ENCINITAS — The city’s Affordable Housing Task Force convened Tuesday evening featured presentations from two affordable housing developers and a discussion on possible solutions for housing the city’s low-income and special needs populations.
Cheri Hoffman of Chelsea Investment Corporation and Steve Swiecicki of Community Housing Works gave detailed presentations on how their organizations develop affordable housing.
Community Housing Works has built numerous affordable housing developments in Southern California and several in North County, including Esperanza Gardens in Encinitas, the city’s first low-income housing project in 20 years when it was built in 1995.
Carlsbad-based Chelsea Investment specializes in housing for seniors, farmworkers, homeless individuals and families, building over 145 communities, including projects with Father Joe’s Villages, Serving Seniors and homebuilders like Shea and Lennar.
Both speakers outlined the challenges of financing these projects, which often rely on a combination of local, state and federal funding, including low-income housing tax credits.
“Basically, every affordable housing project inherently has a need for gap financing because, on average, if we finance 40% of the project costs on the bond side, you get 40% with tax credit equity, and then 20-25% needs to come from local jurisdictions or other agencies,” said Hoffman, who has worked with Chelsea Investment for 30 years.
Swiecicki, of Community Housing Works, echoed Hoffman’s points and added that while nonprofit developers like his organization often focus on providing long-term services to tenants, securing funding remains the biggest hurdle.
“You start with getting your secure site, which can be competitive,” Swiecicki said. “If you’re buying land, you’re up against market-rate developers who can buy land for better terms and faster. Then you seek the gap financing from local or state sources, and after that, apply for tax credits, which are competitive.”
The groups also shared information on the buyer side of affordable housing. According to a California Housing Partnership study, 132,000 low-income families earning 80% of the area median income (AMI) lack access to affordable housing in San Diego County, with 81% of extremely low-income families (30% AMI) spending more than half of their income on rent.
In San Diego, a household needs to earn over $43.33 per hour, or $72,100 annually, to afford rent, while the median income for a family of four in the county is $130,000, with even higher figures in Encinitas, according to the same study.
Public comments at the meeting highlighted residents’ concerns about housing for seniors and individuals with disabilities. Leucadia resident Nancy Degano proposed creating a tiny home community for seniors, which she said could offer affordable and manageable living spaces.
“I have a friend who is a senior and wants to sell her town home in Encinitas because of the angled, narrow staircase potentially presenting a problem as she ages, but … no options have been discovered thus far,” Degano said. “No senior wants that uncertainty, especially a single person.”
Eric Cusick, a father of a disabled child, advocated for housing designed specifically for individuals with autism and other disabilities, citing a successful development in Poway as an example.
“I’m hoping you guys would consider something like that, to have a place for families like us to know that our kids are taken care of, even after we’re gone, that they have a place to stay,” Cusick said.
The 11-member task force also discussed the ongoing process of evaluating potential sites for affordable housing. Several properties, including the North County Transit District parking lot and City Hall, are under consideration, with members weighing the advantages of joint development projects.
Members of the group emphasized the importance of calibrating individual scores with group feedback to ensure accurate site assessments.
The task force plans to continue scoring sites and expects to present its final recommendations to the Encinitas City Council in the coming months. The group, which was formed to pursue sites for a city-owned affordable housing complex with a minimum of 45 affordable units, has four remaining meetings scheduled to finalize its list of potential affordable housing locations.
All meetings will be held from 5 to 7 p.m. on Tuesdays in the Poinsettia Room at Encinitas City Hall, 505 S. Vulcan Street. The remaining meeting dates are Oct. 15, Oct. 22, Nov. 12 and Nov. 19.
