California’s Homekey+ Program has awarded the Housing Authority of the City of Santa Barbara $5.8 million. The project is located at 3055 De la Vina Street, the former location for Quality Inn, also known as Mountain View Inn locally. The project will be aimed at offering supportive housing for extremely low income individuals.
Highlights
- The Mountain View Inn conversion project has received $5.8 million in state funding through the Homekey+ program.
- The project will include 32 supportive housing units with kitchenettes and a one-bedroom manager’s unit.
- The project will cater to low-income tenants under the Section 8 voucher program.
Mountain View Inn Receives Funding Through California’s Homekey+ Program
The project has received a chunk of its funding from the state’s Homekey+ initiative, funded by Proposition 1, an expansion of the original Homekey program. Additional funds of $2 million have been contributed by the Santa Barbara Foundation, in addition to the state funding and a $6 million city loan. These contributions will be critical to the development of the project and will be supporting onsite case management, health care, and wraparound care for residents.
The property, once converted, will house 32 units of supportive housing, including a one-bedroom manager’s unit. Each unit will consist of a kitchenette. All units will be made available to extremely low-income individuals with rent capped at 30% of the tenant’s income under the Section 8 voucher program.
In a press statement, Housing Authority lead Rob Fredericks said, “Receiving this Homekey+ award is transformative for our community. By turning a vacant motel into quality supportive housing, we’re creating stability and opportunity for individuals who need it most.”
Plans for the project include a community room and landscaped outdoor areas, as well as a Colonial Revival architectural style red-tiled-roof Furthermore, the location is close to transportation, groceries, pharmacies, and other essential services in the San Roque neighborhood, making it suitable for supportive housing. The project, expected to be complete by 2026, will be a significant step towards addressing homelessness and housing insecurity in Santa Barbara.
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https://www.edhat.com/news/housing-authority-plans-to-purchase-hotel-for-supportive-housing/
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Now THIS is how you do it. We don’t need more housing developments built in our precious open spaces. There are plenty of failed hotels and other businesses around town that can be turned into affordable housing like this.
No BASICNOED, I don’t think poor people should have to pick up trash to offset the cost of the City and DONORS (that means the money doesn’t come from your stingey pockets) helping to provide them with a basic human need. I mean, you realize they still pay something each month to live in these tiny units, right? Nah, just humiliate and punish them more because of their lot in life, right?
And so what if they live near a park? You worried about being around poor people?
I love you constantly rag on people who don’t want oil wells off our coast as “NIMBYs,” but if poor people live near a park, you start whingeing.
What is your deal, man? Like seriously. Why do you cry and moan about helping others so damn much?
Yeah, and only 13+ million to get up and running. Bargain! Real estate ain’t cheap around here Sack. And right next to a park and the little league field. Great spot. They should make the residents help the City do park maintenance- pickup trash, mow lawns, prune bushes, etc. to slightly offset the cost. Don’t you think?
Dude FINALLY a voice of reason on edhat. The price tag is INSANE, and footed by taxpayers as per usual. SIGNIFICANT step forward?? It’s 32 units. As you said, 31/32 will not be quality citizens and being next to sports and parks is no bueno. AND it’s in the beloved Samarkand area, this will cause a black mark for that jewel uptown location. This will be about as successful a move as the high speed rail.
STEVE – a “black mark?” Dude, the only “no quality citizen” here is you. What do you do to help others in need? People like you and BASIC are the worst kind of citizens to have in a community. Contribute nothing, complain about everyone born differently than you and sit at the safety of your computer to spew hate and bigotry online. Pathetic. I’d rather have 100 low income people trying to survive than 1 of you types.
Santa Barbara where homes become hotels and hotels become homes all at the expense of taxpayers and the benefit of over reaching government entities .
I better buy a lottery ticket… I have seen not ONE but TWO voices of reason on edhat in one morning! Halleluiah!! Couldn’t agree with you more Gar. Bravo and good day to you.
The voices are all in your head. You should maybe ignore them before they tell you other hateful things.
GARFISH – if they use your tax dollars to provide homes to those in need, you complain. If they leave those in need on the streets and use your tax dollars to arrest/jail them and constantly clean up their camps and put out their fires, you whinge and moan. If they ignore them and do nothing and let them sleep on our streets camp in our parks, you start crying.
Look, we can’t just erase poor people. You can either help them live in homes so they’re not on our streets making you gripe or you can step over them as their feces and sleeping bags as you walk around town and still pay out the nose to pay for their medical calls, police calls, cleanup, etc.
Try to be a human being for one second and ask yourself – what would you rather pay for? Getting them off the streets or leaving them there? You’re paying either way. That’s America.
Many and increasing numbers of homeless people don’t NEED programs and wraparound services, because they’re just POOR. They aren’t drunks, drug addicts, lazy, criminals, or mentally ill. They aren’t fitting any of the preferred and long-held stereotypes of what a homeless person is. They’re just poor…and have no need of being herded into a program, ear-tagged, and counted towards a grant justification. There is no money to be made from “helping” poor, employed people, so they are brushed aside like so much dust.
Do the math. $1800.00 per month take-home pay MIGHT pay for a room in a crowded apartment or an SRO hotel…and SRO hotels are an endangered species these days.
So, many of these people already HAVE jobs, but they aren’t earning 6 figures annually and that is increasingly the amount needed to live here at all comfortably. They are probably getting by on minimum or slightly above hourly wage. They are also working part time, because employers figured out years ago that keeping people at part time delivers the employer from having to pay ANY benefits….not even vacations are paid much of the time now for this level of earner. No vacation pay, sick time, PTO, retirement pension, health benefits….nothing; just a straight hourly wage.
Most people in this situation are working 2 of these dead-end, low wage part-time jobs…and that STILL isn’t enough to get by in their own city. The working class has been priced right out.
This project…like every other one, is not for these people. There’s no payoff in facing the unpleasant economic truth of the increasing numbers of employed, clean, sober, mentally stable homeless population. It’s easier to plug our ears and cover our eyes and to keep pretending that homeless people all fit the pet stereotypes than it is to face the truth.
Unclear what the focus of this comment is. I agree that we need affordable accessible unregulated housing such as once was provided by SRO hotels. Poor people should have a place they can rent on their income and live a relatively private life. These rooms have disappeared as investors bought that housing and collaborated with city government to turn it into tourist housing at ridiculous per night charge. The city has not been about protecting affordable housing but about protecting profits for the money people. I had doped that district elections might break down the control that the State Street tourist zone had on government but so far it has not done so. Why council members from non-part zone neighborhoods continue to indulge these businesses is suspect at best.