April 20, 2004

Affordable housing goes under the microscope

By Steve Zimmerman
Ashland Daily Tidings

A forum on the pros and cons of affordable housing in Ashland on Monday evening brought a plethora of questions, a great deal of comment and even a couple of possible solutions. The forum was sponsored by Alternatives to Growth Oregon.

Brandon Goldman, housing specialist for the City of Ashland, Debra Harrison, a volunteer board member of the Rogue Valley Community Development Corp., and Ron Hulteen, a former city councilor and planning board member for the city of Hayward, Calif., led the discussion.

Hulteen spoke about some of the problems Hayward experienced pertaining to affordable housing while he lived in the city.

"The solution became worse than the problem," he said. "I am not against affordable housing. But in Hayward, affordable housing became synonymous in the community with low income housing and gang [activity]."

He added that the hillside overlooking the community became blighted by low-income housing that was substandard due to cost-cutting measures implemented by developers that were ignored by city housing inspectors.

Any city runs the risk of those type of problems cropping up. But, with the diligent work of Goldman and Harrison, that problem appears to be less likely to occur here.

Goldman said one of the first orders of business is for the city to conduct a needs assessment survey to find out what the housing needs of city residents are.

"The median income of a family of four in Ashland is $52,000," Goldman said. "And the median income of a single person in Ashland is $29,200. If a person or family is paying over 30 percent of its household income toward housing costs, they are not living in affordable housing."

By the figures Goldman gave at the meeting, the maximum price a person or family in that income range should pay for a home is $80,000.

Goldman added that there are very few homes in Ashland in that price range, which means current residents are being overburdened by housing prices. He said the cost of a home in Ashland has increased 170 percent since 1989. He noted that wages play a big part in the housing crisis.

"Right now, 50 percent of the wage earners in Ashland earn over $19.42, the median income for Ashland," he said. "Forty-two percent earn between minimum wage and $15.50 per hour."

Goldman said while housing prices have increased 170 percent, wages have only increased 56 percent.

He said the city is attempting to alleviate some of the housing problems by working with non-profit groups like Rogue Valley CDC to create affordable housing units that fit into already established neighborhoods.

Harrison said her agency accepts funding from several sources.

"We get most of our funding from the federal government as well as private sources," she said. "Our goal is to provide home ownership opportunities for working families."

In the past, Harrison explained, the agency would find homes that were not livable, rehabilitate them and then offer them for resale to low income families.

"Now we are trying to create win-win situations," she said. "One project recently moved homes from the area around SOU that were going to be demolished. They offered them to us and, with the cooperation of the city and local developer Larry Medinger, the homes were moved to three lots in the city, were rehabbed and sold for $130,000 each to three local families."

The agency is also implementing a self-help program similar to Habitat for Humanity that sees families use sweat equity of between 30-40 hours per week to be applied toward ownership in the homes they are building.

"One such project is at the corner of Siskiyou and Faith Street," Harrison said. "We have selected eight families to work together to build all of the units in that complex. The families build the homes and the federal government provides construction support and also family support."

Harrison also noted that the push for affordable housing in Ashland is not necessarily aimed at bringing new residents into the city but is promoting home ownership to residents already living in the community.