How to Start Solving Santa Barbara’s Housing Crisis

Two years ago, the City of Santa Barbara created the Housing Crisis Task Force — officially called the Housing Crisis Ad Hoc Committee — to try and get a handle on the city’s ever-growing housing problems.

Since then, the group hosted community forums; interviewed stakeholders; gathered info from housing experts, nonprofit housing developers, small-scale landlords, and property managers; and listened to anybody who wanted to offer solutions.

After all those meetings, the committee found tenants were facing higher barriers to renting and prices were “far outpacing wages” in the city’s dwindling rental market, according to Barbara Andersen, Senior Assistant to the City Administrator. Tenants reported a fear of retaliation or eviction for speaking out, and city staff said there was a lack of landlord compliance with city regulations.

On the other hand, rental property owners reported struggling with increased expenses for repairs, maintenance, and insurance. Landlords said the city’s regulations were hard to find and harder to understand; they feared criminal prosecution and said that the city’s permitting processes were too slow and costly.

The city came into Tuesday’s meeting with a list of the top 10 priority recommendations based on the task force findings. These included a permanent source of funding for the Local Housing Trust Fund; a rent stabilization ordinance and rental registry; increased access to legal counsel for tenants; incentives for improving property; a tiny home program on city property; housing for single parents; incentives for building preapproved Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs); assistance for first-time home buyers; and better education about rights and responsibilities for tenants and landlords.

Each councilmember chose three top priorities, which city staff will use to draft a report outlining the cost and how each program would be implemented.

Before the council weighed in, there was an extensive public comment period with dozens of community members, tenants, and property owners offering their opinion on a perfect solution.

Rob Fredericks, director of the city’s Housing Authority, said that the entire country and community is “steeped in a deep affordable housing crisis and we should do all we can to address the issue.”

He said he hopes the city enacts stronger tenant protections and pursues a rental registry, which would be a citywide database of rental properties and owners that would help keep track of compliance and illegal rent hikes. Similar programs have been put in place in other California communities, such as Alameda, Fredericks said — “And guess what? The sky didn’t fall. It works.”

Property owners and real estate groups encouraged the council to make it easier to provide housing, either through incentives or streamlined building permits, and many vehemently spoke out against a rental registry — which some felt was too invasive — and any form of rent stabilization, which some landlords warned would lead to a wave of rent increases and local property owners selling to out-of-town corporate entities.

Tenants and advocates relayed their firsthand experiences with evictions, untenable rent increases, and the loss of neighbors pushed out by the high cost of housing.

Veronica Strauss, a single mother who said she’s currently facing a “renoviction” along with 12 of her neighbors, asked the council to consider what it felt like to be displaced during the holiday season.

Councilmember Kristen Sneddon, one of three members of the Housing Crisis Task Force, said that the committee was careful to make sure every stakeholder group was represented. “We did not cherry-pick which one of the recommendations we were going to put forward — they were all in there.”

Sneddon’s top priority was rent stabilization, which she said could be done in a “uniquely Santa Barbara way…. A way that protects mom-and-pops — we need them; tenants need them; our community needs them,” she said. “And also in a way that protects tenants and allows for community stability.” Councilmembers Oscar Gutierrez and Meagan Harmon both agreed.

Mayor Randy Rowse, who has consistently opposed rent stabilization, said the city should be careful not to impose what he called a “knee-jerk solution” to the housing problem.

Councilmember Alejandra Gutierrez, the third member of the Task Force, said she is against anything stronger than the statewide rent cap on increases. Instead, the city should focus on educating both tenants and landlords about their rights and responsibilities.

Finding a permanent source of money for the housing trust fund was on the list of six councilmembers. Councilmember Mike Jordan called on Santa Barbara’s philanthropic community to step up. “That was one of the key components of having the housing task force fund,” he said.

No action was taken, though city staff will use council’s direction and return with potential programs to be approved in 2025.