ORANGE COUNTY PERSPECTIVE : Breakthrough in Low-Income Housing

It was a relief that the Board of Supervisors last week approved a timely $1.7-million loan that could give Orange County its first single-room-occupancy project, in Costa Mesa. The decision came after a couple of disappointing setbacks for advocates of SROs in Huntington Beach and Santa Ana.

Providing housing that the working poor, the elderly, the disabled and others on low incomes can afford has proven to be fraught with obstacles. Not the least of these are the barriers that opponents sometimes have thrown up in an effort to keep low-cost rental units out of neighborhoods.

In Huntington Beach, a proposal for a 240-unit project was derailed last year by a combination of financial problems, administrative delays and neighborhood opposition.

Santa Ana only recently put a plan back on track to turn the old YMCA building downtown into an SRO, after the city agreed to buy the building.

But the first on the block could be Costa Mesa, where project developers plan to buy a Travelodge and convert it into a single-room-occupancy hotel with 96 units.

Anyone who earns no more than $18,450 per year, which is less than half the county’s median income, will be able to apply for units at a monthly rent of $456.

The county broke a deadlock in the project with its laudable targeting of public funds for a partnership in low-cost housing with private developers. It agreed to make up with its loans some of the money that a private investor had previously pledged but then later withdrawn.

And timing is everything. By making available loans to the city of Costa Mesa and to the development firm of Butler-O’Bryon & Associates at interest rates ranging from 3% to 5%, the county is helping to get the project moving at last.

The critical need can be demonstrated close to home. There are an estimated 16,000 people in Costa Mesa alone earning less than the county cutoff, which is an obvious sign of the potential market. This SRO will have small furnished apartments that include private bathrooms, kitchen facilities, color TVs and linens.

Providing such housing makes good economic sense because it enables working poor people to live closer to job centers like Costa Mesa.

Innovative projects in San Diego, San Jose, Los Angeles and elsewhere around the country have shown their value already. It’s good that Orange County is getting on the bandwagon and helping to buttress its own economic position in the process.