Guest Opinion | Rick Cole: Let’s Put the American Dream Back into Reach for Pasadena Families

Around the corner from where I live is a vaguely Spanish bungalow with a “FOR SALE” sign in the front yard.  It’s a tiny two-bedroom, one-bath home, just 792 square feet, located on a tiny lot under 3000 square feet.  It’s listed for $789,000.  Here’s the truly astounding part – even at that price, the property is a relative bargain in a city where it is tough to find a home selling for under a million dollars.  In fact, according to real estate app Trulia, the price is 45% less per square foot than the average for homes in the neighborhood.

The same home sold for $505,000 six years ago.  Two years later, it sold for $604,000.  Two years later it sold for $705,000.  

This astronomical 56% appreciation in six years is good news for long-time homeowners.  It is a disaster for young people looking to buy a starter home.

For generations, the California version of the American Dream was based on home ownership.  Today the median household income in Pasadena is just over $80,000, less than half of what would qualify to buy this tiny home – if you had saved the $150,000 down payment. Let that sink in.  To even think about qualifying to buy a little house on a little lot in a middle-class Pasadena neighborhood requires a household income that’s twice the current median income of all Pasadena households.

This cruel reality is especially dire for families whose parents and grandparents were denied the opportunity for wealth-building home ownership by racist segregation and discrimination.  Even those who’ve earned college and advanced degrees struggle with mountains of student debt unknown to previous generations.  California’s property tax system remains rigged in favor of older, primarily white homeowners who bought their homes decades ago.  

If the obstacles weren’t already high enough, middle-class incomes have stagnated and middle-class jobs have shrunk.  All this poses a direct threat to Pasadena’s self-image as an inclusive community that believes in equal opportunity.  In just the past decade, Pasadena has gone from a city where a majority of residents were homeowners to a population where 58% are at the mercy of rising rents.

There are no simple answers.  America is increasingly divided into haves and have nots – and the Los Angeles region has the highest cost of housing in the nation when comparing prices to incomes.  Pasadena can’t solve this problem on its own.  

Neither, however, can Pasadena ignore the problem and hope solutions will be handed down from Washington or Sacramento.  This year, Pasadena must revise the Housing Element of its General Plan.  While in the past that’s largely been a technical exercise to satisfy the requirements of Sacramento bureaucrats, this year must be different.  The affordability crisis is stunting our economic future, fueling the rise of homelessness, exacerbating racial and social inequities and foreclosing the American Dream for the next generation of Pasadena families.

There is much that can be done.  Pasadena can reform its byzantine zoning rules that make it difficult and expensive to build new and more affordable housing.  That includes making it easier to build “accessory dwelling units” like the ones that have long provided backyard and over the garage housing opportunities in my neighborhood.  Pasadena can promote innovative financing approaches like those used by Pasadena Heritage Partners and Habitat for Humanity to provide home ownership for working families.  Pasadena can curb real estate speculation and generate funds to build affordable housing with a higher transfer tax on the sale of expensive residential and commercial properties as Culver City voters just passed in November.  

These and many more common sense policies and programs are within reach.  They won’t solve overnight the problem of displacement of long-term residents that has steadily reduced Pasadena’s African-American population.  They won’t immediately end the overcrowding of poor families in garages.  They won’t instantly eliminate chronic homelessness.  But they will help – and the time is now to tackle these growing threats to our common good — before they get worse.

If you own a home, it’s perhaps easy to be complacent, watching sales prices ratchet up.  If you don’t own a home, it’s perhaps tempting to be cynical, giving up hope that City Hall can help.  But complacency and cynicism are the enemies of the American Dream.  This year, Pasadena can come together as a community to improve the lives of our neighbors – and the next generation.  We can work on a comprehensive plan to bring safe and affordable housing back within reach of all Pasadena households – and rebuild a path to home ownership and the middle class for young working families.

Three Pasadena organizations have come together with that goal: Pasadenans Organized for Progress, Making Housing and Community Happen and the Pasadena chapter of Abundant Housing LA Called the Pasadena Affordable Housing Coalition, we are pledged to work with City government and the entire community to forge a Housing Element that not only complies with State law, but works for Pasadena.  .  Last week we sponsored a webinar on the Housing Element and welcome the opportunity to make the same presentation to our church, school or neighborhood group via Zoom. Join us – and together let’s re-open the doors to opportunity in Pasadena! 

Rick Cole is a former Mayor of Pasadena