Ricardo Flores is the executive director of the Local Initiative Support Corporation (LISC) San Diego – a nonprofit community development corporation that funds affordable housing projects. Ricardo and his wife live in Kensington.
The San Diego region – and California in general – has been in the throes of a severe housing crisis for years.
The scarcity of housing has driven home prices through the roof and driven many families and young professionals out of state to places like Texas where housing is much more affordable. And the lack of housing has certainly contributed to the growth in homelessness across the county.
Fortunately, there is much greater focus today on housing production, especially much-needed affordable housing. Lawmakers are passing pro-housing laws at a much more rapid clip in Sacramento and in cities across California, and the state has also stepped up its efforts to crack down on cities that refuse to be part of the solution.
While building more affordable housing is certainly critical, it’s becoming increasingly important where housing is built. In San Diego, affordable housing units tend to be sited south of Interstate 8 in disadvantaged communities where less opportunity and fewer resources exist.
But growing research shows that there are enormous benefits to placing affordable housing in wealthier communities, and that children who grow up in these communities will be much better off as adults – they will be healthier, wealthier and live longer. And, as a result, the need to provide subsidies to those who would otherwise grow up in less affluent areas is minimized.
For example, let’s compare the community of Otay Mesa in the South County with the more affluent community of Del Mar.
Looking at income levels, we’ll use the Opportunity Atlas, a data tool from the U.S. Census Bureau and Harvard University’s research institute Opportunity Insights. It uses census and Internal Revenue Service data to track the outcomes children have as adults based on where they grew up. It is based on a study of 20 million Americans from childhood in the late 1970s and early 1980s to their mid-thirties.
According to the Opportunity Atlas, income levels from these two communities couldn’t be any further apart – a child who grew up in a low-income household in Del Mar earns nearly four times more at age 35 than someone who grew up in Otay Mesa.
With respect to life expectancy, a baby from Del Mar will live much longer than a baby from Otay Mesa. According to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a baby born in Del Mar in 2023 will live 10 years longer than a baby born in Otay Mesa (82 and 72 years respectively).
Despite the many benefits of creating mixed-income communities and putting affordable housing in wealthier cities, some like Del Mar and Coronado have long resisted the idea. In fact, Del Mar doesn’t have a single designated unit of affordable housing within its borders despite a state mandate to provide for 113 such units.
While Del Mar is in talks with the agency that runs the Del Mar Fairgrounds to potentially build 61 units on the fairgrounds property, any decision on that is still a couple years away and completion of the project several more years beyond that.
Meanwhile, the city has unfortunately been openly opposed to a ready-to-go affordable housing project known as Seaside Ridge that would provide 85 affordable units along with nearly 200 market-rate units, creating the ideal mixed-income community.
As we work to solve our housing shortage, let’s do so intelligently. Let’s resist the temptation to cluster affordable housing in low-resourced areas of our county where opportunity lags behind other areas. And let’s give more people the opportunity to prosper financially, to contribute to our tax base, to be healthier and live longer by putting more affordable housing in communities like Del Mar – and Coronado and La Jolla – where the chances of life-long success and happiness are much greater.
Our region will be much better off because of it.
I’m sorry but I disagree. Where you live does not determine the kind of person you will be, but HOW you live, and what situation you grow up in. Many of these people that are growing up in low income or affordable housing are in broken homes, or without a strong parental figure to guide them. You could put these people in Marhta’s Vineyard and the chances for success are slim. Let’s start looking at the real problem and solve that first.
To John Modlin:
Dude. As one of “these people” who live in Otay Mesa, I did not come from a broken home, and I had strong parental figures.
While I don’t begrudge the opportunities that I had growing up and residing in this area (and I still do), but as an adult I can see how affordable housing in more affluent areas can be beneficial to the entire community. For some, being able to access Trader Joe’s is HUGE. For others, empathy for those unlike themselves.
In the US, capitalism promotes wealth and opportunities. Coming from a blue-collar family, I wanted to live that life. I put myself through college, worked 50-80 hour weeks, and built several businesses. This hard work has allowed me to buy a nice home in a safe neighborhood with good schools. It’s so safe; I’ve left my garage door open several times with nothing stolen. Most of the families are long-term, small business owners or higher-level executives.
The only crime we had was when a halfway home was opened nearby. This was when cars were broken into, and my daughter experienced problems at school. Once the home closed – crime also stopped.
In a capitalistic society, hard, intelligent work is often rewarded by a better lifestyle. If affordable housing is reintroduced, crime will come back. Some people say it’s not fair we are living in this community, but we sacrificed deeply to be here. I feel it’s not fair to bring crime into a community that does not have any. I don’t come from wealth. I paid for college, with my mother being a cleaning lady and my father being a factory worker. It is not fair to take that away, and YES, affordable housing does bring in crime.
