent drag on tax revenue generation. Survey that. How many units does Montecito or Hope Ranch have to supply since they are primary employers for low-wage jobs and they have acres of empty space for much denser development. Are they exempt?
Graduating UCSB students cannot demand we provide them “affordable” housing, just because they decide they want to stay. Plenty of affordable housing all over this state; but not here. Nor should there be. For decades the demand has been for more housing; but each wave of new development proves yet again you cannot build your way out of the demand. This need-demand cycle craziness must stop.
Since government is the biggest local employer, no one can claim these average $150,000-$400,000 a year jobs will not attract necessary “workers”. Who lives in the thousands of “affordable units” we are already subsidizing. What is their turnover rate? Santa Barbara cannot be measured by other locality criteria – we will always have low vacancies rates and turnover rates are extremely low. It is who we are.
Audit the current subsidized housing in the entire country -who benefits and how does it benefit the community at large; not just the few individuals who won the “affordable housing” lottery. Who gets those units, how long do they typically stay in these subsidized units and what role does this program play in our wider society to qualify this option as cost-efficient benefit to our community at large.
The wage for low med moderate high is terrible. The moderate could be considered low. The very lowest income would almost be homeless.
Of course it is an oxymoron. This is a highly desirable place to live and the law of supply and demand reflect high costs. Developers can’t turn a profit on affordable housing.
Affordable housing is incompatible with capitalistic property ownership. It’s a problem.
Too many people. As long as religious zealots and other block population control/options measures we will continue to see those with limited resources try to provide themselves with old age security by procreating. In societies where basic social needs are easily available the population stabilizes and even declines. This is not happening in the US as we have succumbed to dogma to prohibit event the most simple options to let people have choices as to how many children they will bear. When I see that California is losing population I cheer. Maybe we can turn back the dark forces that will destroy our planet.
1. THERE IS NO HOUSING CRISIS! (Yes I’m shouting, sorry.)
2. The birth rate in California is below replacement. (Google it, it’s true.)
3. With an effective vacancy rate of 0%, by definition, every dwelling in Santa Barbara is affordable to those living there.
4. When our elected officials use the term ‘Affordable Housing’, they are speaking in code. What they mean is that in every community in California there should be an equal distribution of income levels living there. This is a ridiculous and ultimately destructive concept. (See 5.)
5. Each one of us is competing with the other 8 billion people for resources including housing (Now more than ever because of the internet). We may not like it, but that’s like saying you don’t like the tides or the sun coming up. It’s just the way it is.
6. Santa Barbara is a desirable place to live. Many of those 8 billion people would like to live here. There is effectively infinite demand for housing in Santa Barbara. High demand creates high prices as those people compete for available housing. (Econ101).
7. In a market with infinite demand, increasing supply (Building more housing) has absolutely no effect on pricing. I’ve lived here for 45 years and have yet to see increasing housing supply lowering prices.
8. Our elected officials are bought and paid for by the real estate and development industry.
9. Most of the government intervention in the the housing market has the opposite effect of the stated purpose. When the government mandates affordable units be built, a lucky few win the lottery for under market prices, but by removing those units from the open market you lower supply and increase prices. When the state interferes with local zoning ordinances and mandates ADUs (Accessory Dwelling Units) in all zones, the market now prices in the potential income from the ADU. The more services we provide for the homeless, the more homeless we have.
10. The one sure way to lower housing prices in Santa Barbara is to make it less desirable and our elected officials are doing all they can to make that happen.
I see your points, OAITW, but what are we to do with the people living in their cars and in the bushes? We can’t seem to make them go away, so government thinks we should find housing for them. You think that is ill advised, but what is your realistic solution to dealing with the unhoused people, especially the children? Some of the adults actually have employment here, so are inclined to stay, and in any case have no prospects elsewhere to draw them away. And they don’t have money to gamble on a move to start afresh elsewhere.
01:23 – This is probably going to sound harsh and uncaring but I think what needs to be done with those living in their cars here need to be counciled that there is a wide country out there that has many communities that are far more affordable than Santa Barbara and that they would be able to have a much better standard of living elsewhere. Also living in your car should be illegal if for no other reason than the health and safety aspects.
@Luvaduck and Byzantum – by your logic, will all elderly white rich retirees who can afford to live in Santa Barbara get jobs waiting tables and bagging groceries? Or do you expect people who work these low paying service industry jobs to live in Lompoc, Ventura, and Santa Maria to get bussed in to cater to those who can “afford” to live here? Why not just admit you want only rich white people to live here.
@OAITW –1:09 PM: You are so right in every point you made. Re: #8—All one has to do is sit in on an Architectural Board of Review meeting or a Planning Commission Meeting, one where there’s a proposed development project, to know this is true.
