Lisa Pelletier asks Kimberley White, Raelina Krikston …

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Housing Equity

Arcata is a town of renters, many of whom pay half or more of their monthly income in rent. Many students and low-income folks end up homeless due to the lack of housing, especially affordable housing. How do you plan to address this issue? Do you think that having a greater percentage of low-income housing is tied to housing equity? Why or why not? — Lisa Pelletier

— Lisa Pelletier

Response

Raelina Krikston

Hey Lisa, 

It’s true! 60% of our town is made up of renters. Many of which rent from the same three people (Kramer, Strombeck and Danco). These three entities represent all of the multi-unit homes in Arcata. 

So we’ve got a few issues at play:
1. We need more housing,
2. We need to implement stricter protections for people who are renting, and 
3. We need to ensure that new growth takes our current population into account when it comes to rental price. 

1. More Housing
We have got a lot of short term rentals in Arcata. I think that those who can afford to have 2+ rental properties should be taxed and regulated like hotels. I don’t have an issue with someone having one rental property for supplemental income, but 30+ rentals to one family is too much and takes away hundreds of opportunities for families who could be living there full time. First and foremost we need to regulate our short-term rentals with incentives to turn them back into long-term rentals, and prohibitive fees for those who wish to keep multiple short term rentals. For example, the license to have a short term rental is currently $100, I would propose that any additional rentals after one would require a permit cost of $10,000. That money could then go into our Housing Trust Fund to supplement new housing construction, rent forgiveness, etc. 

2. Protections for Renters
Living in a post pandemic world, we’re not in the same place we were in 2019, far from it. We need to acknowledge that for many, if not a majority of our population, we’re struggling with the costs of living increasing day by day. Rent represents the largest bill we all have, so by implementing a rent freeze for the next two years would give us all some peace of mind and help to stabilize our community. There’s nothing that keeps us from augmenting the protections we have for renters outside of the what we have on a state level (AB 1482 restricts rent from increasing more than 10% each year). One way to start is by extending that protection when a new rental becomes available. In the complex where I live for example, for anyone moving out, the rent is doubled. I don’t think that should be allowed for new people moving in, many of whom are already members of our community. 


3. Accounting for Diversity in New Buildings
One of the most exciting opportunities that the Gateway Plan presents is the ability to codify inclusionary zoning into our new buildings. Inclusionary zoning is regulation that says x% must be affordable to low to moderate income households. For our area, the average individual income is $16,000/year. I would advocate for 25% inclusionary zoning in new buildings to ensure that we have a healthy mix of income levels, backgrounds in our new multi-unit housing structures.

Additionally, outside of income (which can be onerous to prove and limit how easily one can get housing). I would propose a limit to how much you can rent an apartment based on square footage. If you’re renting a mirco-studio at 400 sqft, you shouldn’t have to pay more than $500/month for that space, utilities included. Likewise for other apartment types, we need to create a ceiling for what you can charge for housing is you own more than 20 units.

Housing is a basic need, we cannot treat it like a commodity. In doing so, and recognizing that housing is a human right, we can make big steps towards a healthier community.