Ray Daenzer’s story illustrates population’s dependency on jobs
for survivability
Morgan Hill – Things were going pretty good for Ray Daenzer, 38, until an unexpected injury caused his life to take a turn for the worse.
In the blink of an eye, he lost his job, his health and his apartment, forcing him to retreat from Morgan Hill’s high rents to his sister’s house in Grover Beach, about three hours away.
“It was a very hard adjustment to make, leaving behind the town I lived in for 30 years,” Daenzer said. “I left behind my friends and family without a choice in the matter. It was just something that had to be done because the opportunity to get into affordable housing just wasn’t there.”
Housing experts say Daenzer’s story isn’t all that uncommon, as the number of people are living paycheck to paycheck continues to skyrocket in California and waiting lists for affordable housing continue to grow.
“His situation is by no means unique,” said Jack Foley, spokesman for South County Housing, a nonprofit developer of affordable housing in Morgan Hill, Gilroy, Hollister and other cities. “In this economy, with housing costs where they’re at, it’s very difficult to get into something less expensive when you lose your ability to pay rent.”
More and more people lining up for affordable housing programs in Morgan Hill are middle-income earners like Daenzer, who made $45,000 a year at Big Five Sporting Goods before getting hurt. Experts say subsidized housing is a necessity for families earning up to $75,000 a year in California.
“Affordable housing is no longer a problem for the lowest income,” said Tina Duong, spokeswoman for the Nonprofit Housing Association of Northern California. “The supply has not been meeting the demand.”
Between 1999 and 2005, Duong said, the Bay Area housing market provided for about 83 percent of the total need. “The market is out of balance,” she said.
In Morgan Hill, 90 people are on a waiting list for 75 below-market-rate apartments. There’s also a long wait for those wanting to own affordably priced homes – only 20 to 25 below-market-rate homes are delivered to the market each year.
Daenzer is on a waiting list for the Jasmine Square apartments in Morgan Hill, a low-income complex for 72 families run by South County Housing. But according to property manager Laura Ellenberger, the fact that the housing market is heating up could extend the waiting list to a year as home prices rise.
Ellenberger said she hears many stories like Daenzer’s.
“That’s pretty much the bulk of the people on the waiting list,” she said. “The hardest part of my job is telling people there’s no apartments available, you have to wait on a list.”
California has the 49th worst affordability for home ownership in the nation.
State housing officials estimate those earning minimum wage must work 131 hours a week to afford the average rent on a two-bedroom apartment. Meanwhile, population continues to grow at a rate of 500,000 people per year, the majority of which comes from people raising new families.
“In order to keep up with that growth, 220,000 housing units are needed per year,” said Janet Huston, spokeswoman for the California Department of Housing. “But we haven’t done that since 1989. Every year we do not achieve that goal, we fall farther behind.”
Housing advocates say the solution is to come up with more funding to help families from falling between the cracks. Duong points to Proposition 1C, which passed in November to provide $2.8 billion for emergency shelters for battered women and affordable homes for seniors and former foster youths, as a step in the right direction.
“When you dedicate funding to affordable housing, it gets built,” she said. “That’s what’s happening today.”
Tony Burchyns covers Morgan Hill for The Times. Reach him at (408) 779-4106 ext. 201 or tburchyns@morganhilltimes.
