ADVOCATES ASK COUNCIL TO CONSIDER CONCERNS
The nonprofit housing advocacy group Urban Habitat and the Vallejo Housing Justice Coalition (VHJC) are working in tandem to try and influence the city council to take their concerns into consideration before adopting the proposed new zoning codes.
The VHJC sent a letter to the council on March 15 outlining its concerns with housing strategy here and offering its recommendations to foster better and effective approaches to creating and maintaining affordable housing in Vallejo.
“VHJC believes that housing is a human right, and is committed to working with the city and community groups in Vallejo to ensure that everyone in our city has a safe and stable home, regardless of race, culture, age, and sexual orientation,” reads the introduction to the letter.
Cristol Little, Vallejo housing justice organizer for Urban Habitat, works closely with evicted and otherwise displaced residents here who are in danger of or have experienced losing their homes as the demographics shift in the city.
She says that, though there are some protections in place due to COVID-19, far too many people are still being evicted right now and there is the false belief that pandemic protections are air tight.
“I’ve seen a mix of illegal evictions, or evictions that are still allowable,” she told the TimesHerald. “There are still folks that are being left out of the equation, plus I’ve seen an uptick of landlords harassing tenants.”
Urban Habitat and the VHJC both have stated goals of “preservation, production, and protection” for tenants and other low-income members of our community. As it stands, neither group says there are enough things written into the new zoning code to protect and even bolster affordable housing here.
Liat Meitzenheimer serves on the steering committee for the VHJC and says even though the city and council have spoken a lot about affordable housing strategies, that has not translated into actual policy.
“A huge amount of people are being evicted out of Vallejo,” she told the Times-Herald. “So that’s more potential homeless people and we’ve got more that we can deal with right now. We’re all about making sure that we build affordable housing, preserve affordable housing, and keep those people housed and healthy.”
Case in point is the nowembattled corner of Magazine Street and Sonoma Boulevard, for which the planning commission has OK’d a new market-rate apartment complex, despite being zoned for mixed-use (for example, housing above a commercial storefront). The commission’s decision is being appealed to the city council by residents who want to see a healthy food grocer go into the space.
But Little and Meitzenheimer would also love to see a Vallejo where “projects” no longer exist that segregate lower income people into one place, but rather, say, 20 percent of new housing structures to be set aside for people with low incomes, such as the proposed units in south Vallejo on Sonoma Boulevard.
The solutions both groups would like to see implemented are things like more mixed-use zoning, which can cut down on transportation costs for people who don’t have cars and currently have to take the bus to reach a real grocery store.
Other solutions include more incentives for people to build accessory dwelling units (also known as “in-law” units and the like), which tend to be more affordable for tenants; inclusionary zoning, which requires developers to set aside a share of affordable apartments at different income bands. Another is community land trusts, where property can be purchased by the trust and then the cost of the land can be divided by the cost of the housing — allowing tenants to only pay for the housing.
According to Little, cities like Oakland have a “robust”
CLT program. Currently she is working with the Northern California Land Trust to get things going in Vallejo.
But for now, there are many things that they hope the council will take into consideration that are not expressly laid out in the new zoning codes. Mietzenheimer said that the city often says they will “revisit” concerns and make necessary changes, but that this never happens. She gives the example of Vallejo welcoming Six Flags Discovery Kingdom to town with the promise of pumping more taxes into the community that would help The Crest neighborhood and bring jobs.
“The only thing it did was help Six Flags,” she said. “Vallejo never saw that change that was promised to get those tax dollars from them… They did give jobs but they were all poor-paying. And it isn’t just teenagers, it’s seniors and adults; they are not career jobs.”
One of the major goals of both organizations, despite affecting policy, is getting more community involvement. As it stands, the VHJC and Urban Habitat are places tenants can go to learn their rights and get help fighting shady landlords or evictions.
For Little, her work is personal. She was born in Tijuana, Mexico, she says, and came her as an undocumented immigrant. She went on to get her masters in public policy.
“I have dealt with displacement,” she said. “I have also dealt with being a low-income person. I know what it’s like to be unhoused, depending on shelters, and being housing insecure.”
The VHJC’s letter to the council states that the proposed zoning code changes “fail to address the fundamental issues we (have raised) and continue to perpetuate the housing policies, planning strategies, and political priorities that have created a housing crisis in Vallejo and throughout the Bay Area.”
To get involved with either group, you can email Cristol Little at cristol@ urbanhabitat.org or call the VHJC at 707-646-9150. Both organizations are also there to help people with housing insecurity or tenant issues.