Marin Voice: A case for affordable housing in Marin

In a recent Marin Voice column, Justin Kai and Lisa Culbertson Simmons decry the push for workforce housing, stating that it “simply does not exist.” It does.

While affordable housing is not restricted to applicants in the workforce and a few units are expressly restricted to seniors or the disabled, workers are the primary component of all such housing.

The data clearly prove that lower-income workers do want to live near where they work. Indeed, a survey by the Marin Community Development Agency found that, while 68 percent of Marin’s residents work in Marin, 91 percent of the workers who live in Marin’s affordable housing work here. And, to quell a myth, 89 percent of those who move into Marin’s affordable housing were already living in Marin.

It is certainly true that not all affordable housing residents are in the workforce. One-fifth of Marin’s affordable homes are reserved for seniors or people with disabilities. If all affordable housing were to be restricted to our workforce, many more Marin seniors and disabled residents would be forced to leave their community than is already the case, because there simply aren’t enough affordable homes for them here.

The harsh reality is that what affordable housing we do have falls significantly short of the need, and this would continue to be the case even if every dwelling included in our local and county housing elements were to be built, overnight, which we know will not happen.

In February 2014, when the Marin Housing Authority opened the public housing waiting list for just one week, about 2,100 families and 1,100 seniors or disabled persons applied. Too often, affordable rental housing is stigmatized as “government subsidized.” While affordable housing simply cannot be developed without some form of subsidy, critics fail to recognize the enormous government subsidy enjoyed by homeowners, in the form of the mortgage interest deduction.

Consider this: the federal Office of Management and Budget projects a 2016 federal tax subsidy of $233 billion to homeowners, while the projected federal low-income housing tax credit will only cost $7.9 billion.

To respond to another myth, affordable housing developments do not get a free ride. While nonprofit housing developments are exempt from ad valorem property taxes, they pay significant one-time impact, permit and hookup fees to the city or county and to local water and sewer districts. For example, the 60-unit affordable Warner Creek Senior Housing Community in Novato paid almost $2.5 million in fees to the city of Novato, North Marin Water District, Novato Sanitary District and the Novato Unified School District. It also pays ongoing parcel taxes for schools, paramedics, libraries and the like.

Furthermore, despite claims to the contrary, our school districts no longer take a financial hit from affordable housing. Under the current Local Control Funding Formula, the state pays the same base grant for each student, whether he or she lives in a mansion or an affordable apartment, as well as a 20 percent bonus for students from low-income families, English learners and foster children.

Marinites are well-educated and caring people. That care includes collectively supporting those in need for the betterment of all. The Marin Environmental Housing Collaborative believes that development of well-designed affordable housing that maintains the environmental integrity of its site and surroundings is achievable and should be pursued as a community priority.

Marin can live up to its ideals and without jeopardizing our beautiful environment, fostering a viable future with housing opportunity for all. Shiraz Kaderali of San Rafael is a board member of the Marin Environmental Housing Collaborative.