Project MANA - A Hunger Relief Agency

North Lake Tahoe Bonanza:  KINGS BEACH - To say the average household in Kings Beach spends more than they can afford to live in overcrowded conditions is not an exaggeration.

A recent survey conducted by Domus Development, the Workforce Housing Association of Truckee Tahoe and other local groups gauged the realities of the bleak housing situation in the Kings Beach "Grid."

"It's a really good snapshot of how people actually live," said George Koster, an affordable housing advocate who helped coordinate the survey. "What the housing stock is and what the housing situation is in our community."

A vast majority of respondents said they spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing expenses. Housing is deemed "affordable" if it consumes only a third of your income.

Only one in four households interviewed by nonprofits and at community events said they actually make enough money to live in housing that is within affordable range of their income.

About 40 percent of those interviewed reported living in overcrowded conditions, based on the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's guideline of a maximum of two persons per bedroom.

In 2006, the California median household income was approximately $56,600. The median annual household income in Kings Beach from the door-to-door interviews and community responses was $32,500 and $30,000, respectively.

The survey delved into the nitty gritty of Kings Beach living conditions, examining where people live and work, transportation and household size and income.

"I just think the survey is a tremendous body of work," said Tom Ballou, housing services director for WHATT. "It helps put a face on the need."

Affordable housing advocates hope the numbers will prove to officials as well as community members who discount the need for workforce housing that there is, indeed, a need for quality housing that is attainable for Kings Beach residents.

"Realistically, the only way you'll get support for housing is if you have the science behind it," said Emilio Vaca, of the Tahoe Women's Services, who knocked on doors to interview residents for the survey.

The survey also specifically defines the type of housing affordable housing developers should build.

"From that perspective, it identifies needs," said Executive Director Steve Teshara of the North Lake Tahoe Resort Association, whose group contributed funding to conduct and publish the survey.

Meea Kang, president of Domus Development, a San Francisco-based affordable housing developer proposing to build affordable housing in Kings Beach, said the survey's data about family size, transportation and employment were particularly insightful.

"That really helps to inform us as to what kind of new housing to build," Kang said. "So the larger family units with play structures ... that's the type of market that we need to be building for."

Kang said this is the first housing survey of its kind that Domus has sponsored. The demographic information that affordable housing developments typically use to make building decisions does not exist for Kings Beach, she said.

"We felt that in order to be accurate, we needed to collect our own data," Kang said.

The survey interviewed 323 individuals, each representing separate households. Two-thirds of the respondents completed the survey in Spanish.

Volunteers knocked on the doors of every fifth house in the back streets of Kings Beach in late September, filling out nearly 100 door-to-door surveys. The remaining respondents were interviewed at community events, through nonprofit organizations, such as the Tahoe Women's Services, Project MANA and the North Tahoe Family Resource Center.

The door-to-door subgroup likely gathered results that reflect the greater Kings Beach community.

Whereas the community subgroup is more indicative of those who would qualify for affordable housing, those that conducted the surveys said.

"The positive thing was that we were able to talk to people who would not normally fill out a survey," Vaca said, noting that most of the doors he knocked on supported and completed the survey. "The most important thing was that it was someone going to them and talking to them."

 Julie Brown
Bonanza News Service