Workforce Homeownership Program

Lennox Foundation Grant Awarded

Workforce Housing Models: Pacific Glen and La Cumbre Hills Projects, courtesy of The Towbes Group.

The Housing Trust Fund has received generous grant funding from the California Association of Realtors® Housing Affordability Fund (HAF), Lennox Foundation, Santa Barbara Foundation and the Towbes Foundation for Capacity Building for Workforce Housing.

Funding support for development of HTF’s pilot Workforce Housing Program has been made in recognition that Santa Barbara County is one of the most expensive housing markets in the country and experiences a significant “affordability gap” between housing costs and local wages. The Housing Trust Fund’s Capacity Building for Workforce Housing goal is to raise new untapped capital from the private, public and nonprofit sectors over the next 3-5 years to financially leverage and facilitate a range of community housing affordable to low-to-middle income workers.

New Workforce Homeownership Program

The Workforce Homeownership Program brings together REALTORS®, employers, developers and financial institutions to create a workable program that will enable employees to purchase a home in the community where they work. The program simultaneously addresses both sides of the housing equation: 1) Housing cost reduction strategies with the development community; and, 2) Enhanced employee home purchasing ability through employer financial assistance. The program envisions use of resale controls linked to increases in the median area income to preserve the long-term affordability of the housing for future generations of the workforce.

Workforce Housing Progress Report
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Workforce Program Summary
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Workforce Housing ‘Affordability Gap’

The Santa Barbara median priced home was $430,000 in January 2008, as reported by the California Association of Realtors®. The North County median home price was $292,180 while the South County median home price was $1,135,000, far beyond the purchasing ability of the majority of working families. An annual income of $188,400 would be necessary to purchase an entry-level single family home in South County.¹ However, the average annual salary in Santa Barbara County for all non-farm industries was only $43,593 in 2007.²

Workforce Housing Needs Fact Sheet
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¹Modeled using California Association of Realtors® First Time Homebuyer HAI standards with a 10% downpayment
and a 30-year fixed blended real estate loan interest rate of 6.25%.
²2008 Santa Barbara County Real Estate and Economic Outlook, California Economic Forecast