Sacramento steps up production of affordable housing tenfold. See where it's being built.

Rending of the Wong Center, 150 units of affordable housing for seniors being built in The Railyard north of downtown Sacramento.

Sacramento (July 7, 2022) Within the next month, a total of 644 units of affordable housing will be under construction in Sacramento in neighborhoods all over the city. The robust number reflects ongoing work by the City Council and City housing staff to facilitate desperately needed units by waiving fees, speeding permitting and setting aside more budget funding in the City’s Housing Trust Fund.

Click on the button to see where affordable housing construction is happening across the City:

The City has produced more than 2,000 units of low and moderately priced housing in each of the past two years, a dramatic increase from 481 units a year in 2019.

Even more stark is the increase in units affordable to very low and low-income residents of Sacramento. According to a progress report recently presented to City Council, a total of 2,482 such units received building permits in 2021 and 2020, a more than ten-fold increase from the 216 permits issued in 2018 and 2019.

Experts attribute the rise in homelessness in Sacramento and throughout California in significant part to a corresponding rise in rents. The Sacramento Business Journal reported this week that the average rent in the Sacramento market rose to $1,955 in the second quarter, a 13 percent increase from the second quarter of 2021 and a 32 percent jump from 2019. An influx of households with higher incomes from the Bay Area has put pressure on the local housing market. Median household income in the Sacramento region rose by 12 percent in the past year, far outpacing the historical average.

Under the leadership of Mayor Darrell Steinberg, the City has created more than 1,100 beds, hotel rooms and safe spaces to provide emergency, short-term shelter for people experiencing homelessness. But the mayor and his colleagues on the City Council remain intensely focused on building more affordable units as one of the most important solutions to stemming the flow of people onto the streets.

Last week the mayor joined other city leaders to help break ground on the Wong Center, a senior housing development in The Railyard north of downtown. Lavender Courtyard, the city’s first affordable housing complex focused on serving LGBTQ seniors, opened in May at 16th and F streets in midtown.