Petaluma rental market in crisis
In June, Abby Calvert moved her family from Petaluma to Portland, but she didn’t like the idea of selling their South McDowell home. The Calverts wanted to keep the 1,000-square-foot, 3-bedroom house just in case they decided to return to sunny California someday.
So they became long distance landlords.
Calvert and her husband knew they could make a profit, but they had no idea just how much revenue a rental could rake in. Two rental companies recommended they charge about $2,500.
“Under good conscious, we knew our house was not worth $2,500 a month,” Calvert said. “That’s crazy.”
The new landlords settled on renting the property for $1,800 per month, and within 12 hours, their Craigslist ad yielded more than 100 applications. Besides offering a reasonable rent, it was important to Calvert that they consider an array of applicants - from people with pets, to veterans with housing vouchers.
“If we wanted to be super greedy, we could have gone way higher than that,” Calvert said. “But we were once in that position and could barely afford to pay rent. Someone had to take a chance on us ... so we just thought we would pay it forward.”
That’s something Mike Johnson, CEO of Petaluma’s Committee on the Shelterless, hopes more landlords will be willing to do throughout Sonoma County. With the county’s rental vacancy rate hovering around 1 percent, housing options are limited for renters. Even more scarce is affordable housing, defined as rentals in which a tenant does not spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing-related costs like shelter and utilities.
In Petaluma, according to the 2015-23 Petaluma Housing Element, of the 1,590 renters who earn between 50 and 80 percent less than the median household income - $76,900 - 75 percent are paying more than 30 percent of their paycheck, and 23 percent are paying more than half of what they earn on housing.
As of April 2014, average rents in Petaluma were $1,484 for a 1-bedroom, $1,764 for a 2-bedroom and $2,221 for a 3-bedroom, according to the housing element. Depending on the number of rooms, an individual would have to earn between $20 and $37 an hour in order to afford the fair market rent.
In an email blast, Johnson called for landlords to offer affordable rates: $820 for a studio, $956 for a 1-bedroom, $1,251 for a 2-bedroom and $1,843 for a 3-bedroom. In exchange for offering these rental rates, Johnson said COTS can offer landlords financial security, property maintenance and a list of endless tenants.
One such program, called Integrity Housing, helps families and individuals with disabilities find and maintain permanent housing. So far, the program has eight landlords renting out 10 houses, with one tenant per bedroom. The incentive for landlords to participate - aside from helping others - is that COTS assumes many of the usual risks associated with renting, such as covering a tenant’s missed payment, or replacing a tenant who moves.
As a new landlord, such incentives appealed to Sheila Deignan, who lived in Petaluma for 25 years before deciding to rent out her home and move to Sonoma. Deignan wanted to know that her Petaluma home would be respected by her tenants, so after hearing about COTS’ Integrity House program, she decided to give it a shot.
“It’s really a win-win situation,” Deignan said. “We don’t have to worry about somebody that we don’t know abusing our house, and we don’t have to worry about vacancy.”
This is Deignan’s second year renting, and she has yet to receive a late payment from a tenant or a complaint from her neighbors. But what’s meant the most to her is that her tenants truly appreciate living there.
“These people work in Petaluma,” Deignan said. “If you want to invest in your community, this is a way to do that.”
Another COTS landlord, George Bereschik, rents out his Petaluma home and hasn’t had any issues either. When Bereschik told his tenants he had decided to renew the lease, he said their outpouring of appreciation was heartwarming.
Erin Muha is one such appreciative Integrity House tenant, who struggled for years to find an affordable single bedroom. She felt unsafe in her living arrangement, but had nowhere else to go.
“I wanted to get out of there,” Muha recalled. “But I couldn’t find another room with kitchen privileges that I could afford.”
A taxi driver told her about COTS, and after meeting the program’s requirements, she was placed in an affordable house on the west side of town with two roommates.
“I was really thrilled that they could offer me permanent housing for a price I could afford,” Muha said.
(Contact Allison Jarrell at allison.jarrell@argus courier.com)
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