Almost anywhere you travel on the Peninsula these days, the issue of affordable housing is raised. Schools can’t find enough young teachers who can afford to live here. Nurses are sleeping in their cars rather than driving four to six hours round-trip between shifts. Restaurant workers, retail workers, auto mechanics, park rangers, child care providers, librarians, and so many others — the people who make up the middle class and backbone of our communities — are being priced out.
And it’s especially acute for the most vulnerable of our communities: the elderly, the poor or the homeless.
For 15 years, Nils Wright lived on the streets. Today, he is a resident of an affordable housing community in Menlo Park.
Nils says: “I lost everything when my wife died. I didn’t have anything left to live on. But here I’ve actually made a home. I can lock the door and have my own space, which I didn’t have when I was on the streets for 15 years. If I wasn’t here, I’d still be on the streets. My place is the perfect size, and I can afford the rent. Once they got me in here, I thrived. I changed. I’m productive.”
Nils was one of the more than 1,250 people sleeping unhoused on any given night in San Mateo County. Every two years the San Mateo County Human Services Agency in collaboration with community and county partners conducts a point-in-time homeless count. They walk and drive around our cities to determine how many people are sleeping on our streets. They will conduct this count again at the end of this month in order to determine whether we’ve made progress in reducing homelessness.
For others like Nils, enough affordable housing simply hasn’t been built. But the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors can continue to change that through Measure K funding. Measure K is the half-cent sales tax that was extended by voters in 2016 partly to respond to the housing crisis. This county fund has dramatically increased our ability to build more affordable homes. Over the last five years, 1,758 affordable homes have been created by county funds, many with Measure K funds. I applaud the board for its leadership and get-it-done attitude.
The board is currently discussing how much money to allocate to affordable housing in the 2020-22 budget cycle. Last year affordable housing builders applied for $50 million in subsidies, but only $23 million could be budgeted. We voters approved using these funds to build affordable housing. Let’s make sure we do more. I respectfully urge the board to increase the allocation for the creation of affordable homes because we know that they make it possible to break the cycle of homelessness.
Menlo Park resident Josh Becker is a former venture capitalist and CEO of Lex Machina. Last fall he announced his intent to run for the state Senate District 13 seat now held by Jerry Hill, who will be termed out of office next year.
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