S1: Welcome. In San Diego , it's Jade Hindman , the new president and CEO of the San Diego Housing Commission , talks about creating affordable housing. This is Midday Edition , connecting our communities through conversation. The San Diego Housing Commission is the city's affordable housing agency. It administers the city's homelessness and affordable housing dollars , which funds housing projects and shelters as well as rental assistance. Well , last December , city leaders selected Lisa Jones to be the commission's new president and CEO. She spoke with Midday Edition producer Andrew Bracken about the crisis the city faces in securing safe , affordable housing for all San Diegans. Here's that conversation.
S2: So you've been with the commission for about six years now.
S3: Obviously , a huge focus on how we can further affordable housing development , as well as preserve existing affordable housing and naturally occurring affordable housing.
S2: And now the housing Commission didn't always provide homelessness services.
S3: I don't know if that's a surprise , but it certainly is a key ingredient to being successful. There's enough work here for all of us , and having the political leadership and the political will to commit the funds that need to be there and also , frankly , the partners and the staffing to do the work is going to be critical. And frankly , staffing is going to continue to be a big concern as we ramp up efforts across our community.
S2: Now , yours is a city agency. And as we know , homelessness is a problem across San Diego County. I think it's something San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria made quite a point of last year.
S3: A lot of what we can do to support other cities in the county is provide sort of support and resource and technical assistance on what we've learned , and then help them stand up their own programs.
S2:
S3: But what we really need is prevention and long term housing options. And it's certainly going to be a big focus of the commission in our advocacy work for state funding , for federal funding , and really bringing in more dollars to support that. Our big focus is going to be around prevention and furthering long term affordable housing options. Also , while we continue to support and administer some of the city's shelter.
S2:
S3: It's less expensive and it's less traumatic for the family. But you know , our Rena numbers make it very clear as a city and as a county that we need more housing production. So housing production , looking at densification of our own existing housing properties and communities that we already have is really something that's on our minds. How can we create more housing on existing sites , and really looking at how we can advocate for additional assistance at a federal level so that we have the resources to help further affordable housing development , whether it's our own densification or whether it's partnering with our affordable housing developers.
S2: So we've touched on this. San Diego has a severe housing shortage. It's fallen far behind its production goals here is how San Diego City Council member Kent Lee put it late last year.
S4: The fact is we are significantly behind on housing production. Our home prices are rising at one of the highest rates in the nation. While only 62 total units of moderate income housing were approved in 2021 and 2022. We are even further behind on developing very low income housing , where 645 units have been permitted. Just 1.5% of the 27,000 plus units required to meet state guidelines by 2029. At this rate , the city's annual production will have to more than triple to more than 16,000 units per year and stay that high for six years , a pace that the city hasn't achieved in any recent memory.
S2: So there's a lot there. Where do you start in this new role ? I mean , this sounds like a big hole to fill here.
S3: It's a sobering those are sobering statistics. Right. And I think I talked a little bit about this when I spoke to city council. We have some hard work ahead and to a large degree as a. As a city , we're seeing it federally. We're heading into some times of more restricted funding in order to further affordable housing. We need those tax credit resources. We need voucher resources , and those are both limited. We're going to have to get really creative on how we continue to produce affordable housing. Densification is certainly part of that. Also , more mixed income communities where we're doing affordable workforce , and then 80 to 120%. Ami is probably one of the things that we're going to have to look at so that we can sort of spread those resources and get those new units online. But frankly , we have some challenges ahead. And , you know , a lot of the work around streamlining zoning processes and planning processes , that alone isn't going to solve that. We also need more tax credit resources. And frankly , we need more voucher funding.
S2:
S3: We want to make sure that we have single room occupancy units , that we have one bedrooms , that we have 2 to 3 bedrooms for families. So you want to look at a variety of housing options to meet those different needs. But when you're thinking of special populations like veterans or seniors , you also want to have the strong partnerships with the service providers who can make sure that once they're in a unit , they have the resources and the services and have long term housing stabilization. So those partnerships are critical.
S2: And the Housing Commission , you know , it has received scrutiny for its distribution of housing vouchers. There's currently a ten year waitlist for families. Can you break down that process for us and how much these vouchers actually cover.
S3: So we have an allocation from HUD of just around 16,500 vouchers. We are over least for our vouchers at about 104%. And what that means is we're actually serving more households than the Department of Housing and Urban Development gives us funding for. So we are able , through a variety of different initiatives to serve a little bit more. And we've been able to do that for a number of years. Unfortunately , as rents increase , our costs increase and they don't increase , our funding doesn't increase equivalent to those cost increases. So , frankly , right now , an average household is costing us about $188 a month in 2019. That was closer to 870. We've seen our average household voucher cost go up by 47%. So it's not that we are holding on to vouchers that are not available to folks. In fact , we are serving more households than we get from the federal government. The Housing Commission does not determine that number. That number is determined through a federal calculation and legislative action. Um , so it's I think we're doing a lot with what we have , and we've been able to do that for quite some time. We do have ongoing concerns at being able to continue to over lease and over support the number of households due to the cost of our rental market increases , to be honest.
S2: And you mentioned the costs there.
S3: And we know that our waitlist here is overall well over 100,000 households right now. And we have a 10 to 12 year waiting list as costs continue to increase and it costs more and more to support an individual family , those waiting list times could potentially get even longer.
S5: You know , you.
S2: Touched a little bit on some of the prevention programs the commission is involved with. I think you mentioned some some rental subsidies.
S3: There are a variety of ways to provide prevention. Sometimes they're very short term , you know , injection of resources and funds. It stabilizes people fairly quickly. We also are piloting a program that was funded through San Diego City Council Action in July of 2022 , which is really a shallow subsidy program. So it's a fixed subsidy for up to 24 months , which is really focused on stabilization. That pilot is telling us a lot and around sort of what people's different needs are and the different populations we need to target as we hone in on this work , really creating programs that meet specific needs of special populations is going to be how we effectively spend dollars. We spend what we need to , but we don't spend too much. And we really are sort of that gap in a crisis period until people can stabilize again. That really , I think , is the future of slowing down the number of people hitting our homeless crisis response system.
S2:
S3: There's a lot of opportunity to stabilize people in housing before they end up experiencing that homeless. In this crisis. We have a Housing First San Diego hotline , and we also have two one , one San Diego. If you call 211 San Diego and say that you are in a housing crisis and are about to lose your housing in the city of San Diego , they can connect you to our Housing First San Diego hotline and our prevention programs. I think it's critically important that people are aware that the best resource is to keep people in their housing when they can and and stabilize them. So that resource going through two , one , one or going through our website and accessing our Housing First San Diego email address are great ways to try to stabilize folks. I will also say that many of the folks experiencing homelessness have children or seniors. They are your neighbors. They are potentially your children , your brother or your mother , your parents. Anybody can experience a housing crisis. And , you know , we really need to continue to address this considerable issue with compassion , understanding.
S1: That was Midday Edition producer Andrew Brackins , speaking with Lisa Jones , president and CEO of the San Diego Housing Commission.
The San Diego Housing Commission administers the city’s homelessness and affordable housing dollars, which funds housing projects, shelters, and rental assistance.
In December, city leaders selected Lisa Jones to be the commission’s new president and CEO. She spoke with Midday Edition producer Andrew Bracken about the crisis the city faces in securing safe, affordable housing for all San Diegans.
Guests:
