Say ‘Yes’ to Affordable Workforce Housing

Thank you for the thoughtful article “Housing and Traffic Snarls Goleta and County of Santa Barbara.”

Moving forward, it is essential that the Santa Barbara County supervisors protect us from becoming the horrendous monstrosity that is the Southern California Urban Sprawl Nightmare — a blight on the landscape and the possible devastation of our idyllic coastal community.

It is essential that affordable workforce housing is our priority. “Market rate housing” is code for massive second homes for the wealthy, retirees seeking a refuge, and gigantic profits for developers who have zero vested interest in our community.

Cottage Hospital and UC Santa Barbara have successfully created programs to provide marvelous housing for their essential workers. It can work and it does work. Santa Barbara needs to creatively prioritize the housing needs for all those already living and working here, these people are the backbone and soul of our community.

We can get behind projects that benefit our people, our community. We can say no to expensive “market rate,” second homes for ultra-wealthy, out of towners and retirees. We can say no to greedy developers who make huge promises but do not care one iota about Santa Barbara. We can say yes to smart, environmentally sound projects that benefit the people who live here. We can say yes to guaranteeing that quality of life is our first priority and to becoming a lauded model for smart, community-minded development.