Key numbers to know about housing shortage as Modesto council holds workshop on homeless
The Modesto City Council expects a large crowd at a Friday morning workshop on how to help homeless people.
It will be in the Arbor Theater at Modesto Centre Plaza. That venue seats about 350 people, substantially more than the regular chambers a block away.
The council can expect to hear from proponents of so-called safe camping sites. They would offer restrooms and other basics as efforts toward long-term housing proceed.
Critics say the sites would be neither safe nor effective, some of them citing the large 2019 tent city under the Ninth Street Bridge.
Because it’s a workshop, the council likely will give direction to the city staff rather than make final decisions. The agenda does not list specific items or include staff reports.
The gathering comes amid small signs of progress on new housing. The shortage is a key focus for The Modesto Bee, which offers these points to ponder in advance of Friday:
- The median apartment rent in Modesto was $1,644 a month in July, the most recent report from rentcafe.com. A mere 3% of the units cost $1,000 or less.
- The median list price for Modesto homes was $424,950 in September, a report from rockethomes.com said.
- A household in Stanislaus County would need at least $115,200 in annual income to afford a median-priced home as of spring 2023, according to the California Association of Realtors.
- The county had 2,091 homeless people during a January count required for federal funding. Of those, 1,642 were in Modesto.
- The countywide survey found that 27% were homeless after being asked to leave their previous dwellings. Another 26% cited abuse or violence at home, and 23% said they could not make rent or mortgage payments.
- Among homeless adults countywide, 23% reported a serious mental illness and 16% had a substance use disorder.
- Modesto needed 6,361 new housing units between 2014 and 2022 under a state effort to spread the burden. The city produced only 2,064, according to its draft plan for doing better from 2023 to 2031.
- That document, known as a housing element, moves away from Modesto’s decades-long practice of annexing farmland. It seeks instead to put high-density homes along commercial strips such as McHenry Avenue, Oakdale Road and Sisk Road. Underused parking lots could get apartments and townhouses, ideally within walking distance of grocery stores and other businesses.
- Modesto’s goal for 2023-31 is 11,248 units, serving people ranging from “extremely low-income” to affluent.
- Market-rate construction is especially sluggish, but a few recent subsidized projects are now housing people. A renovated Kansas Avenue motel provided 103 apartments in 2000. Seven more followed on James Street last year, and another 14 on Ninth Street last month.
- Funded projects coming soon include 150 units in the former Clarion Inn on Sisk, 92 along Robertson Road, 45 on East Morris Avenue and 34 next to the King-Kennedy Memorial Center.
- A six-story building with 79 apartments would rise on Seventh Street if the last of the funding comes together in a few months.
The council will meet from 9 a.m. to noon Friday, Oct. 20, at 1001 K St. Instructions for taking part remotely are at www.modestogov.com/659/City-Council.
