Commentary : Chance to Reverse a Disturbing Trend of the ‘80s : Housing: As prices soar, fewer and fewer can afford a decent place to live, but nonprofit developments could provide a solution.

In a Southeast San Diego church basement, homeowners and renters from a local community organization debate designs for new townhouse cooperatives for moderate-income families. In corporate offices, neighborhood leaders recruit volunteers for the annual painting day for senior homeowners in City Heights and Escondido. At the same time, in Linda Vista, a social service agency director and her private developer partner revise the rehabilitation budget for a corner apartment building.

These are hopeful snapshots of one strand of San Diego’s housing future--a future that taps the potential of nonprofit community and social service organizations to develop and manage low-cost housing. By supporting these nonprofits and expanding the affordable-housing efforts of public and private owners, San Diego’s leaders can make this a more affordable and a more livable community by the end of the century.

Otherwise, San Diego’s housing story in the 1990s could be uncomfortably similar to, or worse than, the story of the 1980s.

Planners expect the annual construction of nearly 18,000 apartments and homes countywide during the next decade, but many of these will be out of reach for about 25% to 50% of San Diego County residents--those who make less than the median income, which in 1989 was $36,700 for a family of four.

In the 1990s, the average cost of purchasing a single-family home is expected to increase 30% faster than the typical county income, driven by the conflict between catapulting land prices and the low wages generated by a local economy dependent upon tourism, services and the military.

Would-be home purchasers may be forced to make long commutes into the desert and Mexico to meet their housing needs. Many families earning $18,250--double the minimum wage--are already paying $250 more than they can afford for market rents, and the gap threatens to grow. In 1989, an estimated 80,000 households in the city of San Diego alone had dire housing needs. They will be joined by 4,500 families each year in the 1990s.

Fortunately, San Diego city government is beginning to write an alternative ending to its housing affordability crisis story. City agencies are examining regulations and procedures to determine ways to decrease the cost of producing housing. And the City Council has authorized establishing a housing trust fund of $54 million a year to increase the housing affordable to low- and moderate-income families.

Even with matching funds from private, state and federal sources, the $54 million will meet only a third of the city’s most severe housing needs. But the flexibility that is possible with local funds could encourage the development of new approaches to affordable housing. More creative public-private partnerships will be possible between the Housing Commission and private developers, who will still build most of the houses and apartments. But the ranks of conventional, for-profit developers should be augmented by community-based nonprofit developers.

Because they work without government bureaucracy and without profit, nonprofits can more easily identify and implement innovative affordable housing solutions. In other communities across the nation, nonprofit housing developers, created by churches, neighborhood improvement associations, and social service agencies, have built and rehabilitated nearly 125,000 homes and apartments. And in the process, many of these developers have built hope and community along with the housing.

For instance, in Denver, the rehabilitation crews at Brothers Redevelopment offer job training for high school shop students and youthful first-time offenders. In Wisconsin, the Madison Mutual Housing Assn. used government and private funds to rehabilitate an independent-living home for seniors next to its new townhouses for families, in order to encourage mutual support by children and their elders.

Nonprofit sponsorship also can help break the pattern of knee-jerk community resistance to government-subsidized housing, a resistance fueled by neighborhood fears and by the broken promises of government and private developers.

Local residents quickly understand that community-based nonprofit owners can be particularly responsible neighbors, because their bottom line includes a commitment to improving the neighborhood and the residents’ opportunities for a better life. Communities are also more likely to trust a nonprofit developer, particularly an organization directed by religious leaders or community residents.

Nonprofits in other communities also have created new ways to own housing, allowing low-income renters to turn a small investment into partial ownership by agreeing to limit profits from resale. Residents in this limited-equity housing share the responsibility for maintaining and improving their homes and contribute to the quality of the neighborhood. Limits on profit keep this housing affordable for the next family, extending and protecting government’s capital investment.

But in San Diego, where only one nonprofit housing project has been completed without heavy federal subsidy since 1981, strong civic leadership will be needed initially to develop this valuable housing resource.

Many nonprofits are already straining to meet the social and economic needs of their clients and communities. In order to add housing development to their missions, these organizations will need start-up funding, training and development skills.

Yet a strong reservoir of interest is there. And the successful housing experiences of nonprofits in other communities strongly suggest that an investment in nonprofits is effort and money well-spent.

Social service providers, including some of the city’s oldest community-based nonprofit agencies, increasingly see housing as a necessary strategy to meet their clients’ needs. San Diego’s young-but-growing group of nearly 20 community-based organizations can boast grass-roots successes in all sorts of community revitalization projects, from neighborhood clean-ups to homeowner rehabilitation. Some of these organizations are ready to build and rehabilitate housing, too.

The elements of a support system for nonprofit developers are within our reach. The 1980s’ successes of nonprofit developers in other communities have provided many models for San Diego’s efforts. Just last year in Los Angeles, a training and assistance program for new nonprofit housing developers spurred rehabilitation and construction of some 400 homes for low- and moderate-income residents.

Local institutions, like the San Diego Community Foundation and the City-County Reinvestment Task Force, stand ready to help nonprofits take on this new challenge. The Housing Commission, lenders and private business leaders have begun to make funding commitments. With the housing trust fund and the full support of city government and business and neighborhood leaders, San Diego can end this century with more affordable homes, strong nonprofit developers, revitalized communities, and a healthier economy less constrained by unaffordable housing.