Where: St. Helena, UpValley, Napa County, California
Problem: Lack of housing affordable to low-income households.
Solution: RCAC staff assists Our Town St. Helena to become a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Mutual Self-Help Housing Program grantee; provides development expertise for farmworker housing projects.
There is a severe shortage of affordable housing in St. Helena and the Napa Valley as a whole. The average price for a modest home is $950,000, which prices many out of the market, especially farmworkers. Due to the high cost of real estate there is a three-to-one jobs-housing imbalance in the town. Highway 29 is packed with vehicles daily as commuters and tourists head into and out of town. The commuters—mostly Latinos—commute 60-70 miles from Napa and Lake County where they live in substandard apartments, often sharing units with other families to afford the rent.
Our Town St. Helena (OTSH) was formed in the early 2000s as an advocacy group to promote affordable housing in the community. When the organization decided to become an affordable housing developer it requested RCAC’s help. RCAC staff prepared OTSH to become a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Mutual Self-Help Housing Program grantee and the organization received its first 523 self-help grant for $450,000 in 2015. The first group of eight self-help participants will begin construction this summer. RCAC helped negotiate the site’s $1 purchase price from the City of St. Helena.
The self-help program participants will construct their own and their neighbors’ homes, working 35 hours per week for almost a year in exchange for an affordable mortgage.
USDA’s Section 523 Mutual Self-Help program provides the necessary funding to support this work and the USDA Section 502 direct loan program provides the affordable mortgages to complement the participant’s sweat equity.
OTSH is working to secure land donations from local vintners to develop 24 rental housing units for farmworkers and their families. RCAC wrote a grant application to a local donor to help secure site control for the farmworker development.
RCAC also helped to prepare a grant application to the Gasser Foundation for a $70,000 capacity building grant, attends most OTSH board meetings and meets regularly with the organization’s staff to assist them during this critical early period as an affordable housing developer.
