Don’t Lock Renters Out of Boom
Whether it’s a $150,000 tract house or a million-dollar beauty with an ocean view, the odds are that if it’s in Orange County, its value is on the way up.
But the cheers of rejoicing homeowners should not be allowed to obscure the fact that the county is woefully short of rental housing that those less well off can afford. A new study this month has refocused light on the shortage of rentals within the means of those on the lower rungs of the economic ladder.
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, based in Washington, says the nation’s biggest shortage in affordable housing occurs in Southern California. The center reported that the region including the Santa Ana-Anaheim area has the highest proportion of low-income tenants living in overcrowded conditions. That region also is notable for its large percentage of poor tenants who spend most of their income on shelter.
A firm that tracks real estate prices found that the median price of an Orange County home in May hit $226,000, a record high. The average monthly rental for an apartment in the county, though not quite a record, still was a hefty $853.
The Orange County Community Housing Corp., a nonprofit organization, last year developed only a dozen units of affordable housing. Any effort is laudable, but the group’s director says at that rate, it would take 80 years to meet the demand of the nearly 1,000 families on the organization’s waiting list.
Orange County needs a coordinated approach involving county government and individual cities to encourage developers to make at least some of the units they build affordable to the working poor.
The possibility of fixing up rundown motels and converting them into small apartments, as Costa Mesa did, should be explored. The county and its representatives in Washington also should work for the federal government to reverse its recent reduction of rent subsidies for the poor.
Housing is one of life’s necessities. Forcing people to live with numerous roommates to make an apartment affordable puts too much strain on the apartment.
When most apartments in a neighborhood are overcrowded, it hurts that neighborhood. Nor does it help a county to have most of its service workers living far away, where housing is cheaper but where long commutes strain infrastructure.
