Housing Solution was the theme for our meeting with Melino Foundation on May 9, 2025. We in California are in a housing crisis.
We are short over 200,000 homes.. where are all these people now if they aren’t housed? With friends, couch surfing, under sheltered or where?
I am now concerned about let’s move onto solutions other than, just having builders building highrisers. The challenge is they are too expensive to build and qualify for. Right now most people are living rent poor.
My solution is smaller homes, for 1st time home buyers, more desirable mortgage or lease payments. I was trying to put forth, this idea in this meeting, It got sidetracked with other people wanting different things than what I proposed.
What I learned about the audience they are not looking for housing, they are already housed, therefore I was talking to the wrong audience. If you read my post about Marketing 101, who are wanting serve?
This group doesn’t have lived experience of being under-sheltered or unhoused, therefore they are stuck on only one way of doing things. When Paster Aaron said, at the beginning of the meeting, “come with an open mind, not with a mind about what you know”.. maybe you don’t know everything.
I felt during my presentation for a housing solution, that people were shooting it down without thinking it couldn’t work. People were jumping in with other things. Social housing is a structure it has to be attached to something. It’s a concept. One can’t just move into social housing..
Or let’s build around BART?? Not everyone takes the train to work. Why do I have to live there? The housing solution isn’t for everyone, yet the powers to be want to tell us where we can live. Does this make sense?
Shelters are great for people who are in tents, encampments and the like. I would prefer that they get permanent homes. Not just temporary ones. Maybe, they aren’t ready to have or want the responsibility..they should be offered options and have a choice to make.
Measure W got a big push as this money was tagged for homeless programs and now Alameda County wants to take a chunk of this money out, for their general budget shortfall. WRONG. The supervisors need to do the right thing, let people who are in this crisis to have a say how to spend this money. Maybe some of these funds could fund a Tiny Home Village??
You can read more on this page Oakland Measure W – County Sales Tax
“However, the county intends to use the revenues to fund programs that serve county residents without homes, according to the recommendations of the Home Together 2020 Plan.1 Funded programs would include rapid rehousing, ongoing rental subsidies, expanded emergency shelters and permanent supportive housing in certain cases. The county plans to allocate funding from this measure to cities and unincorporated areas based on their population of people without housing, as determined by the upcoming 2021 Point-in-Time count, but the measure would not legally require the funds to be used in this way.”
“Measure W will address Alameda County’s homeless crisis, protecting our most vulnerable neighbors: seniors, veterans, families and people who can’t keep up with skyrocketing housing costs and are homeless or at risk of losing their homes.”
We can only hope that the supervisors will do the right thing, once they get the funds.
We will continue with our discussion about housing solution.s.
Mari-Lyn