Through the Roof: Solano County’s Housing Crisis finds that in spite of Solano County’s booming housing growth, local families and workers are struggling with an affordable housing crisis.
Eighty percent of Solano County residents cannot afford the median-priced home. The report finds that the housing market in Solano County is unbalanced, producing many more expensive houses than are needed on the region’s outskirts, and not enough starter homes, apartment, townhomes, and condominiums within cities.
The report recommends that the county’s largest cities—Fairfield, Vacaville, and Vallejo—require all new residential developments to include housing that is affordable to people making less than the median income. When people like nurses, teachers, and retail workers can live in the communities they serve, it cuts down on traffic and air pollution, while easing pressure to develop the county’s working farms and natural areas.
Photo: Wayne Hsieh via Flickr