A Novel Approach for Housing
What If We Built Homes for the Workforce That Is Already Here?
Our entire community is suffering unprecedented housing shortages and exorbitant housing costs that constrain the ability of nearly every South Coast business, nonprofit organization, and government agency to attract and retain employees. The balance between jobs and housing is severely skewed, eating away at the integrity of our communities.
On the South Coast, many have come to expect that workers commute longer distances for more affordable housing, but this erodes everyone’s quality of life: as workers face long commutes, vehicle-miles-traveled increases — which causes traffic and pollution — businesses lose intellectual talent to other counties and states, and multiple generations are forced to live in shared spaces. The pain of long commutes isn’t equally felt throughout our county. It is no coincidence that the South Coast is a jobs center and residents in the cities of Buellton and Lompoc have the longest work commutes.
The state-mandated Housing Element process thrust the issue into the spotlight, demanding difficult decisions. But amid the tension lies an opportunity for innovation — we can develop a program for ensuring that new housing goes to the workforce that’s already here.
As champions for the local economy and local businesses, the Santa Barbara South Coast Chamber of Commerce is leading the way by leveraging the Housing Element process by facilitating the creation of an employer-sponsored Housing Consortium program. We believe this program might serve as a model for other communities to adopt.
With the encouragement from county elected leaders, we have been working with employers of all sizes — from small local chain restaurants to major tech companies — who want to help their employees secure housing, and the developer community of potential rezoned projects to formalize a Consortium that would secure housing units for employees in new developments. Not every employer has the capital and ability to embark on the substantial undertaking of developing their own housing. However, with a housing consortium model, multiple businesses work together through a third-party development corporation to build and manage workforce housing for purchase or for rent.
One of the many benefits of the Consortium is that any housing that is secured for local employees would be durable and stay available to the workforce. Employers can participate in the Consortium at levels that best fit their business needs. Some might offer the opportunity for employees to purchase units or some might offer rent subsidies.
The finer details of the Consortium will reduce the administrative burden put upon local businesses looking to offer employer-sponsored housing, and streamline the relationship between employers and developers, making it easier for all parties to enter into an agreement.
Methods for guaranteeing housing for the local workforce have been considered before, but they never bore fruit. The state has strict fair-housing laws for good reason. Creating a streamlined program, like the Consortium, empowers employers to retain their existing workforce. Ensuring that new housing goes to local workers makes housing production more palatable to housing skeptics.
For a program like this to be successful, it needs coordination with developers. Thankfully, our early efforts and progress on this project have been fostered by the partnership and feedback from several of the projects being considered by the county for rezoning. Developers of projects have agreed to work with the newly developed Consortium and, if rezoned, will be among some of the first housing projects to offer units directly to employers for the local workforce. The County Board of Supervisors have stated that providing workforce housing is a priority for their consideration in the rezone process.
The County of Santa Barbara is the first governmental jurisdiction the Chamber is working with on these efforts and we have begun conversations with local cities as well and hope that our efforts with the county can act as a template for the cities build upon. We also hope that it will serve as a statewide template, because as far as we can tell this is a novel effort in California.
Kristen Miller is the president and CEO of the Santa Barbara South Coast Chamber of Commerce. The opinions expressed here are her own.