Editor,
“Rents begin to trend upward” is the headline at the top of the front page of the Jan. 17 Daily Journal. Hmmm, I live in SSF. In July 2022, I moved into a one bedroom of a place priced at $800. I had been paying $675 for a room in Daly City, but a room with privacy was worth the extra rent. Two months ago, my landlord raised the rent to $1,000, in line with the 40% increase in South San Francisco.
My place qualifies as low-income housing and I cannot afford anything higher that has parking. I park in the driveway and it is important for me to have a spot. But the article brings a question to my mind: Am I near the poverty line because I pay low-rent or am I upper-middle-class because I earn more than the average American family? I am probably just in the top 40% of American families, and I work 70+ hours a week, seven days a week. I cash in on the Taco Bell app for a free bean burrito every 250 points so I might as well be homeless because I eat like I am.
No amount of $1,700 low-income housing is going to alleviate the housing problem in San Mateo County, even if thousands of new units are built, because affordable rent is still at the $600 a month level. That’s a room with no parking in an inconvenient location with a minimum wage of $16.09 working 40 hours a week.
Sometimes I think politicians, especially the woke ones in South San Francisco, got their heads up their asses when they make plans. Excuse my blue-collar French.
James Constantino
South San Francisco
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(2) comments
Thanks, James, for an important LTE.
I feel most DJ readers who post here are aware that talk of affordable housing coming from county politicians is just... well, talk. There seems to be a mad dash up and down the Peninsula to approve more and more commercial developments, but we don't see that same commitment to the development affordable housing. Your personal situation is a reminder why affordable housing is important.
There are plenty of folks talking the talk... it's time they start walking the walk.
And there you have it. "Affordable" housing that is being built in our cities is almost all set for people making 80 to 120 percent of the AMI - area median income - which in 2022 was $104k and above for a single person. Cities, despite facts and the cries of housing activists, stick to those upper limits and offer few to no units of housing set below 80 percent. The biggest need is and has always been below 30 percent of AMI. AND don't forget that the AMI has been going up by double digits for years so that more and more people are shut out altogether. The recalcitrance of cities to recognize this and detach from the AMI method gives you more people living in horrible conditions. Rent stabilization was always the solution. But don't lean on the California Apartment Association or the all powerful San Mateo County Association of Realtors who are so proud of their ethics.
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