Everybody agrees there's a huge need for affordable housing in this county. Compounding the lack of affordable housing in the county is a projected boom in population and jobs. Sonoma County is expected to gain 116,000 residents by the year 2020, with Santa Rosa named as the third-fastest growing city in the Bay Area, according to an ABAG study released in December. In addition, the study projected more than 95,000 new jobs for the county in the next 20 years. Everybody looks at the IPOs and the high-salary jobs, but a lot of working folks don't make that kind of money.
Somebody sweeps up, somebody takes care of the landscape, somebody does word processing.
Those are not high-paying jobs. The situation is especially noticeable in Petaluma, where a 24 percent growth in telecommunications jobs in five years has attracted thousands of new employees to the already more expensive southern end of the county. Housing prices are up 15 percent, and apartments are tough to find, which in turn drives rents up. When they arrive, they are still just shocked at the small number of properties available and at the rents. The only newcomers who think Sonoma County is cheap are Silicon Valley refugees.