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Opinion: Housing is more than just a roof over someone’s head

A For Rent sign is posted in Sacramento.
In this Jan. 27, 2021, file photo, a For Rent sign is posted in Sacramento.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)

Building an affordable housing community and handing over the keys can no longer be the standard.

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Spear is president and CEO of Community HousingWorks and lives in Cortez Hill.

The COVID-19 pandemic amplified inequities in our society and exacerbated the housing crisis, taking it to a critical new point — and the solution now requires more than just putting a roof over people’s heads.

California’s housing affordability crisis in focus.

Aug. 30, 2021

To drive substantive change, a collaborative, cross-sector approach is needed to address the longstanding inequities and challenges faced by those who are housing insecure. Building an affordable housing community and handing over the keys can no longer be the standard. Through cross-sector collaboration, we can do so much more, including creating opportunities for individuals to gain financial security over the long haul, while simultaneously building economic benefit and community pride within neighborhoods.

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The new affordable housing development model can strengthen the communities in which we build by enhancing and building new infrastructure and providing additional services to residents that create positive economic impact in the form of ongoing employment.

These aren’t just blind recommendations; an example of this model’s success can be found in our work developing Keeler Court in southeastern San Diego — a location with a lack of transit access, poor air quality and related negative health outcomes, high unemployment, and a predominantly Black, Indigenous and people of color (BIPOC) population. Community HousingWorks created partnerships with the Black Contractors Association, Circulate San Diego, the Metropolitan Transit System, Civic San Diego, Urban Corps of San Diego County and Union Bank to plan a beautiful, energy-efficient community adjacent to safe pedestrian paths and bikeways that will connect residents to the larger community, beautify the neighborhood and provide ample employment opportunities. Affordable housing developments are no longer the projects of previous generations, but rather self-sufficient and well-maintained communities that seamlessly merge into existing communities and provide growth opportunities for residents and their neighborhoods as a whole.

While the Keeler Court community was being planned, Community HousingWorks and the Black Contractors Association co-sponsored a neighborhood job fair that provided opportunities for local residents to join apprenticeship programs, kick-starting their journeys toward highly valued and well-paying careers in the construction industry. The goal of this partnership far exceeds the need to complete an affordable housing development. Instead, it aims to provide employment opportunities for the surrounding neighborhood we’re building in and can provide long-term financial stability to more people than just the residents of the new development.

The Kimball Highlands Master Plan is yet another example of cross-sector partnerships that will result in a community that meets individuals’ holistic needs. This National City project — slated to connect both a newly built affordable family development and a recently rehabilitated senior housing development to a new health-care campus — embodies the city leaders’ vision of a healthy, intergenerational community in the heart of the civic center. The development will provide easily accessible services, including a senior center and a federally qualified health care clinic provided by San Ysidro Health. When completed, this revitalized community will feature intergenerational homes alongside health care and community amenities in a transit- and pedestrian-oriented village in the heart of National City. This project looked at the community’s needs and directly addressed longstanding negative determinants of health and related poor quality of life outcomes by meeting residents where they are, with the help of other like-minded organizations.

Through cooperative, partnership-driven housing development models similar in nature to Keeler Court and the Kimball Highlands Master Plan, we can solve the ongoing housing crisis, provide individuals and families with the resources and support they need to create a strong foundation for success and self-reliance, and create thriving communities for us all. To accomplish this, private developers, local and civic support groups, local and state resources and federal programs must all work collaboratively — but the work doesn’t stop there.

Every sector in the San Diego region should evaluate how its industry can link up and partner with other sectors to better serve their communities and its residents in a way that’s mutually beneficial. As the saying goes, “It takes a village” — especially to create the village in the first place.

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