Housing for Working Poor Is Welcome : * Single-Room-Occupancy Hotels Accessible to Many Otherwise Priced Out of County
The abundance of million-dollar homes is testimony to Orange County’s longtime reputation as a location blessed by the good life, but of course those spectacular houses are not the norm. It long has been clear that the county suffered from a need for affordable housing, somewhere for police and firefighters, nurses and secretaries to live.
It has not been just the homeless who found themselves without shelter in the county. The working poor and those several rungs higher on the economic ladder have also been priced out of much of the county’s housing stock. A welcome development to help the working poor has been approval of residential hotels known as SROs, or single-room-occupancy hotels, in several cities in the county.
After months of quarreling, Irvine last month approved plans to build an SRO hotel in an industrial area off Jamboree Road. Owners of nearby businesses argued to the City Council that hotel residents would be bothered by noise, traffic and pollution from industry. That is why the Irvine Planning Commission previously voted against the SRO. The business people also said they worried that hotel residents would complain about the noise and demand that working hours be reduced.
That is something the residents should not do. The council wisely voted to require residents to sign acknowledgments that nearby industry creates noise and sometimes operates 24 hours a day. If residents honor those agreements, it should satisfy the complaints of the council minority that voted against the SRO.
This month Fullerton joined the bandwagon, with the city’s redevelopment agency agreeing to loan $1 million to a developer to build a 112-unit hotel for people earning less than $17,000 per year. The one-room apartments, with toilet, sink, refrigerator, microwave and small stove, plus a bedroom area, will rent for an average $326 per month. That may sound like a bargain to some, but for a senior citizen on a fixed income, or a fry cook in a fast-food restaurant, that is often all they can afford.
In Costa Mesa, the city converted what had been a 96-room motel into an SRO, home to people making less than $19,500 per year. Two nurses, two night watchmen and a secretary were among the first residents to move in last December. The County Board of Supervisors did a good job in helping Costa Mesa with a $1.2-million loan. The county needs more such housing, and other cities will do well to look toward Costa Mesa, Irvine and Fullerton for guidance.