Affordable housing ONLY benefits those in the program. The community, however, suffers from crime and lower property values.
This may be an unpopular position, but it’s my truth. Understandably, I care about my family and my community first. While I also care about others and have volunteered extensively for these communities, I want my home to remain safe. I invested the time and effort to live here – having outside groups take it away is wrong.
Mr. Loomis, a “half-way home” is not the type of homes that Mr. Flores was speaking about. He is speaking about apartment homes that for working families and seniors whose income. My experience living in Poway within a half mile of 4 such apartments is completely different from yours. In fact, when I moved to Poway in 1991 there was an apartment complex on the other side of our backyard fence. We lived there for several years before someone told us it was affordable housing. Because I had held the same prejudices you do, I was so surprised because the only thing about thing about the complex that been annoying was the noise of children playing.
A few years later a new apartment complex was built across the street from this existing complex. The only impact on us from that complex was more trick or treaters. Our home value continued to rise with the median home price and a vacant lot was removed from our neighborhood. There was no increase in crime and I later discovered that the children from these two complexes did better at the elementary school than other low income children that were living in homes without rent subsidies.
Just as your parents were able to provide a stable home and school experience for you growing up, these affordable home projects provide the same to hard working families. These are the folks that provide all of the service you take for granted every day as you shop for essentials, serve you in restaurants, service your home and cars, etc. Furthermore, if they live and work in your community they don’t add to the daily to and from commuter traffic you experience. My experience is that affordable housing added value to my neighborhood.
I’m not interested in increasing the housing stock at all. The only thing that comes from that is more people. And more people is not beneficial. Especially if they need subsidized housing. I feel that the money spent on subsidized housing is better spent on needed infrastructure, like flood control, libraries, beaches, parks. When you add up all the money that the city, the county and FEMA spent (and is continuing to spend) on taking care of the people wiped out by San Diego’s lack of basic maintenance on flood control, it’s appalling. We can’t take care of the people who are already here, why add to the problem?
The problem being is that the Affluent do not want “Those people and their ghetto lifestyle anywhere near their community.” The Affluent have the money and connections to make sure that doesn’t happen.
If you want proof positive, look at the outcry that happened when the Mayor said he wanted to build a homeless shelter at the old “H Barracks” near Liberty Station.
The affluent pay their taxes (and property taxes) and should be heard. The affluent worked to put themselves in a better position and shouldn’t be looked at as the money pot the city gets to pilfer with their bad choices. H barracks is another toxic money pit site, like Ash St, like the latest shelter pitch. Toxic Todd and his land deals need to go.
Be clear though. Nobody wants them. Not just “affluent people”
This whole story would be far more valid if the author didn’t compare the apples and oranges of Otay Mesa and Del Mar. Reporting on where income integration worked, and honestly reporting on when it didn’t, is what the article is desperately missing. Yes, we all want poor people to have better lives. No, wealthy people who worked hard to get what they have don’t necessarily want that diluted. We all know this. People want to hear about solutions, not another repetitive rehash of the problems.
San Diego Needs Affordable Housing Where it Does the Most Good….?
Most people reject communism, with a state directed economy as making unwise economic choices.
Why do some think a state directed economy is good for San Diego?
Dont agree, your pushing for housing you never earned, another socialist.
This article projects light emanating from cracks in our captured fourth estate. We ignore at our own peril the extended affects of “Citizens United”. Here in expensive San Diego we need to expose and eliminate gimmicks like low “In-Lieu” fees and “Off Site Housing”. Decisions need to be taken away from a privileged few who will only want the wealthy in our city. There are too many honorable hard working people who are being told they are no longer welcome here. I hope this publication will open up the cracks so all of us are included.
I agree with many points made by the author and I hope that other readers keep an open mind while considering those points. While mixed income communities will not address all problems, I do know this. The “projects” in any city where I have ever seen them are basically high crime refugee camps or as my parents use to call them, “no-go” zones. By subsidizing the housing and mixing in small number of lower income earning residents throughout the county there will not be the kind of crime issues that would occur when putting all low-income earners in high density “projects”. I’m not saying there won’t be any crime because nobody can guarantee that, but it would be better than creating projects where we know for a fact the crime rate will be high. I’m sorry to admit it but many of those affluent people buying up all the condos and turning them into airbnbs and astronomical rentals helped to create this problem. To be fair so did Joe Biden and his supporters who invited millions of new people into the country without any plan for how they were going to find housing. The only critique I have of the article is that the author cherry picked what he claims to be the root cause but there are many causes he left out of the equation. By the way there are plent of broken homes in affluent areas. Affluent people go through divorce, drug addiction, and many other hardships the same as anyone else. That’s a fact.