Public Comment

Hello Berkeley. A question, please.

Do you think that a family that earns $120,000 a year should still qualify for affordable housing?

That’s a real question. Because the way the city now refers to affordable housing for its Adeline Corridor Plan, a family earning $120,000 would qualify.

If you earn $120,000 a year, and you pay rent at the level set by HUD for affordable housing (which is a maximum of 30% of your income), you would end up paying $3000 a month. $3000 is roughly comparable to market rate.

What kind of corruption is this? The demand for affordable housing made by the low income neighborhoods is in response to the huge displacement of families that can't afford market rate housing. It is for them that the entire issue of affordable housing is and has been raised, not for those who earn $120,000. But the city, in its Adeline Corridor Plan, sees fit to open its planned affordable housing units to families earning $120,000 a year. If they take one of the available affordable units, then a low income family that could have taken that unit will be out in the cold. 

How could this happen? How could the Planning Dept. reconcile this with itself? 

But it is right there in the plan, that affordable housing will be provided for people whose income is in the “low, very low, extremely low, and moderate” income brackets. And those earning $120,000 a year would be smack-dab in the middle of the "moderate" income bracket. 

Maybe the city is still toadying to the developers, even after there is a glut of market rate housing. But why do many Planning Commissioners, who are supposedly representing the community, go along with that? When this disparity was pointed out, there was no outrage that some low income family could be left out if a "moderate" income family able to afford a market rate unit could gobble up an affordable apartment in the Adeline Corridor. How far does this kind of moral corruption extend? 

People of Berkeley, we have a problem. 

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Okay, it is time to explain how this happens. Here’s the set-up. 

The first principle of affordable housing is that one pays 30% of one’s income for rent. That’s HUD that says that, not me. 

Most people who live in rent controlled apartments in Berkeley are paying around 70% of their income for rent. That’s not the city government that says that. That’s me. I did a survey. Clearly if a family is paying 70% of their income for rent, or even 50%, they have a lot trouble keeping their kids in shoes, the lights on, and food on the table all at the same time. For that reason, low income people are still being displaced. When rents go up and income does not, one ends up in the street. 

What kind of corruption are we faced with if this condition has been known for 10 years, and the city has only permitted 5% of the affordable housing mandated by the state? Over that period, 2000 units have been built, and only around 100 are categorized as "affordable." Who’s not doing their job? 

The second principle of affordable housing is the need to ensure equity, that the renters in any one income bracket do not monopolize the affordable units, but that there is equitable distribution. For that purpose, HUD has divided low income renters into three income brackets: low income, very low income, and extremely low income. That way, when affordable units are built, they can be parceled out equitably to those who need them, with priority given to those who live the stress of impending eviction, or the misery of having to choose between food and heat. 

Please notice, I refuse to give credence to the city’s corruption by including "moderate income" as an income bracket for affordable housing. You’ll see why in a minute. 

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Let us look at the details. I will have to use a few numbers. Please stay with them and think about them. These numbers represent the economic conditions of real people, some at levels of misery, and some living high on the hog. 

To be accounted as low income in Berkeley, one has to be earning less than $76,000 a year. That’s the upper limit of the low income bracket. The lower limit is $47,500 a year. Above that, one is low income; below it, one is “very low income.” 

The next step down is $28,500 a year. That is the lower limit of the “very low income” bracket. Earning less than that puts one in the “extremely low income” bracket. 

There is a bottom to this. Below $19,000 a year, one is off the charts. HUD level rent, at 30% of income, for those at the bottom of the “extremely low income” bracket, would be $475 a month. Maybe back in 1995, one could get a furnished room for that. But this is 20-covid-20. 

Think about this next time you see a tent by the side of the road. Think about some family earning $120,000 a year taking one of the affordable units in the Adeline Community from someone who only earns $40,000, and will have to move out of town because they can’t find a place they can afford (30% of $40,000 would come to $1000 a month for rent). 

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What’s the secret in all this? Where’s the scam? How does a $120,000 family get to qualify for an affordable unit? How are these income brackets calculated in the first place? 

There is some sleight of hand by the city. It plays two tricks. 

Trick number 1: 

The city includes that fourth income bracket in its designations for affordable housing in the Adeline Plan, the bracket called "moderate income." 

In Berkeley, the “moderate income” bracket would go (“would go”) from $76,000 a year to $114,000 a year. The middle of that bracket would be $95,000. At 30% of one’s income for rent, that would be about $2400 a month. That’s for the middle of that moderate income bracket, and it is almost market rate, but not quite. And there are market rate apartments available today, because the city allowed a glut to form. Too many were built, with not enough affordable units. That’s why the housing crisis never went away. 

Are you paying attention? I started this expose by saying that the Adeline Corridor Plan would allow a moderate income family earning $120,000 a year to move into an affordable unit. Didn’t you see how I shifted it? 

Just now, I said the moderate income bracket for Berkeley was $76,000 to $114,000. The trick was to use a different basis of calculation. The one used by the city favors higher income families. 

Trick number 2: 

These brackets are calculated on the basis of income averages for specific geographical zones. 

HUD defines a specific midpoint for each zone (county, metropolitan area, etc.) to be the center of its calculations. That midpoint is called the "Area Median Income." AMI. The low income bracket is from 50% to 80% of AMI; very low goes from 30% to 50% of AMI; and extremely low goes from 20% to 30% of AMI. 

So everything hinges on which AMI one uses. 

The AMI for Berkeley is approximately $95,000 a year. So the boundary between low and very low income brackets, which is 50% of AMI, would be $47,500 a year (roughly $1200 a month for rent). 

Here’s the problem. 

When HUD calculates its subsidies for affordable housing, it does not use Berkeley’s AMI. Berkeley is not a metropolitan area. Neither is it a county. It is part of a zone that HUD then uses, namely, Alameda County. But … 

But, the AMI for Alameda County is $119,000 a year. The income brackets for Berkeley, which has a much lower AMI, will nevertheless be calculated for the Adeline Corridor Plan on the basis of the county AMI, which is higher. That’s where the inclusion of a $120,000 family comes from. Calculating from county AMI, $120,000 per year is right in the middle of the moderate income bracket. Calculating (for the Adeline Community, which is in Berkeley) on the basis of Berkeley’s AMI would place the $120,000 family in the wealthy, upper class bracket. 

It is the city’s silence about this disparity, and its use in the Adeline Corridor Plan, that is its shell game, its corruption. To use the county’s AMI to calculate income brackets for Berkeley is to enact a middle class bias. It is to provide affordable housing to those who don’t need it, and thus to withhold that scarce commodity from those who do. 

There is only one way the city can make its proposal for affordable housing in the Adeline Corridor Plan honest and above board. That would be to expunge any reference to any moderate income bracket, and reserve its affordable housing units for those who need them, namely, low, very low, and extremely low income renters, based on Berkeley’s real income landscape, as represented by its real AMI. 

But if the Planning Commission doesn’t want to deal with this problem, with its inherent bias and corruption, why would the city? 

[Note: the low income bracket, calculated using county AMI, will run from $95,200 at the high end to $59,500 at the low end, and will therefore include the lower half of the moderate income group as calculated using Berkeley’s AMI (not the county’s). So there will be some equity for those of moderate income on a Berkeley basis if the "moderate" category is removed.]