She fights for affordable housing in the Inland Empire. Now she’s fighting to keep a roof over her head.

Every two weeks, Laurel Lamont walks one block from her Temecula apartment to City Hall to make the case for a new model of low-income housing.

She and her organization Upward Community are calling on the city to create a community land trust, a nonprofit that buys land and then rents or sells homes to low- and moderate-income residents.

But first Lamont has a more pressing problem; she is fighting her own eviction from an affordable apartment after her earnings exceeded the threshold for subsidized housing.

Lamont’s vision—and her own dilemma—shows how the statewide housing crisis has put homeownership and even rent out of reach for many working people.

“All along, we’ve always had the lower-earning workforce that keeps your community going — your grocers, your baristas, your janitors and your cooks,” said Lamont, who works at Trader Joe’s. “This is a full-time job and we deserve to live in the community we serve.”

Home prices in California are among the highest highest in the country. More than half of the tenants spend more than 30% of their income on leasing, the Public Policy Institute of California reported.

California Homes Sold in September for average price US$868,150According to the California Association of Realtors.

Even in Riverside County, long considered a haven for affordable housing, the median price was $625,000 last month. This will require annual income about $160,000 — or $77 an hour — with a 10% down payment to buy such a home in Temecula, according to Wells Fargo’s mortgage calculator.

Missing Middle

For years, Lamont has fought for better options for what she calls the “missing middle,” often called workforce housing.

“There are no starter homes here,” said Lamont, a single mother. “There is no door for people who earn less or are single.”

Community land trusts offer this path to homeownership, she argues.

Under this model, a nonprofit organization buys land and builds homes for rent or sale at stable monthly rates. In the for-sale version, residents can buy a home but not the land, which is limited to low- or moderate-income housing for up to 99 years. If they leave, residents may have limited equity in their next home.

Lamont formed her organization, Upward Community, in 2020 with Melissa Bourbonnais, a political science professor, and Aaron Cook, a civil engineer. They are trying to raise the money needed to create a 501C3 nonprofit that will allow it to receive grants for the community land trust, Lamont said.

The organization is pushing for the city to join. Lamont, with her blonde pixie cut and quick smile, looks disarming but admits that she and her fellow activists can be “edgy” in political dialogue.

“We go to every council meeting and we don’t approach it cautiously,” she said. “Every Tuesday we just go there and listen to them.”

She has had success with some council members. Mayor Pro Tem Brenden Kalfus said he believes a community land trust could be beneficial in Temecula.

“I don’t think it’s That solution to the housing crisis, but it helps move in the right direction,” he said. “I think a community land trust gives the community local control.”

According to Kalfus, various city-owned sites could be used for this purpose. He leans toward townhouses or small single-family homes with limited equity compared to condos or apartments.

“I think this will best serve the workers of Temecula,” Kalfus said. “When you’re looking to sell a house, you can’t make more than a certain amount, so the price remains reasonable.”

Big houses of Temecula

The city is working with legal counsel and a consultant to review the community land trust model, Matt Peters, director of community development, said in an email to CalMatters. The city will also need a nonprofit to administer the trust, a partnership with a developer and financial resources to achieve this goal, he added.

Councilman Zach Schwank said “all options are on the table” to expand housing in Temecula. But he said the city is already working with Habitat for Humanityand he believes it is an effective way to build homes for the poor. Habitat homeowners work with volunteers to help build their own homes and pay off affordable mortgages.

Schwank is concerned that the community land trust will require the city administration to create a new bureaucracy.

“We would need a completely different structure with oversight and partners, so I wonder if it would be cleaner to continue investing in Habitat homes and things like that,” he said.

Temecula is known for its large suburban homes, but Schwank said city officials have been trying to convince developers to downsize the housing developments and build entry-level homes.

“We’ve tried to get more creative with developers to encourage them to build missing middle or homes on smaller lots,” he said. “We haven’t been very successful at it.”

To encourage housing development, the city has changed the zoning of some areas, Schwank said. For example, he changed his specific plan for an area called Uptown Temecula to include 3,700 more housing units and streamlined the approval process to make it easier to build new homes there.

The city’s zoning map is above her bed.

Meanwhile, Lamont’s own housing situation took on new urgency. In July, she received an eviction notice after her salary rose to $52,000, exceeding the program’s $49,000 annual available limit for a two-person family. She was extended until October, but now she needs to move. She said she faces a rent increase from the current $935 she pays a month to more than double that rate.

Lamont’s apartment at the Creekside Warehouse is small but well organized. Her 19-year-old son, Christopher, uses a bunk bed in the single bedroom, while Lamont sleeps in the living room on a bed raised for storage underneath. There’s no pantry here, so the bookshelf holds packages of Trader Joe’s baking mix, olives, and chicken broth.

A Temecula zoning map hangs above Lamont’s bed, and the shelves next to it are lined with books on city planning.

“My unhealthy habit is reading government documents and learning about housing,” she said.

Christopher said his family’s precarious situation seemed normal when he was a child, but he later realized housing was an issue. For his high school project, he presented a design for a pedestrian-friendly neighborhood in Temecula. He is currently attending Mount San Jacinto Community College with the goal of becoming a civil engineer.

“I’m just beginning to realize that there is no salvation for me unless I make it on my own,” he said.

Broken system

City officials say they are aware of Lamont’s situation and are exploring ways to adjust the income criteria for her building. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development defines low-income renters as people earning less than 80% of the area median income. In the Inland Empire, that works out to $65,600 a year for a two-person family, significantly more than Lamont earns.

But income criteria may vary depending on the project. The Creekside warehouse limits renters to 60% of the average square footage of studio apartments, putting Lamont just above the threshold. City officials said they are working with the developer to revise that restriction.

That won’t change over time to save Lamont’s lease. She found a two-room apartment that will open in a few months. This will allow her and her son to have their own place, but her rent will double. She agreed that she would temporarily stay in another apartment in her current home.

Even with a potential solution, she laments that affordable housing formulas create a trap in which renters are penalized for improving their financial situation. According to her, this is what causes the affordable housing system to be “broken.”

“You’re constantly racing; there is no hope of saving money,” she said.