Housing Activists Seek Affordable S. County Units

It began with a small meeting of a dozen South County residents interested in a prickly issue: creating affordable housing in one of the most expensive parts of the county.

Today that little group has grown into a quietly busy and growing platoon of advocates for low-income housing, lobbying and keeping watch over use of funds earmarked for residential projects to benefit low-income people.

And they are savoring their first victory as the nonprofit Mary Erickson Foundation. In August, the group closed escrow on an eight-unit, $590,000 apartment complex on West Canada, for which the city of San Clemente contributed $225,000.

Mariners Bank provided a $265,000 loan, and the county put up the rest of the funds.

The real estate buy capped more than two years of tedium, but it has given the group a successful start upon which to build.

“I just think it’s remarkable that we were able to do it,” said Lee Steelman, president of the South Orange County Community Services Council, which had held that first meeting.

More than 50 South County residents now make up five advocacy groups in San Clemente, San Juan Capistrano, Dana Point, Laguna Beach and Laguna Niguel. Lake Forest is next on the list.

Foundation members, including a banker, a company president, a contractor and a real estate consultant, have chosen a method of gentle yet firm persuasion. They are well versed in the world of financing and South County demographics.

At a recent San Juan Capistrano Planning Commission meeting, Jessica Dean and Pauline Leonard introduced themselves as part of the San Juan Housing Advocates and told the panel that 31% of the city’s residents qualified as low-income. They also gently reminded city leaders of their legal and moral obligation to provide some low-income housing and recalled that the city had about $1 million set aside, but languishing, to do just that. And they offered their “support.”

“We’re here to stay,” Dean told the council. “We’re serious.”

Mary La Husen, foundation board chairwoman, said the group intends to take a patient approach to the difficult issue.

“We have to be,” La Husen said. “Otherwise, we’d have been gone by now.”

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La Husen said the group is putting more effort into buying existing rental properties than building new projects, which requires expensive raw land. Still, Husen said, “one of the problems with acquiring affordable housing by the beach (is) the prices are high.”

The $590,000 for the San Clemente apartment complex was below asking price and close to the appraised value, La Husen said.

Rents for the foundation-owned apartments, which have two or three bedrooms, range from $450 to $550. Before the property changed hands, rents were between $700 and $900.

La Husen said most of the tenants are families who earn minimum wage, or a few dollars more per hour, working in service jobs in town.

“Our mission is housing for low-income families with children--the lost generation,” said Leonard, a senior citizen who realizes that her own age group competes for the same money for affordable housing in San Juan Capistrano.

Dick Korsgaard, foundation vice chairman, said, “We do have people down here who are homeless, and there are people who are paying too much for rent.” (Korsgaard is president of Mariners Bank, which made the loan for the San Clemente complex.)

Leonard said city officials there have come to respect the housing advocates, who named their group after a San Clemente schoolteacher who was instrumental in urging city officials to spend special funds for affordable housing.

Cities are required by the state to file housing plans, showing a range of scenarios to meet future needs, including lower-income housing, said Cystal Sims, director of litigation for Legal Aid Society of Orange County. Cities with redevelopment agencies must commit a certain amount of money on moderate- and low-income homes.

But many are slow to move such projects forward, Sims said.

Ken Friess, former mayor of San Juan Capistrano and a member of the foundation’s advisory board, said there are pockets of affordable housing in South County, but it ultimately will disappear as prices rise and nothing is built or preserved to take its place.

“If they can get 100 units in the next 10 years,” Friess said, “they will have made a difference.”

Times correspondent Frank Messina contributed to this report.