Affordable housing, homelessness, crime. Modesto wants to know how much residents care
The city of Modesto wants to know how important, or unimportant, certain issues are to residents.
A Housing and Community Needs Survey was published by the city to gauge residents’ needs as Modesto puts together its Five Year Consolidated Plan. The report of more than 200 pages will “serve as the framework planning document for a communitywide dialogue.”
Data from the survey will identify the top housing needs, community development concerns for low- and moderate-income residents and how to address homelessness, according to the city. While seemingly general, the report is very detailed and being crafted using several data sets.
What’s in the survey?
Residents can take the survey through March 10. The first third asks for basic information: where the person filing lives, the person’s housing situation, etc. The next section of the survey asks takers to rate issues, ranging from “not important” to “extremely important.”
Issues addressed in the first section include:
- Help buying a home/down-payment assistance
- Financial assistance for homeowners to make housing improvements
- Financial assistance for rental payments
- Affordable housing options for people with disabilities
- Affordable housing options for seniors
- More affordable housing options for families (e.g. three bedrooms or more)
- Rehabilitation of affordable rental housing (e.g. energy efficiency improvements)
- Construction of new affordable housing for homeownership
- Construction of new affordable rental units
- Energy efficiency improvements to housing.
This portion of the survey was one of the longest, with shorter portions including questions on homelessness and housing of domestic-violence and elder-abuse victims. Residents are asked to rate issues of homelessness such as:
- Access to homeless shelters
- Homelessness prevention and outreach to homeless persons
- Transitional/supportive housing programs.
Domestic-violence and elder-abuse issues include:
- Access to shelters
- Prevention efforts
- Outreach to victims
- Transitional/supportive housing programs.
The longest portion of the survey asks residents to rate how important issues of public service were. Issues include:
- After-school services and/or other youth services
- Child-abuse prevention
- Drug-abuse education and crime prevention
- Food banks/community meals
- Housing counseling
- Job search assistance and employment training
- Legal services
- Medical and dental services
- Neighborhood cleanups
- Senior services
- Transportation assistance.
Residents also are asked to rate issues related to economic, community development needs (such as improvements to historic buildings and financial assistance to local entrepreneurs) and a range of other civic issues.
The latter portion of the survey gauges how informed residents are of housing discrimination by explaining what the federal Fair Housing Act is and if the survey taker knows about it. It also asks if a taker knows how to file a discrimination complaint and has experienced housing discrimination.
What is the Five-Year Consolidated Plan?
Modesto’s five-year plan is an overarching list of goals the city wants to accomplish. Once the survey data helps determine the needs and interests of residents, the city will work on how to address and pay for them.
The plan is essentially a policy blueprint for local lawmakers. The consolidated plan gets broken down into annual action plans, which are the city’s strategies for carrying out goals.
Modesto’s 2020-25 plan listed five issues as being high priority: affordable housing, addressing and preventing homelessness, enhancing infrastructure and public facilities, public services, and community and economic development.
According to the city’s self-assessment of its 2015-2020 plan, it was able to fund several affordable housing projects through a mix of local, state and federal funds. However, it did note “continuing decreases in funds and increased construction costs” and that it would “continue to explore alternative strategies.”
