New Improved Housing in Guadalupe Remembers WWII’s Augustin Escalante

An extraordinary thing happened to federal disaster-relief money on its way to the City of Santa Barbara. It never got there, and, instead, the $848,000 went to Guadalupe’s new Escalante Meadows housing project, which celebrated with a ground-breaking ceremony on August 25.

“It was unprecedented,” said John Polanskey, director of Housing Development for the county’s Housing Authority, of the funding collaboration. “I can’t remember another time that this has happened.”

The Thomas Fire and mud flows of 2017-2018 were officially declared disasters, and for countless low-income people living in Montecito, they lost their jobs at businesses affected by the month of smoke from the fire or on estates hit by the disastrous debris flow that followed. The Coast Village Road area, which was swamped with the same debris flow that filled Highway 101 for two weeks, lies within the City of Santa Barbara, which had no vacant public housing to offer displaced residents. Many moved to northern Santa Barbara County and into available Housing Authority homes, looking for some stability. A permanent roof over their heads helped them get re-established and find jobs, said Polanskey.

“And we didn’t discriminate against the wealthy folks either,” he said, with a grin. “They were surprised to find us in the aid tents, but we were able to put them in touch with a lot of landlords with housing that wasn’t income-restricted.”

When disaster relief funding arrived months later from the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program, the City of Santa Barbara was awarded $848,011. At the time, the city had no applicants respond for multi-family housing projects before the grant deadline came, but the City of Guadalupe did. “We decided to relinquish our funding to that project rather than giving it back to the state,” said Laura Dubbels, Housing and Human Services manager for the city.

About 10 minutes from Santa Maria and about 30 minutes from Vandenberg Village, a project called Guadalupe Ranch Acres contained 52 units in 26 cinderblock duplexes. The Housing Authority was in the midst of plans to remake the 50-year-old project to hold 28 more units in two-story buildings, or 80 units in all. The new configuration would hold a large Community Center, and more landscaping and trees, which required removing the road that had been named after Augustin Escalante, one of the first from Guadalupe to die in combat during World War II. The project was renamed Escalante Meadows in his honor.

To the pot the Housing Authority was amassing, the County of Santa Barbara added $529,654 from its CDBG disaster relief funding. Just building the homes, which will be all-electric and carry solar panels, is estimated to cost $60 million. That includes demolishing the old buildings and hardscape, and adding landscaping and parking. Some of that cost also goes to relocating the residents while construction goes on for the next year or so. Some were able to buy homes elsewhere, said Polanskey, but those who want to return may do so. The rent on the new homes — which is “project-based Section 8” — will be 30 percent of their income.

The balance of the funding comes largely from tax credits, a complicated system that Polanskey described as banks and insurance companies who broker the credits with companies in need of them.

“We are very careful who we work with,” he said, a reputation that led the State of California to give the county Housing Authority a good number of the affordable-housing tax credits, as well as housing funds from the cap-and-trade program, which are quite hard to come by, according to Polanskey.

The Community Center was envisioned to have services for residents, including early childhood education and a wellness clinic, and a childcare center, with spaces going first to residents but also available to nearby residents. But most of Escalante Meadows’ funding was exclusively for housing, not for ancillary programs. Into the breach stepped State Senator Monique Limón with $3 million and Congressmember Salud Carbajal with $2.5 million to help fill the gap on the $16 million price tag for the 20,000-square-foot Community Center.

Carbajal was at the groundbreaking ceremony last Friday, and he spoke with members of the Escalante family, some of whom still live in Guadalupe. Afterward, he said, “The fact that this development carries the Escalante name, I think, reflects the heritage of our community, the heroism of our community … and the fact that Augustin’s life and work will not be forgotten. We’re celebrating this development with his continued name, which is going to provide extraordinary housing for so many individuals in our community.”