Something to Celebrate… Success: OMA VILLAGE!

By the end of the year – and after five years of persistent effort – Oma Village will welcome its first residents. This ground-breaking, employment-focused housing, designed particularly for families with children, is the kind of environmentally friendly affordable housing that MEHC supports. It offers twelve 2-bedroom/2-bath and two 1-bedroom/1-bath apartments on a small lot on Nave Drive in Novato, an infill location close to jobs, transit and other services and away from environmentally sensitive areas.

Affordability and services for homeless families

MEHC applauds this Homeward Bound development, which will provide formerly homeless families with healthy, safe, affordable and service-enriched housing. Building family stability for families moving out of homelessness requires a variety of supportive services. The supportive services at Oma Village will include coaching in education, career and financial planning geared to creating assets.

Through fundraising with individual donors, foundation grants and County funding, Homeward Bound capitalized, rather than borrowed, 95% of the project cost. So, Oma Village does not have to rely on rents to cover its development costs, allowing this housing to operate sustainably at very low cost to its new tenants. Rents will be fixed at $750 per month, a rate affordable to a single person making the minimum hourly wage of $15, even as the family is able to increase its income. And, families can stay as long as there is a child under 18 in the household. This will allow families to build savings and eventually move into market-rate housing as they develop self-sufficiency for the long term.

An environmentally sound infill property

MEHC believes that, to be environmentally friendly, housing, affordable or not, must avoid sensitive habitat, areas subject to wildfires, flooding and extreme earthquake risks, and areas designated for conservation, open space or agriculture. Oma Village satisfies all of these requirements. This is an example of the “gentle infill” that MEHC supports.

The apartments are solar-powered, have tankless water heaters and are insulated well above code requirements. Storm water runoff is naturally filtered before it leaves the site, and the landscaping features native, drought resistant plants. Oma Village replaces a dilapidated building with attractive, energy efficient, environmentally friendly affordable housing.

Location, location, location

MEHC knows that affordable housing should be located near jobs, transit and other services. There is a region-serving bus stop a block from Oma Village and a SMART station will be within walking distance. Hamilton Marketplace offers grocery shopping three blocks away, and an elementary school and community center are within easy walking distance.

Re-zoning

While commercially-zoned properties are generally viewed by local governments as sales tax opportunities, some are languishing because their particular locations are no longer competitive.

MEHC says that one of the keys to solving the housing crisis is identifying and rezoning such underutilized properties to medium or high density residential affordable housing, as happened with Oma Village. Novato realized that the area was losing its attractiveness to the commercial and office real estate market and recognized that rezoning to accommodate 20 units-per-acre multi-family residences would open an opportunity for affordable housing.

Congratulations

Oma Village is remarkable for so many reasons. It will support the very lowest income and the most burdened families. It has tremendous community support and is already 95% paid for. Homeward Bound has turned a blighted property into an attractive community asset.

We met with Homeward Bound’s Executive Director, Mary Kay Sweeney and her deputy, Paul Fordham, to prepare this article. We asked them to name a takeaway from their Oma Village experience. Their response was immediate: “We can do it again!” Let’s hope so. Marin’s housing crisis needs many strategies for success, and Oma Village is a good one of the many good models in Marin County.