ORANGE COUNTY PERSPECTIVE : Keeping Low-Cost Housing

There’s sad news on Orange County’s low-cost housing front: Santa Ana’s YMCA, which has provided 83 single and double rooms renting for $15 to $20 a night, will close next month. The aging facility is the victim of inadequate finances; last year it lost $200,000. Ironically, the YMCA will close as Santa Ana and other cities are trying to work together so builders can bring new single-room-occupancy hotels, or SROs, to Orange County.

The YMCA facility is not up to today’s standards; some of its rooms are unheated and others are extremely small. But for 68 years it has provided cheap rooms for men who could afford little else. Some of the many homeless who congregate on Santa Ana’s streets say they sometimes could afford a night or two a month at the YMCA. There they had a chance to rest and begin to feel human before they went back onto the streets. Now that opportunity could be lost.

YMCA officials say they are hoping to find a buyer willing to make the necessary renovations and reopen the facility, which is at the corner of Civic Center Drive and Sycamore Street. City officials say they do not foresee that it will be torn down, both because housing seems to be the best use for it and because it is a historic building. Ever optimistic, they even believe there is a possibility that the YMCA’s hotel accommodations could be expanded or at least that some units could be enlarged and improved. They are hoping that a buyer will come forward with that in mind.

Meanwhile, Santa Ana is also working with the YWCA, which is planning to renovate its women’s shelter into a 37-unit SRO hotel and perhaps add a new building with more rooms. That would be the first SRO since the city stepped up its efforts to help organizations and individuals to open up low-cost rooming houses.

No place in Orange County can afford to lose low-cost housing, especially not Santa Ana. All efforts to preserve valuable housing are welcome.