Group
trying to help reduce housing costs A Santa Barbara nonprofit group that is trying to reduce workers' housing costs has begun marketing its new rental assistance and home-buying programs to employers in Ventura County. The Coastal Housing Partnership launched its rental assistance program this month, offering employees of its member companies discounts of $50 to $100 a month in rent at the properties of cooperating landlords. The idea, said Jane Helmer, the partnership's marketing director, is to reduce the effect of the high cost of housing on businesses in Ventura County and Santa Barbara County. In a recent survey, she said, the partnership found an increasing number of residents said they would be willing to quit their jobs and move to find less costly housing. So far, four Ventura County employers -- Affinity Bank, the city of Thousand Oaks, the Ventura City Housing Authority and the Camarillo office of Penfield & Smith, a Santa Barbara-based engineering firm -- have joined the partnership. Two Ventura County apartment complexes, Cypress Point Apartments, 1241 Cypress Lane, Ventura, and Stonebridge Townhomes, 704-820 Saratoga St., Oxnard, are offering discount rents to workers of those employers. The program is so new, though, that no one has yet applied for a rent discount at Cypress Point Apartments, said Tom Sutphen, senior vice president of residential properties for The Towbes Group, which owns the complex and about 1,800 other apartment units in Santa Barbara County. Launched in 1987 as an employer-education program for first-time home buyers, the Coastal Housing Partnership has expanded to include down payment loan assistance and companies offering discount mortgage refinancing, Helmer said. According to its Web site, the partnership's programs were developed because:
In all, 65 companies with about 28,000 employees, nearly all in Santa Barbara County, participate in the program, Helmer said. They include banks, mortgage companies, real estate agents, home inspection firms, property management companies and landlords. The employers pay annual dues ranging from $750 for a company with 25 employees or fewer to $7,000 for a business with 1,000 workers or more. Dues are based on the number of workers a company has, not the number of transactions completed, Helmer emphasized. Besides the Towbes Group, Bartlein & Co. and Wolfe & Associates, all owners of numerous multifamily properties in the area, are participating in the partnership's rental assistance program. The landlords have agreed to reduce the rent on new leases for employees of member companies by $50 a month on a studio or one-bedroom apartment and up to $100 a month on single-family homes, Helmer said. Sutphen said rents at the 268-unit Cypress Point Apartments in Ventura range from $1,130 to $1,210 a month for one-bedroom units and $1,400 to $1,505 a month for two-bedroom units. RealFacts, a Novato firm that tracks rents and occupancy rates in apartment complexes with 100 units or more statewide, reported this week that Ventura County's average rent in March was: studio, $878; one-bedroom, one-bath, $1,050; two-bedrooms, two baths, $1,360; three bedrooms, two baths, $1,509; and overall average, $1,216. The figures are unchanged from the firm's Dec. 31 survey. The vacancy rate dropped from 4 percent in December to 3.6 percent in March in RealFacts' survey, which covered 66 properties with 14,905 apartments in Ventura County. On the Net: Coastal Housing Partnership: www.coastalhousing.org |
Coastal Housing Partnership
PO BOX 50807 • Santa Barbara, CA 93150
t: 805-969-1025 • f: 805-882-1496