Oakland's Top Housing Official: There Is No Affordable Housing Crisis
Oakland's Director of Planning and Building Rachel Flynn reportedly told a conference of real estate developers in San Francisco yesterday that Oakland's residents are not facing an affordable housing crisis. Her comment was tweeted out by several attendees, including journalists.
Flynn made the comment while speaking on a panel of planning directors from major cities organized by the Urban Land Institute, a developer funded-think tank. Her comments also sparked some strong criticism on social media.
Flynn's remarks are at odds with the experiences of many Oakland residents. Just last week the city council hosted an hours long special hearing on the topic of affordable housing. Dozens of Oaklanders told the council they were experiencing shockingly high increases in their rents, and some spoke about being recently displaced, or facing the prospect of being pushed out of Oakland because of the increasingly expensive housing market.
Recent reports show that Oakland's rents and home prices have increased faster than virtually any city in the nation. Oakland's median rent is now $2,650, according to Zillow. Oakland's median household income is $52,583, according to the US Census. Thus the median household must spend 60 percent of its total income to rent the median home, which is twice the level that is considered affordable.
A UC Berkeley report issued in July described the neighborhood around Oakland's MacArthur BART neighborhood as experiencing severe changes that are driving out lower-income homeowners and renters. "The severity of the affordability crisis continues to accelerate, with continuously rising rents and a tremendous jump in rates of housing burden," the report concluded.
In a statement issued last week, Mayor Libby Schaaf used the word crisis to describe Oakland's housing situation. Erica Derryck, a spokesperson for Mayor Schaaf, didn't return a phone call and email this morning seeking comment about Flynn's remarks.
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/SevenDays/archives/2015/10/07/oaklands-top-housing-official-there-is-no-affordable-housing-crisis
