Housing, Homelessness, and the Budget: Three Crises Running in Parallel
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The median sold price for a detached single-family home in San Diego County reached $1.1 million in June — with the average sold price climbing still higher, to around $1.5 million. Roughly 1,415 detached homes are actively listed countywide, and homes are selling in approximately 22 days on average. Against that backdrop, a new bipartisan state bill aimed at housing affordability is gaining momentum in Sacramento, with local leaders holding a press event this week to promote it as a tool to expand affordable options and ease rent burdens. No bill number or final vote has been announced; the effort remains in an advocacy phase, though its bipartisan framing is notable in a typically fractured legislative debate.
The San Diego City Council's vote to create an $8.5 million affordable housing preservation fund addresses a related but distinct threat: a 2020 study from the San Diego Housing Commission projected that more than 13,000 affordable units could lose their protected status by 2040 as affordability covenants expire and properties convert to market-rate. The fund is designed to get ahead of that cliff — but the gap between $8.5 million and the scale of the problem is significant, and whether the initial seed attracts sufficient state and federal leverage will determine whether the fund functions as a policy tool or a symbolic gesture.
On homelessness, KPBS is reporting that revenues from Measure C — the hotel tax increase voters approved specifically to fund new homeless services — have not yet translated into new programming. The implementation lag is occurring simultaneously with the scheduled closure of the Neil Good Day Center, which served people experiencing homelessness for 35 years before the city cut its funding. The result is a real gap in the safety net: dedicated funding not yet flowing, and existing services disappearing.
The county's $9 billion budget, which took effect July 1, adds more than 100 new staff positions to verify compliance with new federal work requirements for CalFresh, the food assistance program formerly known as SNAP. Roughly 93,000 San Diego County residents could see their CalFresh benefits affected by federal budget proposals still moving through Congress. The county is absorbing federally mandated administrative costs while simultaneously facing the prospect that the benefits those staff members administer could be reduced.
Layered on top: the Water Authority approved a 3 percent wholesale rate increase for 2027 that will eventually filter down to ratepayers, and a statewide ballot measure this November could make it harder for cities and counties to pass local sales-tax increases in the future — a constraint with direct relevance for Santee, which has a 1 percent general sales tax on the same November ballot.