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Grand Jury says Santa Barbara County needs to step up efforts to add affordable housing

A construction worker wearing a yellow hat leans over to use a power tool on a building frame.
Josh Oladle
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Unsplash

The report calls on agencies to sell surplus land for affordable housing use, and cut red tape in the project approval process.

A new grand jury report says that Santa Barbara County needs to step up efforts to create affordable housing.

The county recently completed the state-mandated process of finding potential areas where needed housing could be added.

However, according to a Santa Barbara County Grand Jury report, coming up with a plan doesn’t guarantee that the housing will be built.

The Grand Jury says projects face high land and labor costs, opposition from nearby residents, and many regulations that can make it difficult to turn plans into realities.

The report calls for the county and the cities of Santa Barbara, Goleta, and Carpinteria to sell some of their surplus land so it can be used for affordable housing. It says each agency should hire a point person to help approve affordable housing proposals.

It also calls for local government agencies to cut red tape and step up with additional funding to support affordable housing.

The Grand Jury points out that, as of March 2025, more than 7,700 low-income Santa Barbara County families are on the waiting list for Section 8 government-subsidized housing.

Lance Orozco has been News Director of KCLU since 2001, providing award-winning coverage of some of the biggest news events in the region, including the Thomas and Woolsey brush fires, the deadly Montecito debris flow, the Borderline Bar and Grill attack, and Ronald Reagan's funeral.