2:36. Time was not that long ago, the high collge student population took most of the low-skill part time jobs and appreciated the work experience opportunities and teenagers bagged the groceries. Time was not that long ago, the large Montecito and Hope Ranch estates provided onsite maids quarters and gardeners cottages for their own employees. There are multiple ways to make this area work without over-building and over-developing. Yes, it is time to push the clock back to the good old says when we were a sleepy seaside town for tourism and pensioners. Read the city general plans prior to the 1970s. The frenzy you now think is normal is actually only very recent.
@BIGUGLYSTICK Start of in Santa Maria or Lompoc… oh, the sacrifices! I had to flip 3 houses over 10 yrs before I could afford to live in SB. That was 10 yrs of commuting. It’s called a personal sacrifice that will payoff-eventually. I have since moved out of SB as it’s no longer the same town and moved to the SYV… If you want to live in SB that badly, you can- You just have to have a PLAN of action. I know others who bought houses in VTA,LPC or SM and rent them out and decided to rent in SB. Bottomline, it ain’t the taxpayers responsibility to provide YOU or anyone else housing- Take some personal responsibility.
Byzantum got it exactly right. If you want to live in one of the few very desirable climates, landscapes in the country, you need the income, savings or inheritance to make it happen or be a vagrant as long as the area puts up with it. Hope Ranch and Montecito are somehow avoiding the latter. Take note and copy.
God bless the employers who pay their employees a livable wage, all 2 of them.
You can’t change the basic rule of “supply and demand” except by a communist-style central control. Sadly that is what our elected officials in Sacramento seem to be moving toward.
Only true in places that most people want to live. Prices are very affordable in most places in the mid West, etc. But people prefer to live in squalor here. That is a choice.
I can afford my home here. My friends all afford their homes. My neighbors as well. It seems that the only people who cannot afford to live here are those who cannot afford to live here… Want to reduce costs and housing limits? Reduce the population of uneducated, unskilled workers that are willing to work for $12 an hour. As long as there is a long line of people willing to live in squalor and work for meager wages, you’ll have an oversupply of people and an under-supply of housing. Remember, a rising tide lifts all boats, except when there are infinite numbers of people trying to get into yours. Then it sinks and takes everyone drowns…
That must be really NICE for you, Santa Barbara Observer. I am a multi-generation native Californian, and I cannot afford to buy a home here. I tried and tried and never got my foot in the door, and because my family was plagued with debt and money problems before me, we never inheireted property or had a leg up to begin with. I worked my ass off all my adult life, and even tried to build a business, but the wealthy get wealthier and the rest of us struggle. The cost of living is insurmountable unless you have some kind of help or you get really LUCKY.
This is it, you hit the nail on the head, RHS. Very true.
Well, that’s easy to say, LUVADUCK and Bysantum. But what about those of us born and raised here, who BELONG here, but cannot afford to buy a home? I don’t think I should be forced out of my homeland because the prices shot right out of the stratosphere. Some would say “too bad” but those people are heartless and cruel and probably not from here originally. I’m not looking for a free ride, but I’d to be able to buy a home that I could afford here in my hometown. There should be programs for Native Californians who need help buying. I tried for years, then the prices rocketed out of reach entirely. It is heartbreaking. I’m no tourist that set my sights on this lovely town, I am a LOCAL who is part of what makes this town what it is. We need affordable housing or we will only have a community of vapid uber wealthy 1%ers. No, thanks, That has no soul whatsoever.
Do we want to be yet another coastal town with high density, small space housing, traffic that never stops, no landscaping, crime and gangs, lines that get longer and longer at outlets just to park, and housing that will never be “affordable”? Building is no longer “barn raising” a community does for all strata of native born. The costs of building and getting permits is “out of site” (pun intended) , includes compliance and costly delays .The attitudes toward even more housing as a State is totally unrealistic along the coasts. There use to be the “idea’ of “carrying capacity”, a number that revealed the best quality of life and the balance of affordable to luxury housing. Unfortunately, the super LA rich, part-timers also need the service of the “minimums” to do their jobs–cleaning, landscape, clean up, grunt work.
But the “slave class” is no longer the construction people, electricians, and plumbers it seems, but government workers who need housing to be happy bureaucrats until they get those amazing pensions that allow them to buy SB housing, maybe? Recall in LA, where they built low income housing for teachers– and then the teachers did not qualify for it–made too much! Just a few years ago. The State cannot mandate “carrying capacity” –nature, earthquakes , fires, mud slides, gridlocks do that pretty well, nor market values. Real issue: People born here should come first as “new natives”- you think? Now they have to leave. In many high rise, overpopulated coastal places in the world, corporations provide the housing in a new form of “wage slavery”. We don’t want that either– do we? What happened to the concept of “unsafe unsustainable conditions”. Stop luxury multi-million dollar housing we have to see in the paper still with 2 baths?
