By J. Shadé Quintanilla
There’s a lack of affordable housing in Pasadena, said Bill Huang, Director of the Pasadena Department of Housing. As rents have increased two to three times faster than wages since 2010, more and more residents are in need of home within their financial reach. These residents include no income-to-moderate income individuals, seniors, special needs populations and families.
On Monday, Huang led a city council workshop about affordable housing, pointing out that in particular, there is an increasing population of seniors–54 percent–who are unable to afford basic rents in Pasadena and Los Angeles County. Along with that, the amount of homeless in the city has gone up 30 percent within the last four years, with 442 chronically homeless adults living on city streets.
“Across the board, according to the state, we need to produce 584 affordable units before the year 2022,” said Huang. While Pasadena has lost some state redevelopment funding and federal funding, Huang noted that there have been recent developments within LA County and the state that will help with creating more housing opportunities. One of these opportunities is the recently proposed state housing fund called No Place Like Home. If approved, the California state will create permanent supportive housing for the chronically homeless with mental disabilities and provide housing in shorter-term rent subsidies while permanent housing is being built or reconstructed.
According to Huang, there are 4,011 affordable housing units across Pasadena, including rental and first-time homebuyer units. He also pointed out that while the city does need to plan for more affordable housing, there are number of projects that are underway or in the pipeline that will create hundreds of units for seniors, homeless families, first-time homebuyers and other residents in need. These projects include Heritage Square North, Mar Vista Union, The Groves and Desiderio Homes.
In addition to these projects, the city is also making other efforts to increase affordable housing in Pasadena, said Huang. One of these efforts include the landlord outreach program with UCLA’s School of Management, which aims to convince more landlords to accept more housing vouchers through incentives, such as increased payments and signing bonuses.
During the workshop, Huang also made a number of recommendations on ways the city can establish more affordable housing. He suggested creating a $30,000 landlord reimbursement fund that would pay landlords back for damages incurred by an affordable housing tenant. Huang also recommended that the city increase inclusionary affordability requirements in transit-oriented districts and create commercial linkage impact fees. In addition, he suggested developing a progressive Second Unit Ordinance that would support the creation of second residential units for homeowners, as well as establishing a policy that would require the city to consider including affordable housing on future city-owned land acquisitions.
The city currently does not have enough funding to acquire new land, but Huang pointed out there are three city-owned sites that could be dedicated for permanent supportive housing. These sites include Heritage Square South, which has the capacity to create 70 housing units, the Kinneloa site, and the Garfield and Holly project, which could be developed to include 50 micro-units.
