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More affordable housing would benefit Napa County workers and economy
By Jeremy Raff, RCAC
multimedia producer
Beneath tall wooden rafters surrounded by acres of
vines, about 60 Calistoga residents listen intently to a bilingual presentation
on USDA Rural Development’s Mutual Self-Help housing program.
Calistoga Housing Meeting
This group and another 100 residents in nearby St.
Helena respond enthusiastically to the program, which offers homeownership,
equity and a low-interest loan in exchange for families’ commitment to build 65
percent of their homes. The self-help program will address the lack of
affordable housing in Napa County.
“I want the stability of a home so my kids can stay
in one school and make friends,” said Maria Montanas, who attended the meeting
after reading a flyer her eight-year-old brought home from school. She cleans a
tasting room in a nearby winery, and her husband Luis is a farmworker there.
The median income for Napa county farmworkers is
$24,973, and it is $19,966 for dining room attendants. Napa County Housing
Authority statistics show that households must earn $70,418 to live without subsidized
housing.
Immigrants, mostly from Mexico, are a large and
growing share of Napa County workers and community members, according to a 2012
report by the Migration Policy Institute. The Latino share of Napa County’s
population has more than doubled in the past two decades going from 13 percent
in 1990 to 32 percent in 2010.
Napa County’s economy is growing fastest on the low
end of the wage scale. The Napa County Transportation and Planning Agency
estimates that over the next ten years more than half of the county’s new jobs,
like those in agriculture, hospitality and retail, will pay below $14.50/hour,
a minimum ‘living wage’ for two adults and two young children. Affordable
housing and the self-help program is a powerful way to make sure people can
live and work in the same community.
There are some existing initiatives that address the
housing crisis for low wage earners. Most notable, the wine industry, which
drives Napa County’s $7.81 billion economy, is aware of its dependence on
seasonal migrant labor and contributes more than $1 million a year to three
all-male farmworker dormitories.
But many low-wage year-round farmworkers and service
workers in the county face limited affordable housing options. A recent National
Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC) report estimates a 4.5 million unit gap
between supply and demand nationwide.
Development restrictions make the affordable housing
crisis more acute in wine country. A 1968 Napa County zoning ordinance that created
an agricultural preserve within the county severely restricts the location of housing
construction and concentrates the county’s population in Napa’s incorporated
towns. It has helped retain the region’s rural character, support the wine
industry and promote tourism, but it has also contributed to high land prices
and housing costs. The NLIHC report estimates that renters like the Montanas
family would have to earn $25.13 an hour to afford a two-bedroom apartment in
Napa County.
A task force of county supervisors, housing
activists, developers, environmentalists, and business and agriculture
representatives released the “Napa County Affordable Housing Multi-Year Action
Plan” in 2012. “An estimated 29,000 workers commute daily into the county, many
of whom are in need of affordable housing, but only 628 units of affordable
housing have been built in the county over the last decade,” write the task
force.
Windsor Neighborhood at Night
The joint city/county plan suggests flexibility and
innovation in the face of diminishing public funds, citing some alarming
figures: housing impact fees have dropped from $3 million to $190,000 per year,
and when the state dissolved redevelopment agencies in early 2012, Napa lost another
$800,000 per year. It stresses the need for new rental properties over
homeownership, but the task force “recognizes the critical role that affordable
homeownership programs have played in the Napa region.” Self-help housing is
still part of the solution to Napa County’s affordable housing shortage.
Across the Sonoma County line, a group of 21
families gathers under a makeshift tent to celebrate the grand opening of their
self-help homes in Windsor. They have just spent more than a year building a
tidy neighborhood just off the highway. “This is the best kind of infill
development we could ask for,” said Robin Goble, Windsor’s mayor. “It is an
asset to Windsor residents that this neighborhood is so tight-knit before they
even move in.”
Brenda and Raul Apolinar hosted the open house. He
is a farmworker at a Healdsburg winery, and she raises their toddler at home.
“We love how quiet it is here,” she said in Spanish, “it’s a great place to
raise kids.”
Apolinar Family
Home equity is the most significant source of wealth
for the vast majority of families in America. A Housing Assistance Council
study indicates that self-help homeowners are also less likely to default on
their mortgage, show increased civic engagement, and enjoy increasing incomes
and better educational outcomes for their children.
Luis Ledesma, a veteran farmworker, says he is
proud to own his first home. He is nearing retirement and dreams of tending his
boyhood ranch in Michoacán. A Windsor self-help participant, his children are
the immigrant residents the Napa task force and Migration Policy Institute have
in mind when talking about long-term demographic change, workforce development
and sustainable Napa County communities. Luis emigrated from Michoacán in 1978;
Mrs. Ledesma and their adult children joined him in 2005. One daughter is a
sociology major at Sonoma State, another daughter is married with a growing
family, and his son, Luis Jose, is at Santa Rosa Junior College. “It is an
investment in my kids,” said Ledesma, “they are here to stay.”