Low-Cost Housing

Never has a group of community officials--members of the City Council of Encinitas--had such a marvelous opportunity to stand up and be counted for the hundreds of low-income people within their community.

That opportunity is the proposed use of the Image Inns motel by the North County Chaplaincy, an organization that has tremendous support throughout the North County and has demonstrated during the past few years its ability to meet the needs of the homeless and migrants. It has done this through a program of temporary housing, oversight of camps in the canyons, providing volunteer health care professionals, running a thrift shop and counseling thousands on legal, social and personal problems--all without any tax dollars from the communities it serves.

Encinitas is not the only city in North County that needs more low-cost housing. According to San Diego’s “Regional Housing Needs Statement,” seven major communities in North County need 4,202 units in the next five years. Encinitas needs 538, and at the present time is being sued because of lack of low-cost housing. The Image Inn project will provide one-fifth of that need at a much less cost than if the city had to build them.

Tentative commitments have been made by the state and the County of San Diego in the amount of $455,000, plus support from San Diego Community Foundation.

All that is needed right now to initiate the program is for the council of Encinitas to vote to assign $100,000 in federal funds to this project.

Let us hope that they will stand up and be counted. Not often is there such a practical and economical solution to a very great humanitarian program.

THE REV. HAMES Z. NETTINGA, Encinitas