No New Housing for Poor Created in S.D. in 2 Years : Poverty: City Planning Dept. report also finds that most of housing created for top range of “low-income” residents is SRO hotels or military housing.

San Diego produced no housing affordable by its poorest citizens in fiscal years 1989 and 1990, and just 159 homes for “low-income” residents, according to a new report by the city’s Planning Department.

Public and private builders produced 875 units in fiscal 1989 and 936 in fiscal 1990 that low-income families in the upper range of that category could afford, according to the study, but the vast majority of those homes were single-room occupancy hotels or military housing.

The figures confirm the continuation of the city’s poor record of producing housing other than single-room occupancy hotel rooms and homeless shelter beds for its poorest residents. According to the task force that devised the city’s new “housing trust fund,” 40% of San Diego’s residents cannot afford decent housing.

“Where we’ve particularly fallen short is providing housing for low-income families,” said Senior Planner Myles Pomeroy, who wrote the report that will be presented to the city’s Planning Commission on Thursday.

The report blames the situation on high housing prices, an 80% cut in federal funding for low-income housing during the 1980s, less-attractive tax incentives and the troubled savings and loan industry.

The city did add 486 subsidized rental units in fiscal 1989 and 258 in fiscal 1990, to bring its total to about 7,000.

Under the complex guidelines that govern the city’s annual review of its “housing element,” the city produced no housing considered “guaranteed affordable” to “very low income” residents in either fiscal year. Those are families of four earning $19,450 or less.

An apartment is considered “guaranteed affordable” if such a family would be required to spend no more than 30% of its income on rent and utilities--in this case, $486 monthly.

Builders constructed 159 housing units considered “guaranteed affordable” to “low-income” residents. But just 44 of those units are apartments; the rest are single-room occupancy hotel units.

A family of four is considered low-income if it earns from $19,451 to $30,300 annually. For a single person, the guidelines are incomes of $13,601 to $21,200.

Some low-income families earning the most money could afford a separate category of 875 homes built in fiscal 1989 or the 936 units built in fiscal 1990, labeled “opportunities” for housing for the poor.

But 404 of the homes built in 1989 were single-room occupancy homes, and an additional 236 were military housing, leaving just 235 apartments for families. In 1990, 499 single-room occupancy hotel rooms and 266 military apartments were built, leaving just 171 homes for city families.

The city’s Housing Commission completed no new homes in either fiscal year, though it expects to open at least 40 units in the next few months, according to Steve Mikelman, the commission’s manager of program and policy.

The new Housing Trust Fund was established to help add to the city’s stock of affordable housing. But that agency, which expected to receive about $13 million during the current fiscal year in fees from new development, now predicts that just $6 million will be available, primarily because fewer commercial and industrial projects are being built, Mikelman said.