Later this year, 33 men and women will leave homelessness behind for a home they can call their own.
We at Father Joe’s Villages are investing in an often overlooked housing option: single-room occupancy units. Known as SROs, these are dorm-style homes where residents have their own private room with shared community spaces.
These types of homes serve a valuable niche in today’s housing market: they don’t require credit checks or multiple months of rent saved up. They are inexpensive to rent and their small footprint means developers can build dozens more units of housing than they otherwise would be able to when building studios or one-bedroom apartments.
Whether they are someone’s home for the long-term or merely a waypoint on their journey to independence, these single-room homes provide one of the most important things for people who are transitioning out of homelessness: stability.
People can work towards long-term success when they do not have to worry about finding a new place to sleep every night. When our new SRO community opens this fall, residents will have the stability they need to focus on their futures. Being on our campus also ensures they will maintain access to vital services, including medical care, case management and substance use treatment.
This type of stability, however, has been increasingly difficult for many San Diegans to achieve.
San Diego is one of the most expensive housing markets in the country. The average monthly rent for an apartment is $2,571. People would need to make at least $50 an hour to afford rent on their own, leaving housing out of reach for many workers who earn minimum wage or who work an entry-level job. In comparison, a dorm-style home is typically half the price. In our new community, people will only pay $843 a month.
San Diego once had thousands of dorm-style apartments just like what we are building. But their numbers have dwindled. Today, there are only 4,762 units in the entire city, a far cry from the number of units necessary to help everyone who otherwise cannot afford to live here.
Yet these are units that, compared to the average studio apartment, are faster to develop. We were able to build these 33 SRO units by converting part of our property at Commercial and 15th. It was a process that took months as opposed to years.
Even then, it can be difficult for developers to justify developing them. High construction costs and numerous regulatory barriers understandably push developers to develop more profitable communities such as luxury apartment complexes.
Thus, encouraging SRO development means we must make it more affordable for developers to build new units and for our city to retain existing dorm-style communities.
For instance, our City Council could take up the Affordable Housing Preservation Fund, which would allow the San Diego Housing Commission to purchase and maintain SRO properties, giving them the oversight necessary to keep rent affordable.
Our city and state can also work to remove regulatory barriers to encourage the development of SROs, such as by reducing or removing development or permit fees.
To address our housing crisis, San Diego needs housing options that meet people at all income levels. This includes SROs. What they offer is far more than an affordable place to live. They ensure that our most vulnerable community members will have the leg up they need to work towards a brighter future.
Deacon Jim Vargas is president and CEO of Father Joe’s Villages.
