Jeanette Duncan, who launched the creation of People’s Self-Help Housing back in 1970 and kept it going for 40 years before retiring as its chief executive, died last month.
Duncan was initially inspired by the passage of the federal Fair Housing Act in 1968 and the newly found availability of federal housing money to create a multi-county affordable housing juggernaut that punched considerably beyond its weight. When their outfit started, there were two staff people and a budget of $5,000. When she left 40 years later, there were 100 employees and a budget of $10 million.
People’s Self-Help provided opportunities for affordable rental housing and home ownership; it also provided after-school education programs to help its residents’ kids succeed in school.
Since her retirement in 2014, the organization — more concentrated in northern Santa Barbara County than the south and in San Luis Obispo — the organization has grown considerably beyond that.
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