Near the entrance to this affordable housing center are a stack of application forms for would-be residents. As well as 40 affordable 1, 2 and 3 bedroom rental units, there’s a community center, learning center and courtyard with a children’s playground.
But – the waiting list for a home like this in Santa Barbara County is long and more are needed, says Jackie Carrera, the President and CEO of The Santa Barbara Foundation.
"They don't look like what you might think of as, 'affordable housing', like some of the affordable housing that's been built in the past. They look like a place that you live with dignity where you want to go home to," she said.
"So what I envision is building on the shoulders of the people who have been doing this in Santa Barbara County for so long and magnifying what they're doing, replicating it and making it just more widely available to people in our community," said Carrera.
The Santa Barbara Foundation brought together a 40-person advisory committee to develop a report called Housing Affordability for Santa Barbara County looking for housing solutions. Carrera says some of the findings of the report were surprising.
"What was really interesting to me is that we are missing something that other counties have, which is a formalized, organized advocacy group that represents the entire county and all types of housing," she said.
"That's one of the recommendations that came up in several places in the report. And it's something that we'll be following up on in the more immediate future to fill that gap. That's really important," said Carrera.
Santa Barbara County is the fifth least affordable small metropolitan housing market in the nation. Lowest wage earners spend over half their income on housing, as well as having to undertake long commutes – and Carrera said the pain is also being felt among middle income earners who are being priced out of the market, as the gap between housing prices and average household incomes continues to widen.
But losing our workforce, said Democratic State Senator Monique Limon – who represents Santa Barbara County and parts of Ventura County - is damaging for the entire community.
"Overall, in the state of California and in other places, we've seen the cost of living go up, and that's also impacted the cost of housing. It is a huge impact on a lot of fronts, not just for the quality of life, but for the safety and the health of the community as well. We know that when people are invested in the communities they work in, they're able to participate on a regular basis and understand the everyday issues that happen in our community on the weekends, in the evenings, during work hours in a different way. However, we also know that when it comes to safety and health, it is so critical to have people who live here in the community," said Limon.
Limon says 30,000 workers a day commute from out of the county, to Santa Barbara, daily – mostly using the 101 Highway, and any closures would impact our vital services.
"What we learned with the Thomas Fire in particular and after the [Montecito] debris flow was that after 13 days of the 101 being closed, we had so many essential workers that were not able to come here. We had firefighters, first responders, law enforcement, health professionals, teachers, everyday folks who make this community run were not able to get to work for 13 days because that was closed, because they could not afford to live in the community where they work," she said.
The Santa Barbara Foundation is supporting efforts to the tune of $10 million over five years, in the form of pledges, grants and investments.
