Quick Take
David and Jan Mintz have supported all of the city’s new housing projects, but are growing weary as they worry the new buildings are not fulfilling their promise of offering housing to Santa Cruz’s mid-income, low-income, low-low income and unhoused residents. The city, they write, is not offering any data on occupancy rates: “There is no public city process to hold the developers or owners of the new buildings to account. At least none that we can find.”
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Are the new residential buildings in our town meeting the goals of providing housing for previously unhoused, low-low income, low-income or mid- income Santa Cruzans?
We have no idea. That’s because there is no public city process to hold the developers or owners of the new buildings to account. At least none that we can find.
We have supported all new residential buildings in our city – even those in our neighborhood.
We joined this community eight years ago, moving from the other Surf City, Huntington Beach, after our daughter graduated from UC Santa Cruz. It was clear from the first days that rents were high, homelessness was a huge problem and even people who had help could not find housing. We have worked with housing issues since that time – including 270 days of serving breakfast at Housing Matters when COVID-19 struck.
We have also volunteered to help people find housing – people who have vouchers. Do you know that there are housing vouchers that guarantee a place in a new building? In fact, many families – 4,000 to be exact – qualified for that specific voucher at Santa Cruz’s new Pacific Station South.
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All 4,000 received letters that made it sound as if they had a spot to live. But there were only about 60 openings in the new unit. Imagine what it feels like to find out you qualify only to learn that you are one of 4,000 and you must act right now or you will not get in.
Imagine if you were working the day the mail came and you could not act. Imagine if you did act and still didn’t get selected.
We know there is a huge need. What we do not have is a process to measure how well we are doing to meet the stated needs.
We understand that when you bring in housing, it changes the character of the city and there are many issues to deal with, but the county and country are growing and we are now acting to bring housing to our community.
We were both teachers and we chose to make a long drive each day, as we had good salaries. After more than 25 years of teaching, we knew we had a good pension upon retirement and we chose to wake up close to the ocean every day.
But those in Santa Cruz who make our coffee, who serve our breakfasts, who work in our city hall and our county offices, who maintain our city services, who are new to teaching should be able to live in our town. People who do not have the pensions we have or who survive on disability should have safe, clean places to live.
People on disability, or similar, receive about $1,500 per month, of which 30% – or $450 – goes to rent. That leaves $1,050 for food (many receive SNAP benefits of about $15 per month), transportation, phone, internet, gas/electricity (imagine the heating bills when your housing is a 1950s home with no insulation).
So we have supported all the new housing being built. However, there is no way for us, for any taxpayer or resident, to have any idea how many are living in all the new housing.
Is the city keeping track of the occupancy rates? There is no process to know how many formerly homeless individuals are in this new housing. There is no posting of how well each new unit is meeting the stated goals when they were built: for voucher holders, low-income, low-low income.
We have asked. We have called.
The city says there is a “waitlist” for affordable units. And when a spot opens, the city says it posts. This is not enough.
There is no way to know if there are any occupants, and if so, are they college students living three to a room, full-paying renters who earn over $500,000 a year, or someone with a housing voucher?
We will no longer support any building until the city posts updated monthly occupancy rates of the new buildings (percentage occupied) including the numbers of low-income, low-low income and all other requirements – showing us that the buildings are meeting goals.
We do not want to break any privacy rules. We want to see that the new buildings are meeting the goals they were promised to meet; for which the builders received taxpayer benefits and in many cases harm neighbors.
We have been asking city councilmembers, the city manager, our state elected officials for many months and have seen no actions. There is no transparency. We have no idea how the new buildings are meeting goals.
It is like the Warriors playing games in which nobody gets to find out if they won or lost. Student test-score data is public – why is this not? Why is our city not touting how great it is doing meeting its established goals?
We have even volunteered to help collect and post the data.
We will not sign the City of Santa Cruz’s Workforce Housing Solutions ballot initiative until we get regular reporting about occupancy and see that occupancy is meeting the goals of each building.
Most politicians proudly boast when things are going well, so it feels like the new buildings are not meeting goals, are not at all affordable, are rented to students doubling or tripling up or to well-paid residents who can afford very high rents.
We hope we are wrong. We want to see the score.
Jan and David Mintz are retired K-12 public school teachers, proud parents of two great children and have been happily married for more than 35 years.