Santa Clara is trying to staunch displacement, joining a county-wide effort.
The city held a study session earlier this month geared toward giving an overview of the primary drivers of residential displacement, highlighting state laws aimed at reducing it and identifying strategies to combat displacement.
The city’s housing element contains 21 actions to address displacement, and the city is keeping pace with its 11,632 Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA).
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Still, while the city is ramping up efforts to build housing, there is still only one unit of housing for every 14 jobs in the Bay Area, said Afshan Hamid, the city’s community development director.
Although the city is still analyzing the numbers, in 2019, the city’s point-in-time homeless headcount was 326; this year, that number rose to 794.
“When supply does not meet demand, more and more people experience cost burden,” Hamid said. “More people are entering homelessness than exiting homelessness in the region.”
More than 40% of renters experience cost burden, meaning they spend more than 30% of their income on rent and utilities. Evictions and rent increases account for 11.6% of displacement, the fourth highest contributor, according to a presentation by the community development department.
The city is conducting a community survey to better understand housing challenges.
Displacement breaks down into three categories: direct, things such as eviction, building demolition, or leases not being renewed; indirect, such as rising rents or rezoning, and cultural, such as a change in community or gentrification.
Santa Clara doesn’t experience much direct displacement, Hamid said. When incomes lag behind rent, the city loses below-market-rate housing or available jobs outpace housing, people move out of the area, Hamid added, contributing to lost time, traffic and stress.
“People are entering homelessness by the hundreds and exiting by the tens. I think this is a very big problem,” said Council Member Kevin Park.
Adam Marcus, housing and community services manager, said the city also breaks strategies down into three categories.
The first is protection, with things like landlord and tenant education, legal assistance and proactive code enforcement. The second is preservation, with things such as rent stabilization. The third is production, i.e., increasing the housing supply by using below-market-rate housing dollars and inclusionary zoning.
State laws that eliminate no-cause evictions, limit rent increases and cap security deposits help, Marcus said.
He detailed the three categories of anti-displacement actions: those underway, those the city is committed to doing and those the city is monitoring or considering.
The city is already funding tenant/landlord disputes, has a regional homelessness prevention system, assists owners of income-restricted housing in making capital improvements and monitors inventory of low-income restricted units at risk of losing affordability controls.
The city has committed to assisting the housing authority with incentives to accept housing vouchers, requiring property owners to provide city brochures informing tenants of their rights, establishing a naturally occurring affordable housing database, working with owners of at-risk homes to restructure city loans, updating affordability housing ordinance as well as definition of moderate income.
The city is still evaluating requiring no net loss of below-market-rate housing, replacing below-market-rate housing at the same income level or lower, notifying tenants within a year of redevelopment, establishing relocation benefits beyond state law, enhancing code enforcement and establishing an opportunity to purchase program.
Santa Clara’s anti-displacement survey runs through the end of October.
Contact David Alexander at d.todd.alexander@gmail.com
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