A large crowd of dignitaries attended, including County Supervisors, Redwood City City Council members, Woodside Town Council members, trustees of the College District, contractors, architects, and engineers, as well as faculty and staff, including some residents of the development, the first of whom were to begin moving in this afternoon.

Here are some photos.

SMC Community College District's Barbara Christensen speaks at the opening of Canada Vista 8/12/2010. She managed the project and did a great job.

Guests view the Community Room at the Canada Vista grand opening

HLC's Program Organizer Josh Hugg and Community Builder Diana Reddy view a unit with a staffer from the College District.

“Northern California has one of the highest housing costs in the nation. The lack of affordable housing impacts everyone; and local leaders constantly wrestle with the fact that there isn’t enough housing affordable to their community members.

It’s not just a social problem, but an economic and environmental one. Cities, schools and local businesses struggle to find employees who can afford to live in the communities where they work. Many workers must drive long distances, contributing to gridlock and air pollution. Others double up in overcrowded, substandard housing. Both of these options come at considerable cost to the health and welfare of our communities. The housing problem is very real, and it impacts us all….

Our work at Mid-Pen is driven by the belief that safe, affordable housing provides the foundation necessary for people to prosper and contribute to their communities. To us, there’s nothing more rewarding than providing the stable housing that allows people to thrive, not just survive. Once a family has an affordable home, they can focus on finding better jobs, pursuing education, helping their children with schoolwork, even exercising and eating more healthfully….

At Mid-Pen we also believe that affordable housing doesn’t just benefit our residents. It benefits the entire community. By providing homes close to jobs and transit, we revitalize city centers and reduce a region’s carbon footprint. And by designing, building and renovating with a constant commitment to the highest quality, we enhance and beautify the neighborhoods where we build.

Mid-Pen was a co-founder of HLC and is the largest nonprofit affordable-home developer headquartered in San Mateo County. Learn more at Mid-Pen’s website:

www.midpen-housing.org/

(Considering how long they’ve been meeting, it’s surprising I haven’t been before. There are always some HLC board members in attendance, including Michele Beasley from Greenbelt Alliance who is a task force member, and Corinne Goodrich from the San Mateo County Transit District, who staffs the task force, so our views are covered.)

A large part of the meeting focused on the “Multi-Modal Corridor Plan Travel Demand Forecasting Results.” What does this mean? It means to create models to look at different modes or ways people have to get around under different scenarios of how much transit there is and how much new residential development there is. The study projected that if we speed up transit through bus rapid transit, and increase number of people living near major transit stops (bus and train), then the number of miles people drive alone in a car goes down. Hooray! Not surprising but good to have a model that supports the scenario.

I tweeted the following two quotes from the presentation and wanted to publish them here without needing to keep them within the annoying 140-character limit of Twitter:

Quote-of-the-Day #1: “We should educate the public about how enhancing transit and land use can improve quality of life.”

Quote-of-the-Day #2: “We need to be more aggressive in planning for growth in the [El Camino Real] corridor. With the highest intensification of land use, we get the greatest benefits.”

In other words, if we just increase buses, they will get some more use. If we increase only the number of residents, we’ll increase the car traffic. But if we increase both, then the synergy will result in surprisingly less car traffic — because the new residents will have access to good transit that they will actually use.

Increasingly that includes homelessness prevention and rapid re-housing for people who are temporarily homeless. The recent passage of the federal HEART Act explicitly allows for local communities to use their federal homeless services funding to do just that.

At today’s meeting, Michele Jackson, executive director of Shelter Network, reported that they are getting 600 calls a week from people who need shelter.

Another committee member reported that as of mid-August the core service agencies, which provide people with front-line access to services at seven locations throughout San Mateo County, have used up their Season of Sharing money for this quarter, and won’t get more until October. The Season of Sharing is a major provider of one-time emergency funds, such as move-in costs for someone to get a new apartment or temporary assistance to a family hitting a rough patch. It’s run by the San Francisco Chronicle and is funded by private donations. That makes me concerned about the Chronicle‘s declining readership, and rumors of its demise or mutation into another form. Will they still keep the fund?

In better news, the City of Redwood City acquired a 23-unit apartment building to use for below-market rate homes. Five of the units will be used to provide “housing first” to people who are chronically homeless. Once they have stable housing, they can access other services they might need, whether medical care, substance abuse treatment, or mental health care.

Photos are on HLC’s Flickr page.

The actual ground was broken several weeks ago, so the ceremony took place in the parking lot of the Borders bookstore next door. However, city officials and funders, including HEART, were able to go down the ramp and turn the requisite spadefuls of dirt for the cameras.

Speakers included Jan Lindenthal, vice president of development for Mid-Pen; Yoomie Ahn, project manager for Mid-Pen; Brandt Grotte, Mayor of San Mateo; Janet Stone, San Mateo County Department of Housing; Brian Perkins, Office of Congresswoman Jackie Speier; Chris Mohr, Housing Endowment And Regional Trust (HEART); Margaret Schrand, Wells Fargo Bank; and Brian Frankel, Union Bank.

Here’s a link to the story in today’s San Mateo Daily Journal.

Here are a few photos from the event, posted to HLC’s Flickr account.

City officials break ground

Project Manager Yoomie Ahn

Mid-Peninsula Housing’s Jan Lindenthal

Cross-posted to HEART’s blog.

The San Mateo Daily Journal carried a brief item and a photo in Wednesday’s paper.

The San Mateo County Times print edition has a photo today (Thurs. 5/14), but it doesn’t appear to be online.

A city staff member took some photos, and if we get permission we’ll try to post one here.

Updated 5/15:
Heather Stewart from City of San Mateo gave me permission to repost her photos, so here are two.

Ribbon cutting

Exterior of the Vendome Hotel

• San Mateo County Supervisor Mark Church, who talked about the collaborative efforts the County had led, including the creation of a separate Department of Housing for the county, the creation of the Housing Endowment And Regional Trust (HEART), and HOPE (Housing Our People Effectively), the 10-year plan to end homelessness in the county;
• Duane Bay, Director of the Department of Housing, describing the collaboration with cities on a housing needs study, the allocation of each jurisdiction’s portion of the housing need in the county, and the updates to each jurisdiction’s housing element of its general plan;
• Chris Mohr, who described the advocacy role of HLC as a member organization and the funding role of HEART as a joint powers authority; and
• Greg Greenway, who described the civic engagement approach taken by Threshold 2008.

There was time at the end for just a few questions, before the meeting was over.

Our thanks to Burlingame Rotary for having us, and to Rabbi Jay Miller of Peninsula Clergy Network for serving as our emcee and panel host.

In addition, those homeowners and other community members heard from a series of elected leaders and experts on the legal, financial, and legislative sides of the crisis.

Speakers at the town hall meeting were San Mateo County Supervisor Adrienne Tissier, co-host for the day; Rep. Jackie Speier (pictured); Assembly Member Jerry Hill; and Daly City Mayor Sal Torres.

Presentations were given by:

• Glendora Hudson, Wells Fargo, an event co-sponsor;
• Keisha Woods, EPA CANDO, on budgeting in a time of crisis;
• Shirley Hochhausen of Community Legal Services of East Palo Alto and the Predatory Lending Clinic of the University of San Francisco Law School, on the legal process of foreclosure;
• Bill Massey, San Mateo County District Attorney’s Office, on avoiding foreclosure rescue scams; and
• Bruce Hamilton, HIP Housing, on alternative housing solutions, especially homesharing to help make ends meet.

Photos have been posted to HLC’s Flickr account.