When nostalgia confronts the real-estate market, there is no contest. As longtime residents of this area witness ever escalating housing prices, many bemoan the loss of a time when the price of housing was within nearly everyone’s reach. How, they wonder, can we find a way for the children we raise in this community to live here when they become adults?

As a result, there are efforts to enact legislation or public policies to address this problem and, as the affordability gap continues to grow, the sense of angst, helplessness and even panic increases for some.

The language surrounding the debate about housing has evolved from a discussion of "subsidization" to one of "affordability." Yet the concept of subsidization is still the most accurate standpoint from which to study potential solutions. After all, if a home is to be offered below market rate, it must be subsidized in some way.

There are three main ways to subsidize housing. The first is to seek out state and federal funding to offset construction costs in partnership with nonprofit builders. The second is for local communities to reduce or waive impact fees levied on home building. The third is to require builders of residential developments to offer a certain percentage of below-market-rate homes by allowing greater density.

But which of these options is feasible and likely to work? Funding from the federal and state governments continues to decrease. Most local governments are raising impact fees, not reducing them, as a result of the growing opinion that the actual costs of new housing should be shouldered by the developer, not the larger community. By process of elimination, many conclude that the problem can only be addressed by regulating what builders produce. This type of approach is called the inclusionary program. Santa Barbara County has had such a policy for many years. The city of Santa Barbara recently adopted its own and, no doubt, the city of Goleta will consider one in the future.

But despite this program’s growing popularity locally and statewide, there are those who remain highly skeptical. To understand why, look at the results of one of the first inclusionary housing programs created in the state.

The California Coastal Commission (CCC) became involved with affordable housing in 1976. Increasingly concerned that steps must be taken to provide housing opportunities for persons of low and moderate income, the program required that 25 to 35 percent of units in residential subdivisions be sold below market rate. The commission implemented this program on coastal developers in Orange County from 1976 to 1981. During that period, 766 affordable units were built.

In retrospect, building the units was the easy part. Finding an organization able to competently oversee the program proved much more difficult. This lack of administrative oversight had serious consequences, as it was later discovered that many "affordable" homes had been sold at market rates. At the same time, the Commission learned, a large number of the remaining units were being rented at market rates. The extent of the problem was so widespread that the Commission decided to spend nearly a quarter of a million dollars to do a thorough investigation and attempt to enforce the affordability controls on the units that remain in the program. Even so, it is anticipated that the last of the 766 units will revert to market rate during the next 10 years.

These types of violations are not limited to the California Coastal Commission’s program. They provide an example of the powerful pressure that the real estate market brings to bear on owners of affordable units. We can debate the impacts that the high cost of housing will have on the fabric of our community, but nostalgia for the past and good intentions for the future must be tempered by real-world conditions.

Tim Schmidt is president of Patterson Area Neighborhoods Association.