Habitat for Humanity opens sweat-equity housing development in Paso Robles. Get a look inside
For the past 13 years, San Luis Obispo County’s Habitat for Humanity branch has been unable to get a new housing project off the ground.
This Christmas, that streak will end, allowing nine Paso Robles families to finally enjoy the fruits of their labors.
Starting 18 months ago, the nine households worked with the nonprofit to build Habitat’s first new development in the county in more than a decade, contributing hundreds of hours of their own labor to the project.
Emily Baranek, who’s served as the project manager since the land was first purchased in cooperation with the city of Paso Robles in 2011, said the project wouldn’t be possible without the city’s help.
“They’ve really worked very hard to keep this project alive,” Baranek said. “Each time we’ve put it on hold, they’ve been part of the conversation.”
Here’s an inside look at how Habitat for Humanity’s first new development in San Luis Obispo County in 13 years finally crossed the finish line.
Why has Habitat not developed new projects until now?
Baranek said she’s been involved with Habitat for Humanity in San Luis Obispo County for the past 20 years and is proud to have seen the project through from start to finish.
In part, the delays in new development mirror the issues California has experienced with building new housing at an adequate rate over the past two decades, she said.
Other issues stemmed from the nonprofit’s overall goals and priorities in recent years, including “some fatal flaws and kind of disjointedness between the financial structure of Habitat’s model and the housing costs in California,” Baranek said. “That was a huge hurdle that the organization had to get over, and it took about 10 years and it took (current Habitat for Humanity CEO Nick Rasmussen) being willing to see that there is a group of people out there who can carry a real mortgage loan with a real interest rate.”
Financially, the project has faced its share of setbacks — none larger than the inflation of building material and construction costs that arose in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, Baranek said.
Other funding hurdles included city fees such as permit fees, development impact fees and school fees totaling up to around $85,000 per house, she said.
Baranek said the city waived as many permitting and development fees as were feasible to help Habitat get the final price tag into an acceptable range.
“The price of construction almost doubled, and then we partnered with the (U.S. Department of Agriculture), and they were able to help us,” Rasmussen said. “This is about seven different funding streams just to make this build work — this went from a $2.5 million build to almost a $4 million build.”
Sweat equity program gives lower middle class families a boost
After a lengthy selection process, the nine families who applied to contribute their labor to the project broke ground with the nonprofit in the early summer of 2023.
In exchange for having their down payments waived, the each adult chipped in at least 250 hours of work such as landscaping, caulking, and painting to the project, with some families contributing up to 500 hours, Rasmussen said.
Though that’s only around 10% of the actual construction time needed to build the homes, it’s still a significant contribution by people with full-time jobs and active lives outside of their pursuit of housing, Rasmussen said.
For families making anywhere between 60% and 80% of the area median income who may be able to carry a mortgage payment but not the price of entry, that lack of a down payment can be all the difference, Rasmussen said.
In San Luis Obispo County, the median income for an average four-person household is $83,200, or $58,250 for a one-person household according to Paso Robles’ income level classifications.
Over its construction period, the project also benefited from more than 6,000 volunteer hours outside of what the incoming families contributed, Rasmussen said.
Skilled labor was completed by outside contractors, including the raising of the homes, electrical work and plumbing. Contractors also completed more site-specific work such as installing a power line that connects the project to the power grid near Lake Nacimiento and installing around 10,000 square feet of pavers as a driveway that also functions as a drainage basin for the project.
The finished project at 2900 Vine St. includes nine three-bedroom, one-and-a-half-bathroom homes, each equipped with solar arrays and battery backups donated by Canadian Solar, Baranek said.
Appliances such as ovens, laundry machines and refrigerators were donated by Whirpool at the corporate level through Habitat International and installed free of cost by Idler’s Home in Paso Robles, which also donated mattresses to the incoming families, Baranek said.
All told, the homes cost around $425,000 to build and are not sold for profit, meaning families will pay an income-based mortgage to USDA, which holds the loans for the homes, Rasmussen said. Those mortgage payments will partially be used to fund future Habitat developments in San Luis Obispo County, Baranek said.
While Habitat retains right of first refusal to buy the homes from the families should they opt to sell them in the future, that sale still helps them build equity, Rasmussen said.
A grand opening was held at the end of November, and families will move into the finished homes once the final touches are complete before Christmas, Rasmussen said.
“The families that are here now are the families that made a commitment from the very beginning,” Rasmussen said. “They’ve done right by their their community, done right by us, and our goal is to do right by each of them.”
This story was originally published December 6, 2024 at 10:08 AM.
