Support Affordable Housing

October 2002
by Richard Bermack

San Diego Housing Commission Construction Specialist Louis Solomon (right) with Raul Raiz and his tenants, who are part of a lead abatement pilot project

One of the propositions on the November election ballot is Proposition 46. If passed, the proposition would provide funding for a wide range of projects to make housing more affordable, both for people on welfare and for working people. The price of housing is rising so rapidly that many Local 535 members and other working people can not afford it. One of the agencies that will be helped by the proposition is the San Diego Housing Commission. The commission provides help to a wide spectrum of the community, from renters to homeowners. The Dragon spoke with Local 535 members who work for the commission.

Deborah Whitfield

With a vacancy rate of less than 2%, San Diego city residents are having a tough time finding and keeping housing. Rents are rising at an alarming rate. Housing assistant Deborah Whitfield works for the Housing Commission’s rental assistance program. Her job is to make adjustments whenever a client’s rental situation changes before their yearly review. “I have clients whose landlords raise their rent every three or four months. I’m working on one right now where the rent started at $985 per month, went up to $1,050, and they are now asking for $1,250. And this is a three-bedroom apartment on 43rd and National, which is a gang-infested neighborhood, in a Section 8 building. I have 25 applications for rent increases from that one complex. Even people working are having trouble with the rent. My own landlord has increased my rent four times since January. It has gone up from $750 to $1,000, and that is for a two bedroom, and I’m only making $2,400 per month. We joke that we will all be down on 16th living in our cars and eating at St. Vincent’s the way things are going.”

The commission provides assistance through the federally funded Section 8 Rental Assistance Program. Under the program, people who live or work in the city of San Diego and have an income that is less than 60% of the household median area income can get a voucher. With the voucher, the tenant pays 30% of their household income and the commission pays the balance of the rent. A family of four with a household income of $36,060 or less qualifies for the program. For a single-person household, the limit is $25,260.

Unfortunately the program comes nowhere close to matching the need. Vouchers are provided to more than 10,000 families, but there is a waiting list of over 23,000. It can take five to seven years to get assistance. Preference is given to the disabled and the elderly. The agency is actively trying to remedy the situation. Last year it was able to increase the number of vouchers it got from the federal government by 1,500, the largest increase in the commission’s history.

Sherilyn Ejaus

In addition to vouchers, the city has approximately 1,800 public housing units in commission-owned apartment buildings. Office assistant and chapter treasurer Sherilyn Ejaus helps process the applications for public housing. She notes some improvement in the time it takes to get into public housing: “Before it would take five to 10 years before they would get assistance. Now it is closer to three to five years, which gives people more hope. The problem is that the city is completely full. We are all leased up.”

The Housing Commission does more than provide housing. It also provides resources and programs to help the tenants improve their lives and become self-sufficient. Some of these programs include learning opportunity centers and ESL courses. The commission also partners with the YMCA and the Sierra Club to enhance the quality of life of public housing tenants. They are making an attempt to break down the negative housing project image.

Laura Vargas

Housing assistant Laura Vargas has seen her clients grow through the help they get from the program and the attached social services programs. She describes one client she helped get Section 8 housing: “For a year before she came to my office she had been homeless, living out of a shopping cart with her two little girls. She had spent the night at a St. Vincent de Paul homeless shelter, and the breakfast speaker mentioned the services we offer. So she came, signed up, and got Section 8 housing. She hadn’t finished high school, but we got her in a training program. She got her GED and then went on to college and got a bachelor’s degree in business administration. She left the Section 8 program and is now working for the school district, and she bought a house with the help of our home loan program.”

Vargas goes the extra mile for her clients, and in return her clients are very thankful. “My clients bring me candy and flowers,” she says. Many of her clients are elderly or disabled or are dealing with mental health issues.

The commission is not just for renters. It also offers programs to help homeowners. These include a first-time home buyers’ program that offers federal tax credits, assistance grants to help with down payments and closing costs, and low- interest second trust deed loans. To qualify for most of the programs, the buyer must earn less than 80% of the mean area income, although some of the loan programs are available to those earning up to 120% of the mean income.

Construction specialist Louis Solomon helps homeowners get loans for housing reconstruction and rehabilitation projects. “We meet with clients and take loan applications. We inspect the property for health and safety items like faulty electrical wiring, missing electrical outlet covers, smoke alarms, dry rot on stairways, or non-working heating items. We offer $3,500 grants for mobile home repair and $10,000 zero-percent loans on single-family homes, with deferred payments until the home is sold or rented. I get the satisfaction of being able to assist citizens of San Diego who lack resources and have nowhere else to turn,” he states.

Solomon describes one instance in which a very upset homeowner came into his office. The single woman had hired a contractor to expand her bedroom. The contractor removed the external wall and then disappeared with the money she had advanced him. “I went out and inspected, and sure enough, the external wall was open and just the foundation was in place,” Solomon says. He helped her find a reliable contractor and apply for loans to finish the project.