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Dear Friends,
For our senior and disabled clients on fixed incomes, we provide a safe, secure, affordable and attractive home for as long they need it. For low income working households struggling to keep a roof over their family’s head and move forward economically, we provide them with decent, affordable housing AND a path to self- |
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sufficiency and private market housing. Our work values the human spirit, builds on basic American values, helps our neighbors, seeks to end homelessness and improves our community’s public and social health. It is an approach that makes us more than just “HOUSING”.
 Customer Service is at our core. We care about those with whom we interact, including neighboring property owners, the City Council, the Santa Barbara community, federal and state governments, and the tax paying public to name but a few. They are all Housing Authority customers. This makes us successful and, again, more than just “HOUSING”.
For 2009 and forward, we will continue to dedicate ourselves to being more than just housing. We shall work to match the programs we operate and the projects we build to the identified needs of the community. Our past successes such as Garden Court for frail low income seniors, Casa de Las Fuentes for downtown workers, and El Carrillo that successfully houses and reengages the chronically homeless, help guide our future endeavors. And our future is bright. It holds the  opening of the Garden Street Apartments where we are assisting the Mental Health Association of Santa Barbara (MHA) with their project’s financing and construction and will serve as their property manager. The project provides MHA needed office space, a fellowship hall along with 51 new apartments for their clients and low income, downtown workers. Our future endeavors include Artisan Court, a 55 unit rental development on East Cota Street that is well into the development approval stage and a recent property acquisition at 512 Bath Street where we have selected an architect to help us design a new 50 to 60 unit apartment complex.
 But with new real estate development, comes challenge. In the past year, we have all witnessed painful and costly adjustments to the local, state, and national housing markets. A sustained housing boom turned into a severe bust. Many people lost their home to foreclosure and the associated flood of sub-prime mortgages has severely slowed world-wide economic growth. This turbulence, while disturbing, underscores the importance of our core mission – the provision of high quality and affordable rental housing to people in need.
 For the Housing Authority Commission and Staff, the words “community”, “family”, “opportunity”, “success”, “hope”, “change” are not simply idealistic catchphrases. We embrace their meaning and make sure they are integrated with our core values of competence, cooperation, commitment, communication and compassion. They are our “5-C’s”. These words define what we feel are necessary values for the operation of an organization such as ours…and where excellence in customer service to the community and the client is the foundation.
 For our clients, the opportunity to have a safe, secure and affordable home is the needed foundation for pursuing life’s other activities that bring success and happiness. Things like education, career advancement, sending a child to college, or simply being healthy and warm with a safe place to call home. Without the foundation and security of a home, such goals are elusive and the path to self-sufficiency is difficult, if not impossible to find. The reality (let alone the idea) that there are homeless on our streets in a nation so great is one that the Housing Authority is determined to change.
 For those that have faced difficulty, improvement lies in the opportunity for a better life. At the Housing Authority, we believe in creating opportunities…opportunities that allow our clients to write a second story of their life if the first was difficult and lacked opportunity. To this end, we have launched a new non-profit to help us be more than just housing. It will secure funding and deliver needed services that foster success and self-sufficiency. The non-profit is named Second Story. Second Story will provide our clients coaching, education, hope, and inspiration—things that are key to success and independence. Through Second Story and our affordable housing developments, hope will no longer be an intangible for those struggling to survive day to day. Second Story will provide a path from trial and tribulation to opportunity and success.
 As we celebrate this eve of our 40 years of successful service to Santa Barbara, we say thank you to all of our partners. Our work and success would not be possible without you. The help and encouragement we continually receive from the City Council and their talented staff are essential building blocks in our solid foundation…and “can do” reputation.
As we head into 2009, watch for our “Second Story”. In closing, we offer our heartfelt thanks for your support and encouragement this past year and wish you and yours the best for 2009!
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