What's at stake?
Downtown Fresno hosted the 14th annual San Joaquin Valley Affordable Housing Summit in downtown Fresno.
The conference comes at a time when the region is seeing its local housing crisis exacerbated by federal and state funding cuts.
The San Joaquin Valley Housing Collaborative hosted their 14th annual Affordable Housing Summit last week in downtown Fresno.
The San Joaquin Valley Housing Collaborative is a nonprofit group of organizations stretching across eight counties in the central San Joaquin Valley, from Stanislaus to Kern county. The group, formed in 2005, aims to advance affordable housing in the region through political advocacy.
The two-day event hosted Manuel Pastor, a professor at the University of Southern California, as their keynote speaker. Pastor also directs the university’s Equity Research Institute.
Jessica Hoff Berzac, a local developer and the collaborative’s event chair, said his opening address “really set the tone” for the summit.
“When you look at the economic shifts that he was able to present,” Berzac said, “it really amplified that if we don’t find ways to shift the economic scales, so that lower income folks can get into housing, the disparities are just going to get bigger and bigger.”
Fifteen workshops were held on Thursday highlighting topics like homeless solutions, local government resources and housing financing.
Among the “innovative” solutions on display at the summit was a recent agreement reached between Berzac’s development company, UpHoldings and the Fresno Unified School District — where earlier this year the district agreed to cover the housing costs of 10 families to live at the Crossroads Village development in an effort to promote attendance.
Fresno was considered one of the hardest places in the country to find an apartment according to a Forbes report released last year. HUD data showed the average price for a Fresno apartment had grown 50% since 2019.
Fresno will also need to weather more challenges brought on by federal and state cuts to housing programs.
Federal cuts to the Housing Choice Voucher Program, or Section 8, could cause “a potential mass displacement event, according to the Fresno Housing Authority, as thousands of households lose their ability to pay rent.
Also, it was announced that two homeless shelters in the City of Fresno are scheduled to close at the end of the year due to funding issues. The decision sparked uncertainty about what may happen to other local homeless shelters once their service contracts expire.
Berzac said that the collaborative met goals in attendance, with almost 350 people visiting the summit this year. She hopes that events like these, as well as Fresno’s growing housing challenges, help motivate people to join collaborative efforts in bringing about solutions.
Berzac encouraged locals to join the collaborative.
“It’s not just developers, architects and banks,” Berzac said. “We had people there that just wanted to learn more. We want students to be members, we want people who’ve chosen to have a career in housing, community members and organizations…because none of us can do it alone.”
