Ep. 75: Jean Diaz, Exec. Dir. of San Diego Community Land Trust
With the average house in San Diego in 2016, selling at over $500,000, and with almost 800 San Diego homes selling for over $2M in 2015, just what does “affordable housing” mean? (Just to compare: the average home in Cleveland, OH, sells for around $80,000.) What level of income is needed in San Diego to become a homeowner? When the Market does not, and cannot, provide houses affordable to people in the workforce, what alternatives are there to paying rents that continue rising? Is renting your only option—and therefore paying all your housing money to someone else who does own? Stay with us for this episode of The Common Good Podcast because we’re talking with the executive director of one non-profit that defines “affordable housing” in a way that many people in the workforce can become homeowners—not just in San Diego County, but all across the country.
This podcast updates us on the community land trust model of making homes available for ownership at 20%-or-so below the market rate. I’ve been on the board of the SDCLT since its inception, chairing it for at least three years, so I believe in this model of housing. The reasons will become clear as I talk with Jean Diaz, who became Ex. Dir. in 2013.
