Eureka disagrees with the amount of low-income housing the county expects it to build in the coming years. City officials say it’s more than Eureka needs and should be more evenly distributed across the region.
The process for calculating these numbers is complex. First, the state determines how many housing units are needed regionally, based on the number of homeless people, vacancy rates and the percentage of people spending more than 30% of their income on housing. For the Regional Housing Needs Allocation for 2027-2035, Humboldt County was assigned to build nearly 6,000 units.
The Humboldt County Association of Governments then breaks that down by jurisdiction, including the number of units required by income category, ranging from acutely low income to above moderate income.
Eureka was assigned over 1,700 units based on its share of regional housing and jobs.
But the city has a problem with the methodology for income category distribution. On Tuesday, the City Council decided to appeal the process.
To calculate income level distribution, the association used both opportunity score and vehicle miles traveled. Opportunity score rewards factors such as higher resident education levels, higher incomes, and higher property values, which Eureka ranked relatively low on. Vehicle miles traveled, which was more heavily weighted, measures how far residents travel to work, which Eureka also scored low on.
This resulted in the city being assigned more low-income housing and less moderate-income housing.
For instance, almost 34% of Eureka's households are very low-income, but the process allocated the city almost 37% of very low-income households.
The overall effect is small: 48 units would be built at the low-income level rather than the moderate-income level, out of more than 1,700.
Still, the city is "worried that this methodology and practice reinforces existing concentrations of lower-income housing," Development Services Director Cristin Kenyon said Tuesday.
Councilor Renee Contreras-DeLoach is concerned about concentrating low-income housing in Eureka and wants a mix of income levels.
"When you're poor, you still have a right to live in Rio Dell or Fortuna or Trinidad," she said. "Obviously, we're the bigger city, so there's going to be a lot of jobs here. I don't think people should assume that that means that people want to live in Eureka, nor does it mean that they should have to."
Kenyon said in some ways, she has a hard time pushing back on the methodology.
"We're a pro-housing city. We are building a lot of deed-restricted affordable housing on city-owned lots right now," she said in an interview. "It feels really awkward to be appealing a methodology that gives us affordable housing because we want affordable housing."
But at the same time, she’s concerned about regional income parity. She'd prefer that poverty not be concentrated in one place and wants Eureka to have a healthy mix of different income levels.
The city has already submitted a comment letter to the state. Now, the formal appeal must be filed by Jan. 19.
That will slow the RHNA process by up to three months, including a public hearing and written determination.
Nevertheless, Contreras-DeLoach said this is an important philosophical discussion.
"We know that the healthiest communities are mixed communities, that really has this elevating effect on everybody," she said. "Even if we lose these fights, I think it's worth it for us to put that forward."
