JFS Ponders Building Affordable Housing in the County

By Donald H. Harrison

SAN DIEGO – Jewish Family Service is giving serious consideration to forming a partnership with a developer to build between 100 and 200 affordable housing units, according to Deborah Bucksbaum, the new board chair of the social service agency.

It’s premature to provide many details because a developer has to be picked, and financing has to be worked out, but there is unanimity on the JFS board of directors to go forward with the project if it is feasible, Bucksbaum said.

Prior to succeeding Emily Jennewein as board chair on July 1, Bucksbaum served as the chair of the social service agency’s committee on affordable housing that includes fellow board members, JFS CEO Michael Hopkins, COO Dana Toppel, and some community members. She said she will continue to chair that committee even as she takes on the added responsibilities of leadership on the JFS board.

Bucksbaum said several developers have been identified as possible partners, and the thinking is that a building with up to 200 single family and multi-family units could be financed utilizing private donations and housing funds from federal, state, county, and city sources.

The location of the possible project has not been decided, she said.  If it is successful, JFS might contract for additional buildings. She said the agency will consider locations throughout the county.

By “affordable housing,” she said what is meant is housing that can be afforded both by people with “very low incomes,” specifically 50 percent of the annual Area Median Income (AMI), and those with “low incomes” of 80 percent of AMI.

As of May 15, 2023, the median income in San Diego County was $81,750 for a single adult, $93,450 for a couple, $105,100 for three persons, and $116,800 for a family of four. Bucksbaum said consideration also would be given to providing housing for people earning between 80 percent and 120 percent of AMI because “those are the people who keep San Diego running.”

“There are so many people who can’t afford housing who have jobs,” Bucksbaum said. “It is not an issue of people not working.  It is an issue of housing simply being too expensive and people not making wages that are high enough to cover their basic living expenses.”

A single person in the “very low income” category earns approximately $40,875 annually. “Today,” said Bucksbaum, “the average rent for a one bedroom is around $2,500 a month” or $30,000 a year, leaving just $10,875 for all other expenses, including food, medical insurance, and transportation. For those better off, but still in the “low income” category, a single person would need to make do, after paying rent, on $4,312.50 per month for all other expenses.

Among JFS board members, the idea of creating affordable housing, was “almost a moral imperative,” Bucksbaum reported.

Bucksbaum, an attorney, said she was first attracted to JFS when her son, Miller Saltzman, then a student at San Diego Jewish Academy, participated with other students in the Hand-Up Food Pantry, under which students stocked food and distributed them to people who were hungry. She said she was so impressed with the way Hand-Up was run that she wanted to become more involved with the social service agency.

Meg Goldstein, then a development officer at San Diego Jewish Academy who was serving on the JFS board, knew that Bucksbaum as a young woman just out of college had worked on Capitol Hill and also for a Washington D.C. lobbying firm. She recruited Bucksbaum to serve with her on JFS’s Advocacy Committee, which examined and took positions on pending legislation at various levels of government. When Goldstein subsequently was elevated to JFS Board Chair, she persuaded Bucksbaum to chair the Advocacy Committee.

Bucksbaum shared with me a bit of her biography.

In Washington D.C., she had interned while still an undergraduate at UC Santa Barbara with U.S. Rep. George Miller, D-California, and following her graduation cum laude in 1976 she returned to Washington D.C. to handle constituent concerns for Rep. Lee Aspin, D- Wisconsin. Aspin years later would serve as Defense Secretary in President Bill Clinton’s administration. Following her stint with the congressman, she worked for a lobbying firm before enrolling at Georgetown University, where she earned her law degree.

She returned to Los Angeles County where she had been born and raised, working at one point for the large Proskauer law firm, based in Century City. After becoming a mother, she decided she needed more flexibility in her work schedule and with another lawyer who left the Proskauer firm decided to partner in what she said became the first woman-run business litigation firm in California, Bucksbaum and Sasaki.

“The intent was to be able to create a professional life that would allow me to have a family like I have, and number two, to make a statement that women could own a business litigation firm and be successful at it because there weren’t any women doing that at the time.”

By the time her son was three years old, Bucksbaum decided to leave the firm and instead do freelance legal work, so she could focus on being a mother. “Every woman is different, and every woman has her own way of finding that (home and career) balance,” she commented. While working at home, she and her former husband, a writer, also published gift books. Later, as an independent attorney, she associated with a former colleague in a law practice that she has maintained since 2006.  It focused on representing insurance policy holders.  Approximately the same time that she associated with the other attorney, she and her then-husband moved to San Diego – not a problem because most work was done remotely.

Bucksbaum was elevated to the JFS board in 2014 and became interested in the agency’s work with the homeless. “Our safe parking program [serves] people who are sleeping in their cars.  It’s in five different locations throughout San Diego County, and we are getting ready to open a sixth location,” she said.

The five lots already in operation have a total of 258 parking spaces, and a sixth lot in Chula Vista will add 25 spaces, for a total of 283 spaces, she commented.

“All of our facilities have port-a-potties and places to clean up a little bit and wash,” Bucksbaum said. “Some of them have showers and we are trying to increase what we have at the locations that will make it easier for people to continue living in their cars until they can find places where they can have their needs met. We also provide meals, at least dinner, at several locations.”

In neighboring Riverside County, JFS has a partnership with the county government to provide services to people living in county-secured, permanent supportive housing units, “which are generally scattered rather than one big building,” she said. “Permanent supportive housing is for people who are either homeless or at risk of being homeless.”

Here in San Diego County, JFS has “a number of financial assistance programs,” she said.  “We can help people to pay rent.  People need financial assistance when all their needs in life get to be more expensive than they can handle. When they have to end up choosing between food or rent, it is a pretty dire situation. So, by having financial assistance programs, we are able to help them meet some of those needs and hopefully be able to continue paying rent, so they don’t lose their housing.”

Bucksbaum said JFS also does “home maintenance and repair, particularly for older adults and people who need someone to come in and provide them some kind of in-home support. We have the JFS Fix-It program where we do safety checks and minor safety repairs to improve the situation at home so that if older adults have mobility issues, they can continue living at home. So, that is another housing related program that we can provide.”

“But,” she said, “we want to do more,” and thus the focus has been on building affordable housing.

Bucksbaum said that she became so interested in housing issues while serving on the JFS board that she decided to include affordable housing in her law practice. One of her clients is the Chelsea Investment Corporation, which has been in the news lately as an affordable housing provider in the Midway Rising Project at the Sports Arena site and in a separate Mission Valley project for San Diego State University.

As for her own housing, Bucksbaum had lived in the Kensington neighborhood, but since the pandemic she and her fiancé Lee Maio have resided in the Del Cerro neighborhood. The couple is planning a wedding in November.

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Donald H. Harrison is editor emeritus of San Diego Jewish World.  He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com