Category: About

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Why we want to build truly affordable housing

It is well known that San Francisco’s housing prices are consistently higher than those of other cities across the United States. There are many reasons for this phenomenon. Many well-known technology companies and high-tech talent converge here. However, people with low-income can’t afford the high rental rates.

Let’s first take a brief look at the current state of San Francisco rentals. We have to admit that the overall rental prices in San Francisco have dropped this year because of the pandemic. According to the statistics, the price of studio has dropped from $2,596 last year to $1,895, down 27%, and the price of one-bedroom has also dropped to $2,600, down 25% compared to last year.

The above is the current situation of rental prices in San Francisco. Due to the impact of the pandemic, many companies are working from home. Many people are starting to move out of the Bay Area to cheaper places to live. However, are these rental prices acceptable for people who cannot move further away?

I think it is not. For someone making $15 an hour, rent at $1,895 takes up 78% of his salary. The rest of the money is also not enough to support his other expenses for a month. Even though the price of renting in San Francisco has decreased significantly compared to last year, it is still unaffordable for people earning lower income.

This also shows the need for truly affordable housing, not housing for which people spend more than half their income. We expect the rent for an affordable home to be nore more than $780 per month per household earning $15 an hour. This rate is extremely below the current rent rates in San Francisco.

Currently, our country is facing one of the worst affordable housing crises in its history. Without a doubt, those living in poverty are the most severely impacted.

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Care Association Plans to Build

Since deciding to change our focus from tech to real property, we have become extremely busy. Our organization has grown in less than a year from two active volunteers to 11. And we continue to grow.

Affordable Housing in the San Francisco Bay Area

In November 2018, Sonoma County enabled an innovative provision allowing the construction of multiple cottages on lots zoned for single-family houses. After much research, we decided to pursue building 16 tiny houses on foundations ranging from 300 square feet to 800 square feet each. Some houses will be single story. Some will have lofts for extra space. All will be manageable and affordable.

Sonoma County has taken an important step for making affordable housing viable. The cost to build an “affordable” unit in San Francisco is estimated at more than $600,000. The smallest “affordable” SF apartment tends to be around 450 square feet. In the meantime, people are living in RVs and cars. But the Cottage Housing Development provision takes into account that very few people are able to take advantage of conventional affordable units. The provision allows for the construction of tiny houses as homes. They may be small, but they’re bigger than vans. And they cost much less than $600,000 — 85% less.

Truly Affordable Homes

To add insult to injury, the rent rate of San Francisco’s so-called affordable units is still unaffordable for a minimum-wage worker. And they are allowing people to pay 50% of their incomes for these units. But our plans will enable someone making $11 an hour to live comfortably on no more than 30% of their income.

Our goal is to build in Petaluma where there is a SMART (Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit) station that enables people to reach San Francisco without a car. The cottage provision can be used anywhere in the county where there is access to city services including sewage treatment.

Help Us Reach Our Goal

By the end of 2020 we hope to complete construction of 16 houses in Sonoma County for up to 41 people. And then we want to build more. But to begin, we need to raise $850,000. To achieve this, we need all the help we can get. How can you help?

  • Share this story
  • Donate
  • Volunteer

For more actionable ideas visit Ways to Help.

If you live in Sonoma County and want to help, send us a message on our Contact Form.

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Changing Our Strategy

We set out with a grand vision of helping thousands of people find homes. But there was a grand barrier: our plan didn’t appeal enough to those who needed the help. We had launched an effort to find participants for a demonstration version of the Care For Us site. Should be easy, right? It wasn’t. While people found the concept “interesting,” it wasn’t enough to get them to sign up. Out of a dozen people we invited, only one person signed up. The people we asked were sober, had income, and could not be picked out of a crowd behaving as an outlier. Some had non-vehicular roofs over their heads; some didn’t.

We didn’t ask their reasons for not joining, though one person declined after reading our waiver which stated that this program had no guarantees and that participants were responsible for the information they share on the site.

