The Central Coast is an expensive place to live, and the cost of everything seems to be increasing.
However, 40 more Central Coast families will soon have access to affordable housing.
Construction on Broad Street Place in San Luis Obispo is estimated to be completed by early next year. The new affordable housing community will contain 40 residential apartments ranging from studio to three-bedroom floor plans. These apartments are reserved for people making no more than 60% of the area median income of $76,450.
"We have probably about six households on our waitlist for every single unit that we have right now," said Ken Trigueiro, People's Self-Help Housing CEO & President.
Six-thousand households are currently on the waitlist for affordable housing in San Luis Obispo. People's Self-Help Housing has about 1,000 new units of affordable housing in its pipeline, but it's still not enough to address the extreme need for affordable housing in the area.
"There's a big demand, and things don't turn over too quickly so it's really important to produce new units," Trigueiro said.
That's exactly what People's Self-Help Housing is doing, but Triguero says involvement from the city is key. Triguero says the city is committed to building additional housing units and has recently reviewed the inclusionary housing ordinance to allow for an increase in local production.
"They're working on funding systems to help that, because that's one of the things that we really need more of, is more local sources for the financing for these," Trigueiro said.
Though there are thousands of people on the waitlist, they aren't necessarily ahead of someone who was to sign up today. The Broad Street Place application is open to anyone who wants to apply, whether or not they are already on the waitlist. People's Self-Help Housing encourages anyone who is interested to contact them in order to secure a spot on their application interest list.
"What we'll probably have to do is we'll have a lottery system by which we select the persons because that's really the only fair way, There are so many people waiting," Trigueiro said.
Ten of the 40 new units have been reserved for unhoused veterans.
"For those who served our country, we want to serve them," said Gillian Cole-Andrews, People's Self-Help Housing Director of Communications and Resource Development.
Applications for Broad Street Place will be available starting Monday, August 1.
People's Self-Help Housing has information on itswebsite about how to apply for the list.
