An affordable housing preservation fund backed by $8.5 million will soon be created in San Diego, following approval Monday night by the City Council.
Acting as the Housing Authority of the City of San Diego on Monday evening, the council gave permission to the San Diego Housing Commission to create and administer the fund. Potential uses include, but are not limited to, combining the funds with other sources to preserve "naturally occurring affordable housing properties" and establish requirements for those housing units to remain affordable long-term.
"Homes with affordable rent are disappearing every day, but this fund is meant to slow that trend and keep rent low for thousands of individuals, families and seniors for decades to come," said Council President Pro Tem Kent Lee, chair of the council's Land Use and Housing Committee. "Establishing this Affordable Housing Preservation Fund will help lock in low rent prices in our current affordable housing stock and give us new tools to keep these properties from vanishing from the market."
Proposals for specific uses of the fund can be presented to the council or Housing Authority in the future.
"San Diegans deserve to know they have a future in their city and that requires protecting affordable housing in addition to building homes that working families can afford," said Councilman Sean Elo-Rivera, the committee's vice chair. "The Affordable Housing Preservation Fund is an important tool to help keep working families, seniors and longtime residents rooted in the communities they call home and love. By preserving naturally occurring affordable housing and preventing displacement, we can make San Diego work for San Diegans and not just investors and speculators looking to profit from our housing crisis."
In 2020, the housing commission completed a study that estimated more than 13,000 existing housing units in the city could lose "affordability" by 2040. Of those, around 4,200 were deed-restricted units and may lose such restrictions, and 9,250 were naturally occurring affordable housing units vulnerable to becoming market-rate units.
The study also found an estimated 35% of new housing production would "simply replace units that lost their affordability if no intervention occurred to preserve existing affordable housing" in the city, officials said.
"This ordinance fund will keep San Diegans from losing the affordable homes they live in," said Councilwoman Vivian Moreno, a member and past chair of the committee. "The reality is that there are not enough affordable homes available, and while we must continue building more, construction alone is not keeping pace with the need. This ordinance fund will be another tool the city can use to preserve affordable houses that were built with public subsidies."
According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, housing is considered affordable when a household pays no more than 30% of its pretax income on housing costs, including utilities. If a household pays more than 30%, it is considered "cost-burdened," and more than 50% "severely cost- burdened."
