Good News on Home Front

When it comes to Orange County and the efforts to meet its huge need for more low-income housing, the adage about a long journey having to start with the first step couldn’t be more apropos.

The handful of new low-priced homes and apartments built each year hardly seems enough to meet the growing needs of new jobs and new residents, let alone start to make a dent on the imbalance between jobs, homes and house payments and rents that have been the bane of an otherwise generally buoyant economy.

Though home prices remain high, the recent drop in interest rates has made homes more available for some new buyers and eased the budget strain on many others who refinanced to make their high monthly house payment a bit more manageable.

Though interest rates can fluctuate, it certainly has helped to have them lower.

Some of the little steps toward more affordability announced in some of the new housing that will be built in South County have also helped the housing market.

In San Clemente, which requires developers of large residential projects to include low-income homes, 186 low-income apartments with rents starting at $700 a month will be built in the Talega development. To put the city’s need in perspective, however, it has only 150 rental units for its 4,000 families in the low-income bracket.

At Mission Viejo’s Ladera Ranch development, another 44 low-income apartments will be built. The 230 apartments in those two projects are the first low-income rental units to be built for families in South County in five years.

But there is the promise of more to come.

The county is now interested in joining with private developers to build about 1,000 low-income rentals each year. It has earmarked $35 million for the project.

And Fannie Mae, the largest provider of home mortgages in the nation, has committed $50 billion to help finance inexpensive housing in Orange and Los Angeles counties. Much of the money will go to bringing housing within the reach of more low-income communities and minority families.

All of this is a good omen of the growing awareness--and we hope action--toward addressing a need that has gone unmet far too long.