HSCC In the News 

April 10th, 2024 — Housing Santa Cruz County (HSCC) is thrilled to announce May 2024 as Affordable Housing Month (AHM), promising to be the most extensive celebration of its kind in Santa Cruz County's history.

October 13th, 2023 — Community organizers and local city and law enforcement officials gathered Thursday night to discuss the struggles of tackling the region’s homelessness challenges in the face of Santa Cruz County’s escalating housing crisis.

October 14th, 2023 — The group behind the campaign for Measure O, known as Our Downtown, Our Future, held a conference at the London Nelson Community Center on Saturday centered around the subject of affordable housing.

August 31st, 2023 — A coalition of organizations concerned with high housing costs in the city of Santa Cruz have joined forces to take on the effort spurred by Santa Cruz Mayor Fred Keeley and Councilmembers Scott Newsome and Sandy Brown in May to create a city-funded, community-driven tax revenue measure meant to bolster affordable housing projects.

August 28th, 2023 — It’s still not clear what form an effort to put Santa Cruzans’ dollars toward affordable housing will take, but that and other details could be resolved in the coming months as a citizens group irons things out.

August 11th, 2023 — Local housing leaders say they are pleased to see Santa Cruz County’s homelessness levels falling, but highlighted the deep-rooted issues that pervade the county. Those include food security, not enough shelters, low wages and no effective way to identify and track the entire unhoused population.

June 30th, 2023 — After years of unenviable ascent, the Santa Cruz-Watsonville metropolitan area has been named the most expensive rental market in the nation, according to a new housing report.

June 22nd, 2023 — Santa Cruz County tops the list of most expensive rental markets in the country, according to the nonprofit National Low Income Housing Coalition. According to the report, the fair market rent for a two-bedroom rental in the county is $3,293; renters would have to earn an average “housing wage” of $63.33 an hour to be able to afford that rent.

June 12th, 2023 — By 2031, under state mandates, Capitola will need to boost its affordable housing permitting by roughly 9,000% over what it permitted between 2015 and 2022; Scotts Valley will need to permit 803 new income-restricted units, a more than 4,000% increase.

June 6th, 2023 — The Democratic Women’s Club of Santa Cruz County would like to congratulate MidPen Housing, Housing Santa Cruz County, and all others involved in the 314 Jessie St. project for breaking ground last month on an amazing project.

May 30th, 2023 — A groundbreaking took place Tuesday for new affordable housing in Santa Cruz. The Natural Bridges Apartments will be a 20-unit development located on the west side of the city. All the units will be affordable to households at or under 50% of the area’s median income.

May 30th, 2023 — The Community Foundation Santa Cruz County announced distribution of millions in community grant funding for dozens of local nonprofits supporting the region’s diverse communities.

May 16th, 2023 — The next six months will be transformative for Santa Cruz County. In that time, each city council and the county board of supervisors (for the unincorporated areas) will be adopting “housing elements” that will serve as a blueprint of how each community meets its state-mandated housing needs.

May 12th, 2023 — Join the library for a panel discussion with local leaders and experts exploring this issue. We look forward to an evening of learning and community discussion - please submit your questions for the panel ahead of time when you register and we’ll do our best to include them as time allows.

May 9th, 2023 — Santa Cruz County is taking steps to tackle the housing crisis by launching a new program to help homeowners in unincorporated areas of the county build Accessory Dwelling Units, also known as ADUs, on their properties.

May 5th, 2023 — Finding an affordable place to live in Santa Cruz County isn’t easy these days. But finding a way to meaningfully change that is about to become a lot easier. Housing Santa Cruz County (HSCC), a diverse coalition dedicated to making Santa Cruz County affordable to all…

April 2nd, 2023 — The city cannot solve homelessness on its own, but it may be able to take a long-term bite out of the problem, according to Mayor Fred Keeley.

March 23rd, 2023 — Presenting a unified front in addressing homelessness head-on, a countywide coalition of service providers will rally and march through downtown April 1.

November 2nd, 2022 — The battle over Measure O is many things to many people, but at its base, it is an attempt by residents to push through their own vision for urban planning, one that contrasts against that of city staff.