We are Learning

Learning from this failure, we decided to pursue affordable housing in a more practical manner: build housing. We still believe that connecting people to vacant units is possible, but the approach needs to be different. Since building a web platform and building housing both take time, we weighed their differences and decided that providing places to live — with consideration of my architectural design study in Scandinavia — is the direction that is wiser and more likely to be effective.

Focused on Outcomes

At the same time, we want to produce outcomes. So far, Care Association has provided individuals and charities with goods, and we have supported individuals’ mental health assisting them in emotional regulation. While providing goods is intended through the still-planned Care For Us website, mental health support requires one-on-one contact. To provide this support, we are currently exploring ways to expand our reach.

These changes require more manpower, which seem to be timely since the number of volunteers on our roster increased from zero in May 2018 to twelve as of this month, including five who are currently active. We hope that by June we will have a volunteer taking over Executive Director duties to help us grow.

Slow and Steady

Building Care Association is like construction. It’s taking longer than expected. In spite of the setbacks, we are still hopeful and remain focused on our vision of affordable housing for all.

It’s too soon to share the details of our plan to create positive outcomes. I will say this: history has a lot to teach us, and we are applying those lessons to our approach.

Join our mailing list to be updated on our progress.

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Newsletter 2019

May 14, 2019

Dear Supporters,

This long-overdue update on Care Association comes after many rainy days in San Francisco, and I don’t just mean precipitation. Other nonprofit directors weren’t joking when they advised me how long it can take to get a project off the ground.  Unfortunately, our web project has run aground, for now anyway. Now I’ve got the tasks of researching and rewriting our strategy.

We Are Learning

In late 2018, we learned that most people are not the risk-takers required to launch a website that has never been done, one that connects property owners and prospective tenants so they can help each other. But we have not given up.

During this learning period, I also worked one-on-one with low- or no-income individuals to find housing and to support their mental health.  Thus far, our greatest success has been with mental health support alleviating stress and anxiety with emotional resolution using body sensation identification, a process taught by our Secretary, Cedric Bertelli.  I wish we could say we helped someone find a home, but the amount of effort it took to place one small family started to become a full-time job in itself.  (We still hope to help this family find a home.  If you know of one, please email me!)

Working on a New Strategy

Since we could not find enough participants to build the Care For Us demonstration website, the project went on the backburner.  Today we are rewriting our strategy to include real property development to create affordable housing, which if all goes well may have incentives for investment (i.e., we will look for a loan unless an angel appears with $3.5M).  Not enough homes are being built.  And with my Urban Studies background and architecture experience, development seems like the best route to take.

Our new strategy also considers expanding our reach, offering pro bono emotional resolution services to those who are cost-burdened, especially those who face social microaggressions.  Microaggression is subtle language denigrating a person because of a lack of social privilege.  Upon reading Cornell University sociologist Richard Swedberg’s Principles of Economic Sociology,  I am convinced that lack of confidence among low- and middle-income workers is hindering progress for affordable housing. But we can foster the confidence needed for people to find their own solutions to economic problems.

These changes will be reflected soon on our website.

Focused on the Same Goal

There is still a dire need to represent a population that struggles needlessly because of one simple problem: housing is too expensive.  No one should be paying more than 30% of their gross income for shelter.  Nor should anyone need to work more than 40 hours a week just to pay rent.  Because of the need, we are pushing forward to find and implement solutions.

How to Help

There are many ways you can help us progress:

  • Volunteer. We need help with business planning, strategy, web development, WordPress administration, marketing, real estate law, and community planning.
  • Donate.  Make a financial contribution with the button or to the mailing address at the bottom of this letter.  If you’re in the Bay Area, donate unwanted clothes, furniture, or household items in good condition to Community Thrift Store on Valencia Street in San Francisco.
  • Share. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter; and tell your friends about us.  Read our blog. If our articles make sense, forward them on.
  • Give Feedback. Comment on our Facebook page and Instagram posts.  Send us a message. Maybe this newsletter raises your eyebrows, i.e., only $3.5M for development? (It’s only part of a long-term strategy.) We can use all the help we can get, and getting feedback is helpful.
  • Provide Space. We are looking for locations where we can conduct one-on-one emotional resolution sessions, and where we can teach groups of about 8 to 10 people how to resolve difficult emotions on their own.

