Valley Forum: Housing situation in critical condition

For many important reasons, I support creation of additional affordable housing in Sonoma Valley.

Clearly, housing cost and availability are among the most important challenges that we face as a community. In doing research for the Sonoma Valley Fund’s “Hidden in Plain Sight” report on local charitable giving, it became clear that this issue is not only terribly important for our community, but also one for which our current efforts and investments are unprepared to address. We need to do more, together as an entire community, to rectify this untenable situation.

For Sonoma Valley Hospital, historically approximately half of the staff has been drawn from Sonoma Valley. While that ratio is pretty typical for a hospital like ours, the extraordinary costs of housing in the Valley and county make it harder to recruit and retain highly trained and talented employees. I imagine that this is true for most, if not all businesses operating in our community.

Maybe even more importantly, I am convinced that safe and affordable housing constitutes one of the key factors that determine the overall health of a community like ours. Housing insecurity currently impacts many residents’ feelings of well-being, their ability to recover from illness and their opportunity simply to sustain healthy, productive lives. Due to lack of affordable housing, many of those who are ill in our community are more likely to have increased stress and face more impediments to recovery. This is a serious problem that needs to be addressed quickly.

I appreciate that Sustainable Sonoma has taken on this critical issue. The group’s Housing Declaration is an important statement of our goals and commitments. I particularly value the pro-housing voice that is being supported.

Bottom line is that I support efforts by Sustainable Sonoma and others to bring more affordable housing to our community, sooner rather than later. Fundamentally, with more access to affordable housing our community will be inherently healthier, happier and safer.

This is the first in a short series of Valley Forum op-eds from various community leaders addressing the Sonoma Valley housing situation. Joshua Rymer is the current chair of the Sonoma Valley Healthcare District board.