October 18th, 2022 — Recently, the future of the unassuming lot has been catapulted into the local political spotlight, and is at the center of a debate that touches on two sensitive issues in Santa Cruz: affordable housing and community priorities.

Rise Together Santa Cruz County–an intercultural multi-generational coalition working together to support the vision and action needed to build a more just and equitable County–announces $400,000 in new grants.

Housing Santa Cruz County among those to receive grant funding.

October 11th, 2022 — When community members gather on Friday to celebrate $400,000 in new grants that will be awarded to BIPOC-led organizations, it will also be a celebration of how far the Rise Together initiative has come in the last two years.

September 6th, 2022 — Three years ago, the Santa Cruz City Council made the decision to scrap some four years of work by the city’s staff when it tossed out the so-called Corridors Plan, a proposal that would have aligned the city’s zoning rules with the community’s vision outlined in the 2030 General Plan.

August 31st, 2022 — With the city of Santa Cruz set to begin clearing the Benchlands homeless encampment in early to mid-September, the big question remains: Where will its inhabitants go?

August 13th, 2022 — It’s just before 7 a.m. on an overcast Saturday morning, and Rob Howarth is sitting at a table near the back of Ferrell’s Donut Shop. He’s focusing on a lottery scratcher and creating a mess of tiny gray shards with a penny, pausing every 30 seconds to draw another ticket from his pocket.

August 3, 2022 — The California Tax Credit Allocation Committee (CTCAC) delivered $16 million   in annual federal fire recovery tax credits to Santa Cruz County, allowing 397 affordable housing construction starts in Santa Cruz, Live Oak, and Watsonville to break ground this year.

August 9th, 2022 — There are many things that Santa Cruz County residents can boast about, including the astounding natural beauty of the place they live and its proximity to the coast. But there is one aspect that will likely not be found on a tourism brochure, and will likely come as no surprise to residents: The region is the second-least-affordable place to live in the nation.

July 29th, 2022 — Santa Cruz County has the disturbing but not surprising distinction of now being the second least affordable community in the entire country. It even ranks ahead of Silicon valley as far as rental affordability.

July 28th, 2022 — Coming in behind only the greater San Francisco area, a newly released housing report ranks the Santa Cruz-Watsonville metropolitan area as the second most expensive region in the nation for renters to reside.

July 28th, 2022 — Despite all the attention increasingly paid to housing affordability, Santa Cruz has moved up in the rankings. The just-released “Out of Reach” report from the National Low Income Housing Coalition puts hard numbers on just how difficult it is to find and pay for shelter.

July 28th, 2022 — It's expensive to live in California and a new report found exactly how much people need to make to afford to rent in the state, broken down by ZIP codes. In California, the "fair market rent" for a two-bedroom apartment is $2,028. That's according to a new report by the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

July 17th, 2022 — The future of a visionary downtown Santa Cruz project to deliver 124 units of affordable housing, a modern library and a childcare center is threatened by a misguided ballot measure built on falsehoods and half-truths. Three experts push back on arguments made by Our Downtown Our Future leaders,

July 16th, 2022 — Stephen Kessler asks us to forgive him as he writes endlessly about the Downtown Library/Affordable Housing project. There are many reasons he appropriately might ask for forgiveness. The obvious reason is that he’s already wasted so much time repeating falsehoods and uninformed comments about the downtown library.

June 29th, 2022 — While vocal neighborhood opposition turned out at Cabrillo College on Monday night, so did a fervent cast of believers in affordable housing projects…

June 24th, 2022 — As a local developer planning to build a 36-unit Project Homekey complex gears up to hear from the community Monday, advocates for and against the effort also are mobilizing their bases.

June 14th, 2022 — There is a solution to California’s very low and low income housing crisis, and it can be launched this month.

May 27th, 2022 — At the Housing Santa Cruz County forum Wednesday, hosted and co-sponsored by Lookout, local officials explained what’s been done and what’s on the drawing boards.

May 26th, 2022 — A large crowd of nonprofit, city and county officials gathered Wednesday to break ground on a development on Freedom Boulevard that will house 53 low-income families.

May 24th, 2022 — Santa Cruz needs to break old habits when it comes to affordable housing. That means local elected officials have to approve projects — even ones their constituents oppose, writes Don Lane

May 14th, 2022 — Standing before a small gathering on a bulldozed dirt lot off East Cliff Drive, MidPen Housing President and CEO Matt Franklin observed that, like many simple good ideas, housing developments can be “remarkably hard.”