Achieving housing for all takes community effort on all levels — from government official to taxpayer to person on the street.  Let’s make housing happen together.

Forever grateful,

Kiai
Founder, CEO
Care Association
—
Care is kind.SM
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Community Thrift Store SF Partnership

Got stuff to get rid of?

We are proud to announce that this month Care Association has entered a partnership with Community Thrift Store at 623 Valencia Street, San Francisco. Bring your salable stuff to the store any day of the week from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. Drop it off at the loading dock on Sycamore Street and tell them it’s for Care Association. Donating it on our behalf will help us help people find affordable housing.

The store takes anything that sells and fits in their store such as (copied from their site):

  • Clean, gently used adult clothing and shoes
  • Jewelry and Accessories
  • Art and Collectibles
  • Household Furniture
  • Housewares
  • Movies and Music
  • Electronics
  • Books

A longer list of unacceptable items is on the store’s website.

Who Benefits

From the store’s proceeds, both the store and partners benefit. By telling Community Thrift that you want to support Care Association, a sticker with a number for our charity goes on the items donated.

After making a trip to the donations dock, you can reward yourself by visiting the store for a thrifty treasure. In the midst of my KonMari-method tidying, I went to the store and found small boxes and dishes to organize what’s left.

KonMari organizing utilizes small containers and boxes. I found the ceramic dishes at the Community Thrift Shop in San Francisco for about $1 each. The wooden organizer was $2.

How Your Donation will Help

Community Thrift Store is a valuable resource for about 200 local charities. It goes without saying that real estate is expensive, and most local charities are not Goodwill, Salvation Army, or a church. Your donation will help keep the store’s operations going so that us property-less charities have a thrift shop to call our own.

Your donation will also help Care Association get a little closer to our vision of matching vacant units and rooms to tenants. We are also working on a plan to develop affordable housing. Still other plans are on the horizon. The faster we can raise the funds we need, the faster we can implement care not only in the Bay Area but also around the rest of the U.S.A.

We are starting in the San Francisco Bay Area, which is another reason why donating to Community Thrift means something. Rest assured that whatever money we receive through the store will go toward benefiting the Bay Area.

Thank you for your support!

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Affordable Housing May Be Next Door

Homelessness continues to affect us.
Developers continue to build houses that are too big and costly.
Affordable units continue to be in extraordinarily high demand.
New units take too much time and argument to build.

What can we do?

Make Connections

Many homeowners are willing to offer housing below-market to people they like. But many of these homeowners don’t know where to find them. Under federal law, homeowners with no more than four units on the property on which they reside may choose whoever they want to live there. By providing a platform on which homeowners can get to know prospective tenants, Care Association wants homeowners to be able to exercise their rights while helping a household that is unable to compete in a hyper-inflated market. Though a trouble-free landlord-tenant relationship is without guarantee, establishing dialogue can help both parties make better-informed decisions. The goal of the Care For Us platform is to make connections and facilitate this dialogue.

While Care Association is building the platform, we are reaching out to make connections for people in need. Currently, we are working on finding housing for E’Dreana Black and her son. Get to know E’Dreana on her Care For Us page. We are also raising funds for a security deposit.

Vacant Units Exist

The Anti-Eviction Mapping Project found that many-times more vacant residential units exist in San Francisco than do homeless households. Would these units remain vacant if their owners personally knew someone who needed a place to live? Sadly, there is little camaraderie between the Haves and Have-Nots, contradicting idyllic images of community that the Summer of Love presented. California real estate laws are absurdly in favor of the Haves. While rental laws provide some tenant protection, many homeowners avoid having tenants for fear of facing trouble with ones who reserve their right to stay. Until there is change, we need to find alternatives.

One alternative is to reach out to homeowners.

We Have to Start Somewhere

We are starting by working with one household, but the platform will be designed to multiply the effort.  And there will be more. Sign up to join the mailing list to stay informed.

Fundraising in Noe Valley

After the 1906 earthquake, San Francisco responded with emergency housing. Human needs have not changed. Affordable housing is possible today.