BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KERO) — The City of Bakersfield is facing the related crises of homelessness and a lack of affordable housing, and now the municipality is working on a strategy to address these issues. On Tuesday, the Bakersfield City Council and a number of city officials convened for a special meeting about affordable housing and homelessness.
Andrae Gonzales, City Council Representative for Ward 4 and chair of the Housing and Homelessness Committee, says the council is working on an action plan to implement and produce more affordable housing units in Bakersfield.
"We know that the vacancy rate in the Bakersfield metropolitan region is less than 1 percent, and so we hav to build more housing units, and more affordable housing units, for those individuals who really are struggling," said Gonzales.
According to Gonzales, more than 36 percent of the population of Bakersfield report that they are struggling, some to an extreme extent, with affording adequate housing.
Even with so many people struggling with housing, Gonzales says there is hope for things to turn around.
"The good news is the city has already been working on building more units, and we are building more units than we have ever built in the last 10 years, and that's thanks to the community," said Gonzales.
Some of those new affordable housing units being built are going up in Ward 7, represented by Councilwoman Manpreet Kaur.
"We have affordable housing units going up in Ward 7, and those are affordable housing for farmworkers," said Kaur. "Those are under construction right now, and I'm very excited to see the completion of that, to show that we can have these mixed-use communities like we are seeing in Ward 7."
While the goal is to build more affordable housing units, Gonzales says there is one major roadblock the city is facing.
"We are realizing there is a capacity issue in terms of the number of developers who are actually available to get this trucked affordable housing in the first place, so we're trying to incentivize new developers to the region and look into building more units and quickly as possible," said Gonzales.
According to Gonzales, the city has put $5 million dollars into the Affordable Housing Trust Fund, which will allow developers go out and leverage that money, with state and federal grants to be matched from 11 to 17 dollars per dollar, which will allow more funding.
IN-DEPTH: BAKERSFIELD'S ACTION PLAN FOR ADDRESSING HOMELESSNESS
According to the City of Bakersfield's website, one of the projects currently being worked on is known as the Homeless Action Plan. The city
According to the City of Bakersfield's website, city officials have funded the multi-year Homeless Action Plan approved by the Kern Regional Homeless Collaborative. The plan is aimed at developing a comprehensive approach to city housing concerns. The plan is set to be ready next month.
Through HAP, the city is providing access to therapists and psychiatrists in all 4 major homeless shelters through a partnership with Kern Medical, as well as building a new campus for the Open Door Network, a local nonprofit resource network helping unhoused people. The Open Door project is expected to be completed by 2024.
Finally, the city plans to hire additional street outreach teams and resources to help reunite unhoused people with their families and other communities of support.
