San Diego Committee Hosts Affordable Housing Workshops

SAN DIEGO, CA – The San Diego City Council's Smart Growth and Land Use Committee will host workshops Wednesday intended to alleviate the city's affordable housing crisis.

Committee Chairwoman Georgette Gomez will lead the workshops, which will include discussions of methods to preserve existing affordable housing and strategies to prevent residential displacement.

"Preserving our current affordable housing units in San Diego and ensuring San Diegans are not being priced out of their neighborhoods without adequate protections is extremely important," Gomez said.

The committee meets at 2 p.m. in the 12th floor committee room of the City Administration Building at 202 C St.

More than 1,300 of San Diego's federally subsidized affordable homes were lost between 1995 to 2016, usually because property owners chose not to renew federal rental assistance contracts.

The City Council also voted in March to allow demolition of a Rancho Penasquitos housing complex in order to make way for a new building, Pacific Village, that will offer 149 fewer low-income units. Another 1,300 homes are at risk of converting to market rate in the next five years.

The workshops are expected to generate information that will allow city departments to explore possible relocation assistance and Section 8 anti-discrimination ordinances. Section 8 authorizes the payment of rental housing assistance to private landlords who own property reserved for low-income households.

Recommendations also will be made to the Planning and San Diego Housing commissions regarding best practices to maintain rental housing stock for low-income families.

By City News Service / Image via Shutterstock