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City council seeks to help employees find housing
Officials worried about losing quality, well-trained workers
By Daniel Hindin
The Sunnyvale City Council is considering options to help public employees--including city employees and public school employees--with their housing options.
With the median home price in Sunnyvale at $672,488 as of February 2001, the city is worried about retaining a crucial, but low-paid, portion of its community.
City Manager Bob LaSala says, "Six percent of the workforce is vacant in the city government. That's 60 jobs. That's a very high number. It's getting to be a real concern and recruitment work is becoming overwhelming."
City officials have become worried enough about losing quality education and public safety service that they've hired the consulting firm Government Financial Strategies, and formed an inter-departmental "housing team" that has been working on finding a feasible solution for the past few months.
The team has investigated many options to help these valued employees with their housing situations. Team members have met with all four school districts in Sunnyvale and conducted a thorough survey of city and school district employees.
"We wanted to get a real sense of the housing situation according to the employees," says Dan Rich, assistant to the city manager and project coordinator. "Everyone's still learning, but we've gathered some very valuable, very interesting data."
Only 39 percent of survey respondents anticipate continuing on with their current employer for more than five years. Of those who expect to stay three years or less, 40 percent cite inability to find and afford housing in a desirable location, as a reason for leaving and 30 percent cite insufficient salary.
Forty-nine percent of employees who are dissatisfied with their housing situation say owning a home would make them happier. Thirty-nine percent want to live in a nicer home or neighborhood, and 37 percent want to live closer to work.
Seventy-one percent of renters are interested in receiving reduced interest loans for home purchase, while only 45 percent want monthly mortgage assistance.
But Laurie Raineri, a principal of the consulting firm, says, "Monthly mortgage assistance is actually better than reduced interest loans. Maybe [the respondents] don't know the values of different programs. Maybe we need to help them understand how to become homeowners. Education is available; maybe we just need to make the connection."
Now that the city has all of the surveys in, city officials will decide what it all means, what sorts of programs they want to enact, to whom they should offer the programs and where the city will get all the money.
These are all questions that the city council and staff will grapple with in the coming months. Council members have ranked housing issues very high on their priority list and believe it's crucial to the future of the city.
Staff will now study the data available to them and produce a specific set of recommendations that will be presented before city council in June, at which time further action will be taken.
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Sunnyvale, California Since 1994
