Key Questions Remain for “Workforce Housing”

By Olin Ericksen
Staff Writer

May 23 -- While there may be a will to house Santa Monica's workforce, who should be served and how the housing can be created and funded remain two central questions a community-wide task force continues to grapple with two months after its formation.

Civic leaders from all walks of life gathered at the Main Library Monday afternoon to report back on what their various subcommittees had found after researching ways to structure workforce housing in Santa Monica, where an estimated 80 percent of the workers live outside the city.

The land-use attorneys and rent control administrators, neighborhood activists and affordable housing officials, City representatives and financial experts, who attended the meeting all agreed it is a big-picture approach they hope to construct as a foundation for a later policy.

"What we're doing here is the 30,000 foot outlook on workforce housing," said mediator Iao Katagiri of RAND, the Santa Monica-based think tank.

Yet many said the details are important in order to move forward the plan, which is currently unfunded.

"It is our view that until we are clear about who we are trying to serve, we are just spinning our wheels," said Paul Silvern, a financial consultant with Hamilton, Rabinovitz and Alshchuler, Inc. and a sub-committee chair on the task-force.

From the types of professions that would be included to income levels and potential locations, a wide variety of opinions were aired Monday.

Silvern and his sub-committee suggested targeting households that earn at least 120 percent of the area median income, which would include longer-tenured teachers and lower-tier health professionals.

However, sub-committee members disagreed on whether the highest level should be 150 percent, or 200 percent, the threshold used in Santa Barbara.

At 120 percent of the median income, Silver argued, some professionals who can carry a substantial load of the financial burden could get their first crack at owning a home or condo, although doing so would admittedly exclude lower wage earners.

Silvern also cautioned that casting too wide a net could overwhelm the entire strategy.

"In some respects, you may be setting yourself up for failure," if too many workers are targeted for housing, he said.

Some suggested certain types of professions should possibly be excluded, based on their working preference and lifestyle priorities.

While some believe police and firefighters, who typically live outside of Santa Monica, may want to cut their long commutes, many choose to live outside the city where they arrest people, said City Attorney Marsha Moutrie.

They may do so for safety reasons or because they can buy or build a bigger home, Moutrie said.

Others suggested that current residents should be given priority.

"Residents are more important," said Jean Dodson, president of the Wilshire Montana Neighborhood Coalition.

In order to truly understand what workers want, task force members suggested surveying local employers, such as Saint John's Health Center, and employment groups, such as the Police Officers Association.

But with no money to currently fund the effort, the survey will likely not move ahead.

Nailing down who will be targeted for the housing is only one step. How to create workforce housing and fund it remains an equally thorny issue, many said.

Several models -- including resale controls, shared equity and land-trusts -- were suggested as possibilities in a City where land values are astronomically high, yet many noted that each posed their own set of obstacles.

No matter the model, many in Silvern's committee agreed ownership should be the goal.

"It is pretty clear we should target for ownership, and not for rental housing," he said.

Some, however, warned that under any ownership model, a large investment would be needed to make it work.

"What we need is some pretty deep subsidies, even at 200 percent of the median, to make this work," said Joan Ling, executive director of Community Corporation, the city’s largest affordable housing provider.

A fourth model -- with large institutions, such as hospitals or colleges donating and acquiring new land specifically for workforce housing -- was also suggested, yet that model would also involve a substantial amount of backing.

"Somebody has to either deed the land or have a lot of money," said Ling.

Task Force members hope to make a recommendation within six months, as City planners continue to reshape Santa Monica’s key design document, the General Plan.

On June 28, the taskforce subcommittees plan to meet separately at RAND.

After attending a conference in Orange County -- where city officials are looking to rent subsidized housing to lower wage workers -- Santa Monica's Housing Division Manager, Bob Moncrief, warned that workforce housing will be a difficult to pull off.