Although more than 130 units of new low-income housing have opened during the last month, city officials and housing developers say the supply barely begins to serve the thousands of applicants requesting it.
The 80-unit Helios Corner development on University Avenue, which announced its official opening Thursday, houses low-income seniors and seniors with disabilities. Currently, 71 people occupy the energy-efficient one and two-bedroom apartments.
Ashby Lofts, a complex of 54 units located in West Berkeley, also officially opened Oct. 10. The apartments are also for low-income citizens, but not solely for seniors. Half of the Helios Corner units have been filled and are specifically set aside for those who pay 30 percent of their income as rent and are eligible for a Section 8 rental subsidy. Their incomes range from $17,400 to $34,800, said Dori Kojima, director of housing development for Satellite Housing, the nonprofit that manages the apartments.
Those eligible pay as little as $30 a month, she said. When leasing was first available in July, more than 300 people applied for the Section 8 program. “Our 300 to 400 applicants is not something unusual,” she said. “If you look at census data, the number of people that qualify for affordable housing is incredibly large. There are seniors waiting two to five years for our housing.”
There are currently 900 people on the waiting list to get similar affordable housing, said Berkeley Housing Authority Director Tia Ingram. “(Whether) you’re number one or number 900, unless someone gets kicked out, unless someone dies or goes away, we won’t be helping you,” she said. “The demand certainly exceeds the supply.”
The waiting list for public housing, managed by the city and intended for families, is even longer. Until late August, the list had about 5,000 people, some of whom had been waiting for five years. It was scrapped after errors were found and because former staffers were unable to keep accurate records.
People were given five days, from Sept. 24 to Sept. 28, to get on the waiting list again. During that time, the Berkeley Housing Authority received more than 2,500 applications, Ingram said. The authority is no longer accepting applications to get on the waiting list, and the 2,500 will be narrowed down to 500 in a lottery by Nov. 15.
Cutting down the list’s numbers will not guarantee housing for a long time, Ingram said, as only three of Berkeley’s 61 total public housing units are vacant. “Our units don’t have great turnover, and it’s not like we have hundreds of units that we can be housing all of the people all the time,” she said. “It would still take many, many years to reach the last person (and) the only way they’re going to get in is if someone gets out.”
Source: DailyCal.org