County, Business Team Up to Solve Low-Income Housing Crisis

In an effort to find solutions to Orange County’s low-income housing crunch, public officials and private business people met Friday to discuss concerted plans of action that could provide needed shelter for those at the bottom of the economic ladder.

Sponsored by the League of Women Voters and the Orange County Housing Authority, the first-ever countywide forum included more than 100 housing officials, realtors, developers, elected officials and employers.

“We invited these people to participate in this forum because they are the ones who should be the problem finders to the housing situation,” said Sandra J. McClymonds, executive director of the Orange County Housing Authority.

The participants were put into small groups and encouraged to analyze what they perceived to be the most serious housing problems in Orange County and make recommendations aimed at solving the dilemma.

The discussions, at a hotel in Orange, were not open to the news media, but the suggestions developed during the daylong conference were made available later.

Cooperation Sought

The forum’s sponsors said the intent was to get public officials and private business people together face-to-face to find cooperative ways to deal with low-income housing.

“We are constantly reminded by the calls we get that there is a need for low-income housing, and we are also cognizant that we can’t solve those problems by ourselves,” McClymonds said.

In a morning address, county Supervisor Harriett M. Wieder said more than 7,000 families in Orange County are on a waiting list for some type of low-income housing with little chance of finding it in the near future. She added that the reduction in the past five years of federal housing subsidy programs is one of the central reasons for the current low-income housing problem.

“It is a well-documented fact that we in Orange County need to provide more housing in the affordable bracket,” she said.

Wieder also said a deep joint commitment from the public and private sectors was essential to alleviate the housing problem in Orange County.

“We can’t continue to be a thriving economy if we provide housing only to those who can pay the tab,” she said. “The private and public sectors will have to produce the needed housing stock.”

James Doti, dean of the School of Business at Chapman College, also told the forum’s participants that the “housing affordability gap” in Orange County is the worst since studies were begun on the subject in 1977.

“Orange County is totally unlike any other area of the United States,” he said.

At about $42,000 a year, Doti added, Orange County’s median income is high, but not high enough to allow many residents to buy homes. A recent study showed that the median price of a home in the county is about $175,000, the highest in the state.

Although the discussions at Friday’s conference were informal, McClymonds said the consensus was that a cohesive group of private and public representatives should be established to find solutions to the low-income housing problem.

“I think there will be a coalition of some kind to develop out of this. That seemed to be a recurring theme at all the discussions,” she said.

One suggestion was that housing officials should push for a uniform definition of “low- to moderate-income” housing. Currently, local, state and federal officials have varying criteria to determine who qualifies.

Scott Mather, a Costa Mesa insurance agent who spends much of his free time serving as an advocate for the homeless and poor workers, said the county also needs better coordination to receive state and federal funds available for low-income housing projects.

“Sometimes there are funds available, and they must be sent back because there is no one prepared to handle them,” he said.

The participants also recommended that any task force established in the county encourage all cities to commit to low-income housing projects and identify potential sites within their jurisdictions that can be used to build new housing for the poor.

Another suggestion was to give developers incentives to set aside a percentage of their new units for low-income families.

Mary Miller of Laguna Beach, a member of the League of Voters and a housing advocate, said there seemed to be agreement in Friday’s discussions that there is a lack of political will and leadership to find solutions to the housing dilemna.