Editorial: Rents in Sonoma – what a world, what a world!!

There’s a scene in “The Wizard of Oz” which stands out as a near perfect allegory to the housing crisis in Sonoma.

It’s the one where the cyclone twirls Dorothy’s shotgun shack through the sky, tossing it firmly down, floorboards and all, in the Boyes Hot Springs-tinted incorporated city of Munchkinland, a built-out suburb of the Emerald City metro center. Like Sonoma, a state highway bisects the compact village (yellow, built of bricks) and the communal focus for the clearly civic minded residents revolves around a pond-centered plaza, where tourists are enthusiastically welcomed and various leagues and guilds offer lullabies and all-day suckers to visitors of all stripes.

It’s a perfectively safe and jolly place to reside (save for one witch from the eastside). But note: Dorothy, an impoverished migrant ag worker, briefly occupies the only affordable housing parcel in the city – and, by the looks of things, it’s clearly in violation of multiple Munchkinland zoning codes. In the end, she’s forced to seek out a trio of roomies, relocate to the more-affordable county seat, and is finally priced out of the region entirely. In Munchkinland, like Sonoma, it’s nearly impossible to find a decent crib without having to hock your ruby slippers.

And, in Sonoma, this is news to, well, just about nobody.

Take our recent sonomanews.com online poll, for instance, in which we asked readers whether they thought Sonoma was experiencing a “housing crisis.” A walloping 71.6 percent said, “Yes, we need more affordable housing.” That’s compared to 26.4 percent of respondents who were against any housing-price regulation. (And three smart alecks who asked if they could rent out their affordable housing to weekenders!)

That is, by several percentage points, the most lopsided of any online poll we’ve conducted this year – and with nearly 200 respondents, the margin of error isn’t big.

This kind of response isn’t entirely surprising – currently, local housing activists are campaigning for city and county leaders to take measures to curb the pricing-out of renters; the Sonoma City Council has named affordable housing among its highest priorities; and one major rent-control scuffle – mobile home owners vs. mobile home park owners – is already underway.

While there’s some relief in sight – the Fetters Apartments project in the Springs will begin accepting applications in March, say officials from its developer, MidPen Housing – it’s not enough. The county ended 2014 with a 97.2 apartment-occupancy rate (yikes!), and rents are up 30 percent since 2012, at a nearly $1,600 a month average. That’s a big chunk when county household incomes average at around $62,000 and change.

The nearly seven-years of recession-induced construction stagnation is still too far behind the rate of job growth – resulting in a nation of fully employed people whose housing fates are at the mercy of another sudden economic downturn. Homelessness is an issue – the 2015 Sonoma County Homeless Census and Survey reports 3,100 homeless in the county; 158 in Sonoma Valley (both stats are encouraging improvements) – but it’s not the only issue. A demographic housing officials are looking closely at more and more these days is of those who are “precariously housed” – just earning enough to make their rents, yet a stroke of bad luck away from homelessness. Whether that’s through a job loss, or a rent increase, the result is devastating. Sixty-seven percent of county homeless cite “affordable rent” as the primary obstacle to finding housing; Sonoma is a few rent increases away from that percentage topping 80.

Sonoma is no imaginary land of Oz; there is no bad dream from which rent-squeezed tenants can awaken.

Their Wicked Witch of the West doesn’t carry a broom; it’s delivered as a dictum from the landlord.

Looming ominously behind, the all-powerful specter of homelessness.

Still, the words reverberate: There’s no place like home… there’s no place like home…

Email Jason at jason.walsh@sonomanews.com.