›› UPFRONT
Gimme shelter In the fight against affordable rental housing, everyone stands to lose by Pe te r Se i d m an
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ushing N. Dolbeare was an early adopter. In 1974, she founded the Ad Hoc Low Income Housing Coalition as a response to the Nixon administration placing a moratorium on federal housing programs. The organization eventually merged with the National Low Income Housing Coalition, and Dolbeare maintained her belief in the power of “empirical-based advocacy.” That’s the way Danilo Pelletiere, research director and chief economist at the Housing Coalition based in Washington, D.C., describes her method. “The story goes, she was one of the first people to get a home computer. She put it in her garage, and she had a string tied between her computer and the window of the woman who lived next door to her who worked for the census department.” They would start a computer job during the night, like a database search, and “whenever it was done, like at 2am, Dolbeare would pull the string that would ring a bell in the bedroom next door.” That signaled it was time to help Dolbeare set up the computer for the next task. “She was always very involved with the data,” says Pelletiere. “She also was very involved in trying to get people to understand what was going on, and she developed the idea of the housing wage.” That is the core idea in Out of Reach, a series of reports that look at the affordability of rental housing in the United States.
It’s not a pretty picture, especially in Marin. According to an Out of Reach report released in June, Marin County tops the list of least affordable rental markets in the country. More than 60 percent of renters in Marin cannot meet an affordability index for housing, putting them in an at-risk category for economic hardship. The Bay Area as a whole is the least affordable metropolitan area in the country. San Francisco and San Mateo tie Marin as the country’s least affordable counties. Santa Cruz County is a close runner-up. Live Local Marin, the initiative aimed at helping more people live near their work, helped distribute the report. The Non-Profit Housing Association of Northern California and Greenbelt Alliance also are lead agencies in spreading the word about the consequences of unaffordable rental housing. In addition to the dim rental affordability picture in Marin and the Bay Area, the state is faring just as poorly, notes Live Local member Robert Hickey, who also is program manager for the Non-Profit Housing Association. Only one state, Hawaii, has a worse affordability index. The raw statistics are daunting. A Marin worker needs to earn $35.25 an hour, or more than $73,000 a year, to afford a local average rent of $1,833 for a typical two-bedroom unit. That’s nearly twice the national average and 126 percent of the typical Marin renter’s annual household income of $58,000. 10 > (The median household income in
›› NEWSGRAMS Bike bedlam in Fairfax Lock up those velocipedes, Ross Valley cyclists, a pair of bike bandits is on the loose! The Fairfax Police Department is reporting a rash of bicycle thefts in Fairfax this week. Three high-end bikes have been stolen, according to officials at the Marin County Bicycle Coalition, and a fourth theft was thwarted while the thieves were carrying out their nefarious Mongoose machinations. All three pilfered bikes were of the high-end variety, at $3,000 or more. According to police, the thefts all took place in high-visibility public locations: at the Good Earth, in front of the Hummingbird Cafe and from Fairfax Cyclery; the interrupted theft was across from Iron Springs Pub and Brewery.The bike stolen at the Hummingbird Cafe was locked with a cable lock and the thieves still were able to remove it. Witnesses gave police similar descriptions of the thieves: two Caucasian males, one bald. From all indications, say police officials, these are professionals who know bikes and are choosing the most expensive to steal, and have the knowledge and tools to remove a lock. To better protect against bike thieves, the Bicycle Coalition suggests all cyclists securely lock their bikes whenever they are unattended, even for just a few minutes. A U-lock is the most secure. Adds the MCBC:“And even if you’ve locked your bike, you should still try to keep an eye on it if you can.” Anyone with info on the Fairfax bike bandits, please call the Fairfax Police Department at 415/453-5330.—Jason Walsh Solomon reports Woolsey windfall The day after Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey announced that she will not run for re-election, representatives from Norman Solomon’s campaign for Congress said he received $11,579 in contributions from 133 individuals. “This is a reflection of the grassroots nature of our support,”Solomon said.“We can win because this campaign is growing from the ground up.”He said that nearly 300 people in the North Bay have already signed up as volunteers for the campaign. Previously he reported more than $100,000 has been donated to his campaign. Democrat Woolsey, 73, announced her retirement on Monday.Well known writer and progressive Solomon, 59, of Inverness Park, announced last April that he would seek her congressional seat if she decided to retire.—Julie Vader Lithium may help Parkinson’s, says Buck Institute“I’m so happy ‘cause today I found my friend,”sang Nirvana in their hit“Lithium.”Well, researchers at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging think they may have found a friend in the bipolar-treatment drug as well, after a two-year study showed encouraging results that lithium may slow brain deteriora- 10 >
8 PACIFIC SUN JULY 1 - JULY 7, 2011