As a relative newcomer I’ve been impressed by the number of auxiliary units and small apartment buildings in the back of deep lots. I’m assuming that even these don’t increase the density that much (?)
Wordy.
Thanks for your short post.
Wayne, you’d save yourself a whole lot of anguish if you realized that the people who are crying for “affordable housing” are just idiots. Trying to explain things to idiots is a large cause of the world’s frustration. That’s why we have an idiot-in-chief in Washington. He speaks “idiot” directly to the idiots of society. And while most people scratch their head and wonder wtf is he saying, the idiots lap it up. Funny how that works… Anyway, the point is: The affordable housing people dont understand supply and demand or basic economics, let alone the extremely complex economy of modern day America. Trying to get them to see past their ignorance, willful or not, is a fools errand. Best to let them bark and whine while we banter and drink wine in our “affordable” homes…
Have to go up, tall buildings with cramped apartments instead of cramped single family homes. At least they might be able to provide parking for those.
SBO, there are jobs available here. You get to make the choice about pay a big % of your salary in a shared housing situation here, or trying to get a decent car and housing in Ventura or Oxnard and spending several hours a day commuting, if the traffic is not too bad. I can see why some people choose the former. In a perfect world there would be a balance between housing and jobs so that our fossil fuel emissions would be minimized. People don’t seem to be able to plan like that.
YES
IT’S AN OXYMORON
Here is how this stuff works, everywhere on earth.
Lots of people want Nice Things. A place to live in Santa Barbara is a Nice Thing.
When there are more people who want Nice Things than there are Nice Things, one or more of the following four things happens. [There is no fifth]…
1 – The price goes up [Think Amazon common stock]
2 – A line forms [Think Rolling Stones tickets]
3 – Only members of a club get the Nice Things [the old Hollister Ranch Surfing Association]
4 – Someone makes more Nice Things [Tickle Me Elmo — see below]
THERE IS NO FIFTH – Remember that. Say it with me. THERE IS NO FIFTH
At this moment, by my guess, more than FIVE MILLION PEOPLE on earth would like to live in Santa Barbara. Probably 2 million of them could afford to buy their houses for cash.
They won’t all fit. There is not enough Santa Barbara to go around.
What to do?
There were not enough Tickle Me Elmos to go around, so to prevent 1, 2, and 3, the solution was simple. MAKE MORE TICKLE ME ELMOS.
In this case, MAKE OTHER PLACES AWESOME.
In my 1986 Congressional campaign here in what was then the 19th Congressional District, I referred to it as MOPA – I’ve been shouting this for 34 years.
NOTE: You can always Make Santa Barbara Into Lower Manhattan [which I refer to as the “Manhattan Project”] Then it isn’t a Nice Thing anymore, and the demand will go down, the price will go down, the line will go down, and the club will have no reason to exist. Hey… it worked for Love Canal [albeit for different reasons]. It should work here, too. Right? I am seriously proposing a FIFTY STORY BUILDING in downtown Santa Barbara, with stores on the first few levels, offices on the next, and housing above. If you WANT a million people in Santa Barbara [and it seems EVERYONE does], that’s how Lower Manhattan did it. SKYSCRAPERS.
OR – You can work as hard as possible to turn OTHER HAUNTINGLY BEAUTIFUL places into objects of everyone’s desire… MAKE OTHER PLACES AWESOME.
I had a friend in 1981, Mr. Leon Lee, who owned a bathing suit factory in a since-razed building near the Granada Theater. He literally hired people to sew bathing suits in Santa Barbara. I lost touch with him, but it’s clearly not open now. Following the invention of the mechanical sewing machine in the latter part of the 19th Century, the garment trade was America’s Silicon Valley. Leon’s was among the last. Now the garment trade is Bangladesh’s Silicon Valley. Nobody in their right mind would locate a garment factory in Santa Barbara today. Because. Duh.
With that as the opener example, there are some tough questions… Why should we strain publicly so we can afford to bring in JavaScript programmers for under $75,000 per year, just so the CEO can live here? Isn’t that the same as Leon’s bathing suit factory? Why not actually locate the HQ of the firm someplace where housing costs match prevailing wages?
For that matter, assume you bought a Nice Place in Santa Barbara, and you paid a Lot of Money for it. What makes you think you’re entitled to buy a McDonald’s [or other] hamburger here for the same price you’d pay in Tupelo, Mississippi, the birthplace of Elvis? I hope you know that when you do so, you’re simply asking the hardworking employees who bring it to you to work for what are unsustainable wages in Santa Barbara and have their livelihoods subsidized by taxes YOU pay! So you partially paid for your hamburger when you paid your taxes, and you NEVER EVEN KNEW.
Inquiring minds want to know.