Letter to the editor: Is it me or are we not building enough affordable family housing in Santa Cruz?

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To the editor:

As we face this awful housing situation, with Santa Cruz now being among the most expensive places in the country, I am waiting to see if a particular aspect is being adequately investigated.

I have noticed happily that there are a lot of housing projects in development — clearly more housing stock will help the situation, right?

But my concern is that almost all of the new housing being built seems to be studios and one-bedroom units. Has anyone noticed this? Is it me, or is this a problem? How do we fix our housing woes if all the new and/or affordable units are for one person, maybe two? What about families?

Does the smaller sizes encourage single working people with great jobs because who else can afford them? Who are they? Where are they from?

Sure, the specifically affordable units will go through a lottery system to local residents and there will not be nearly enough of them. But the vast majority of the new units are market-priced. I am just curious about this aspect of this very complicated problem.

Sage Smiley
Santa Cruz