The shortage of affordable housing and its impact on Orange County was the topic of an Affordable Housing Summit held recently on campus.
The Nov. 17 summit at the Titan Student featured a panel discussion among elected officials, university officials, housing experts and affordable-housing advocates.
CSUF President Sylvia Alva, who moderated the discussion, noted that 50% of the university’s 323,000 alumni live and work within a 50-mile radius of the university.
“Today’s topic is very fitting and very important in that statistic in that one of the things that we want to do is ensure that once our students graduate, that they can afford, that they can afford to stay and contribute to the future of this region,” Alva said. “And so, today’s conversation is an opportunity to think about affordable housing or the lack thereof, and what we can do together as a university in partnership with the community.”
Panelists included District 67 Assemblywoman Sharon Quirk-Silva, Becks Heyhoe, executive director of United to End Homelessness, Kelsey Brewer, vice president of business development for Jamboree Housing Corp. and Vincent Vigil, senior vice president for student affairs and dean of students at CSUF.
Affordable housing can be defined as housing that meets the needs of individuals and families; incomes aren’t sufficient to pay current market prices, Brewer said.
“For us, that’s seniors,” Brewer said. “We have thousands and thousands of units of affordable senior housing for folks that maybe couldn’t afford the higher-end, luxury senior communities, but still need access to high-quality housing with wraparound services that support them as they transition and age in place.”
But many working families are also in need of affordable housing, she said.
“It’s your teachers, it’s your teacher’s assistants, it’s your nurses’ aides, it’s your dental hygienists,” Brewer said. “It’s the people who do your nails, work at your grocery stores and serve you when you go out to eat. It’s folks that are making up the fabric of our community but cannot find a place to live within our communities that oftentimes are served by Jamboree Housing Development.”
Quirk-Silva, a longtime champion of affordable housing, discussed the passage of SB4, which gives nonprofit colleges and churches, mosques and other faith institutions the right to build affordable housing on their land.
“We certainly aren’t looking at building 50 units on school land or 100,” Quirk-Silva said. “These could be very small, 10 units, and again, if we even took a very small number of churches and schools in Orange County that chose to do this, you’re going to start ticking off these units that we need so desperately. So, it gives us another tool in government to allow people to build affordable housing. I think this is a definite game-changer.”
Orange County spends about $300 million annually to address homelessness, Heyhoe said.
That figure includes a cost of $110,000 per person, per year, for chronically homeless individuals to cycle through assistance programs, she said.
The cost to keep a person housed and receive services is about $51,000 per year, she said.
“We felt like this was such important information that people needed to know, that there was a more cost-effective way,” Heyhoe said. “And it just so happens that the more cost-effective way is also the national best practice for how to address chronic homelessness that has been supported by multiple presidents over the last few decades.”
The notion that affordable housing in a neighborhood brings property values down is false, Heyhoe said.
Research suggests that the opposite is true, she said.
So, we provide data,” Heyhoe said. “We have equipped people with data, with knowledge, with tools, making it really easy for them to engage. And to date, our housing champions have been able to help push through 715 units of affordable housing and 518 units of permanent supportive housing.”
CSUF officials are also working to address affordable housing issues on campus, Alva said.
The university recently received an $88.9 million contribution from the state, which is earmarked to upgrade campus housing.
The money will be used to rebuild the Plummer Cove housing complex, which is badly in need of a facelift, Alva said.
“But what it also sort of reminds us of is that we need to also think about how we expand capacity,” Alva said. “How do we ensure access and opportunity for more of our students to have affordable housing, whether it’s on campus or near the campus, so that they can enjoy the full benefit of a college experience, but also once they graduate and return to the community, that they’re able to stay and contribute to the region from which they came?”
State funding has also helped the university provide housing grants of up to $2,000 for students living on or near campus, Vigil said.
CSUF has hired additional staff to work one-on-one with students in need of help, he said.
“We like to provide a personalized approach to our students because every student’s experience when it comes to basic needs is different, and we want to make certain that we understand their situation better,” Vigil said. “Sometimes some of our students are in tough situations.”
The university also provides temporary housing for up to three weeks for students in challenging situations, he said.
“It would be nice to have some additional funds to help the students when it comes to rent, or when it comes to living on campus,” Vigil said. “It’s not cheap, right? It’s a burden, it adds to their financial aid, it adds to the loans that they’re taking out. We’ve all heard from our alums when it comes to taking out loans. I’m still paying for some of mine. It would be helpful, I think, for our students.”
