Photograph by Braelyn Wekwerth
Located just Northeast of the Ashby Bart station in downtown Berkeley, Harper Crossing is a new housing development available to low-income senior citizens.
The development is part of an effort to create more affordable housing in Berkeley. The City of Berkeley partnered with Satellite Affordable Housing Associates (SAHA), an organization that works to provide affordable housing across the Bay Area.
The building includes 42 one-bedroom units for low income seniors.
“Harper Crossing is an affordable housing development that is intended to support seniors in our area who are unable to pay market-rate rent, and would otherwise find their housing compromised as they age, as well as providing new housing for seniors who are homeless to live in,” said Lauren Chester, a service coordinator for SAHA. “We provide comfortable, accessible housing for seniors so that they can continue to live in with a high quality of life as they age.”
The National Low Income Housing Coalition reported that Alameda County is in the top five most expensive metropolitan counties to rent in the nation, making the housing crisis in cities like Berkeley a top concern for policy makers.
Many seniors struggle to support themselves after they retire.
Chester said that most residents she has worked with receive $500-$1200 a month from social security, an amount intended to cover housing, food, medical costs, transportation, and more. In Berkeley, where the average cost of a one-bedroom apartment is $2,200, this is incredibly difficult.
“Many of these individuals worked in positions that were paid modestly but didn’t offer great benefits or much in the way of retirement,” said Chester. “We house a lot of schoolteachers, artists, former social workers, athletes, college professors, transit operators, mechanics, and others who have worked very hard throughout their lives.”
This project developed through close collaboration between the City of Berkeley and SAHA. “The site on which the development was built was previously owned by the City of Berkeley, and in order to ensure the project was financially feasible, the City supported property acquisition by providing a land donation valued at $1,969,460,” said SAHA project manager Katie Fisher. The city also provided a $2.1 million loan to support construction costs.
Fisher said that the response to the development has been generally positive.
“SAHA is helping create more housing that is built and maintained around an understanding of what people are actually going through, rather than letting the housing market dictate who does and doesn’t have access to housing,” said Chester.