May 12th, 2022 - May is Affordable Housing Month and yesterday, Wednesday, May 11th, marked the first groundbreaking event for a mixed-use development site that will provide Santa Cruz County with 57 affordable

May 11th, 2022 - After five years of development, a local nonprofit developer broke ground Wednesday on 57 units of affordable housing in Live Oak.

May 11th, 2022 — Ask 10 people on the street and the majority will say: “Yes, we need more affordable housing in Santa Cruz County.” Deciding where to build those units, however, is an ongoing challenge.

May 10th, 2022 — Newly released today, the California Housing Partnership’s 2022 Affordable Housing Needs Report shows that increases in the cost of living continue to push housing affordability..

May 3rd, 2022 — A local advocacy group is one step closer this week to enlisting voters’ support to halt construction of a new city library with an attached parking garage and affordable housing project.

May 3rd, 2022 — Regional housing needs allocation (RHNA) numbers are a fancy way of putting a metric to an area’s need to build a certain number of additional housing

April 29th, 2022 — What does affordable housing really look like in Santa Cruz — and what can community members learn about the process of planning, designing and building for affordability?

April 26th, 2022 — In the June 7 primary election, North Coast and Santa Cruz residents will choose a new District 3 representative on the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors.

April 20th, 2022 — The affordable housing crisis in Santa Cruz County affects each of us daily: a favorite teacher moves out-of-state when they can’t find housing locally, a barista working two jobs just to afford rent;

March 2022 — Housing Santa Cruz County, a countywide coalition of local organizations and individuals working to increase affordable housing opportunities for local residents and workers has named Brooke Newman

January 17th, 2022 — For those of us who don’t deal with inequity on a daily basis, equity might feel like a political concept. But for thousands of residents of our county, equity, or lack of it, determines what happens in their lives every single day.

December 3rd, 2021 — The state has given Santa Cruz a $20 million grant for the Pacific Station Project located in downtown Santa Cruz. It includes a major facelift for the Metro bus station and will also benefit two affordable housing projects on adjacent properties.

November 12th, 2021 — The Sentinel recently printed a Guest Commentary concerning the proposed ballot measure to block the Library Mixed Use Project planned for a City-owned downtown parking lot. Unfortunately, there were significant errors and omissions in that commentary.

September 28th, 2021 — The heated debate over a proposed multi-story parking garage, apartment building and library is rounding a corner and headed for the next level. Opponents of the project are preparing to gather signatures to try and stop it from ever breaking ground, while attempting to shape the future of downtown Santa Cruz.

May 28th, 2021 — A new report from the California Housing Partnership showed that a lack of affordable housing continues to trouble communities in Santa Cruz County. Among other findings, the data suggests that renters in the county

May 8th, 2021 — A while after I was elected to the City Council in 2018, I attended an inspiring workshop hosted by the City of Santa Cruz Economic Development Department and the National Development Council as part of Affordable Housing Month.

April 20th, 2021 — In early March, the city of Santa Cruz got word that it had scored $5 million from the competitive federal Local Housing Trust Fund (LHTF), which is administered by the State Housing and Community Development department. It was part of $57 million in competitive grants doled out statewide.

March 18th, 2021 — On Good News Santa Cruz on Thursday, March 18, 2021 Host Janet Quinn talks with Don Lane about the work that the coalition “Housing for Santa Cruz County” is doing to fulfill their mission, which is to ensure

March 6th, 2021 — The strongest communities have a shared purpose with rich social bonds and meaningful relationships. This special recipe is hard to find and often elusive for a community to create. However, these ingredients are precisely what attract many residents to Scotts Valley.

February 25th, 2021 — A new affordable housing advocacy group has formed in Santa Cruz County and it kicked off its arrival with a virtual meeting that was attended by more than a 100 community members and housing advocates across the county.

February 24th, 2021 — A coalition of organizations and community members has formed an affordable housing advocacy group. Housing Santa Cruz County will host a virtual kickoff event from 4-5 p.m. Thursday with keynote speaker, State Controller Betty Yee.