Finally Home–Finding Affordable Senior Housing in Marin
Pat’s affordable housing journey started in the summer of 2013. She was getting older, her small Sacramento business was no longer thriving, and she needed to get back to the Bay Area to be closer to friends and family. She realized she would never be able to afford Bay Area rents, so she started researching affordable housing. She got on several wait lists in the Bay Area but the shortest wait list was six months to a year. In 2014 she put everything in storage and moved to a temporary rental in the Bay Area.
Why can’t they just double up like we did back when we were in college?
When her temporary situation ended and nothing had opened on a waiting list, Pat looked for an affordable private rental. Many of the cheaper rentals were intended for students and the homeowner did not want tenants to use the refrigerator or the common areas. Tenants were only supposed to use the house at night to sleep. She tried shared rentals, but it was hard to find compatible adult roommates.
She also tried Episcopal Senior Communities HomeShare program, a program for seniors who have an extra room to rent to other seniors. Unfortunately, she found that there were twenty other people just like her looking for rooms and few homeowners with a room to rent. However, her connection at the HomeShare program informed her about a rare opportunity to get on the waiting list for Maria B. Freitas Senior Housing — a lovely two-story apartment in Terra Linda, managed by Mercy Housing, a non-profit affordable housing developer. Pat’s application went into a lottery and she ended up number 32 on the list. It would be another two years before a space opened up for her at Maria B. Freitas. In 2014, she got into an affordable housing property, but it was 30 miles north of Santa Rosa—far from her support network.
“One of the big issues with affordable senior housing is finding these places in the first place.”
Pat suggests that those seeking affordable senior housing treat the search like a part-time job. One can start by looking up the HUD (US Department of Housing and Urban Development) website, which allows one to search for apartment buildings by type and city. Since it is a complicated process, it is a good idea to keep careful records. She says, “Apply to every place. If the waitlist is open, apply and stay on it …. If I hadn’t done that I would never have had a place to go…You will need a lot of time to call and call repeatedly to get the basic information and follow up on everything.”
It was even harder to find affordable senior housing with an open waiting list. Pat observed, “They get so many calls they don’t even answer the phone.” Each place seemed to have its own rules and processes for getting on the waiting list that varied from one place to the next. “You can only find out by talking to someone and it is so hard to get ahold of them in the first place.”
What exactly is “affordable” housing?
Through her search, Pat also learned that there are different types of affordable housing. Most of it is owned by non-profit agencies. Some just offer discounted rent, and others have Project-based Section 8 subsidies. Units with Project-based Section 8 allow the tenant to pay only 30% of their income towards rent and the federal government pays the rest. Other types of subsidized housing may offer a discount, but usually not as deep as Section 8, and the rents may rise over time. She says, “You don’t want to be surprised.” Even though $500-700 for an apartment might sound cheap in the pricey Bay Area, it is half the income of many senior households that subsist on Social Security alone. The average monthly Social Security benefit in 2017 was $1,369 — not enough to live on in the pricey Bay Area.
Finally home…
Finally, in May 2016, Pat was called back for an interview at Maria B. Frietas in Marin. The housing administrators verified everything, including her income and previous landlords. Pat knew that even after the interview, she might not be approved. Fortunately, she succeeded, and in 2016 she moved in.
As for her new home at Maria B. Freitas, Pat says, “I really love the apartment.” It is a 1-bedroom with a full-size kitchen, which is a rarity; most senior housing apartments have tiny kitchens because there is an assumption that seniors don’t cook anymore. The management is great and there is a nice garden with a fountain. She only has to pay 30% of her income towards rent. One of the only downsides is transportation. Like many seniors, she is still working, and she does not own a car. Public transportation in Marin is extremely limited, making it difficult to get around.
Moving forward with affordable housing
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Pat says that one thing that surprised her about Marin was the amount of resistance to affordable housing. While she appreciates the protection of open space, she notes that this has been prioritized at the expense of housing costs, “When you don’t build affordable housing you put more traffic on the roads because more and more people need to move further out to find housing—it is really hard on workers.” In her opinion, local city government officials need to make an effort to work together with non-profit groups and concerned citizens, from the bottom up and the top down, to make affordable housing happen.
Since taking up residence in Marin, Pat has become a housing activist and has organized her neighbors to advocate for affordable housing, most recently on May 5, 2018 during the National Low Income Housing Coalition’s National Housing Week of Action. She heard that when Maria B. Freitas was being built, there was a lot of community opposition to the project and two lawsuits. Neighbors were concerned about increased traffic and the type of people that might move in, and, reportedly, that the senior residents would turn up their televisions too loud and disrupt the peace in the neighborhood. Now, she says, “(The building) is so well designed, people don’t even know we are here.”
“All of those things they were scared about, they didn’t happen. We are part of the community; we fit right in.”
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