REBUILDING TOGETHER PENINSULA

The Safe at Home Minor Home Repair Program helps seniors, families, and people with disabilities live more independently by addressing minor repair needs before they become serious safety or deferred maintenance issues. We welcome volunteers year-round with handy skills who want to serve the community. We tackle repairs such as debris removal, fence repair, basic home maintenance, exterior painting, light yard work, minor plumbing, minor electrical, heating repair, roof repair, window repair/replacement, door repair/replacement, energy efficiency measures, and some accessibility modifications.

Team Build provides year-round opportunities for volunteers to participate in sponsored team-building experiences for rehabilitation projects. Team Build Days are perfect for companies that cannot provide volunteers in April. They are also great opportunities for summer associates and interns. Team Build events are scheduled to meet the needs of the sponsoring group. The day lasts at least six hours and can be held on a weekday or weekend from June through October. Team Build renovation projects are similar to those that take place on National Rebuilding Day. Every project is unique with its own history, need, scope of work, and volunteer team. We provide teams for everything from yard cleanup and painting to skilled repairs of plumbing, windows, electrical systems, and flooring.

Rebuilding Together Peninsula’s vision is to strengthen the quality and expand the breadth of services provided. To ensure Rebuilding Together Peninsula is well-positioned for growing its programs, the organization has accepted the Healthy Housing Challenge set forth by the National Center for Healthy Housing. The Healthy Housing Challenge is guided by seven principles: a healthy home should be dry, clean, pest-free, contaminant-free, safe, ventilated, and well-maintained. These principles, endorsed by the Surgeon General, are put into action by the Healthy Housing Challenge, making health and safety repairs more accessible, actionable, and affordable. The Healthy Housing Challenge helps Rebuilding Together Peninsula staff and volunteers identify major hazards and improve the quality of work done in the 200-plus projects the organization completes each year.

Everyone deserves a fair chance to lead a healthy and financially secure life. No one should be denied this chance because of whom they are or the socio-economic opportunities they have been allowed. In 2016, a startling crisis was identified in East Palo Alto when 65 unpermitted Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) were red-tagged by the City of East Palo Alto and occupants were evicted and displaced without clear options for where they would go or how the homeowners could quickly make the needed repairs to bring their units up to code for the occupants to return.

ADUs provide a critical source of affordable housing in low-income communities. Unfortunately, illegally constructed ADUs result in unsafe, unhealthy and unstable housing
options for some of the most vulnerable members of our community - renters or low-income family members who have no other affordable options available to them. Many of these housing units are converted garages or outbuildings that are not built to code and without the appropriate permits for occupancy. The homeowners building these ADUs are simply trying to supplement their income to help them make ends meet or they are trying to help family
members having difficulty finding affordable housing in the area.

Since early 2017, Rebuilding Together Peninsula (RTP) has been working with the City of East Palo Alto and Faith in Action to help remedy the ADU crisis that is currently plaguing the city and its residents. Together we are working to legalize four garage conversions in East Palo Alto so that the original tenants are able to return to their homes and community. RTP’s main objectives are to 1) Provide an educational process, tools, and resources to help homeowners make more informed decisions about ADU options on their property, including legalizing or
rebuilding an existing unit, or newly construct an ADU 2) Give homeowners in East Palo Alto access to the necessary financial resources and information to build or legalize ADUs safely on their properties.

The astronomical cost of housing and low housing supply in San Mateo County has caused an affordability crisis for low-income residents in the area. This initiative will help create a critical inventory of affordable housing in a low-income community working diligently to save local residents from displacement. Working with homeowners interested in the legalization or creation of ADUs on their property is much more feasible than creating new housing developments, which are often met with resistance from local residents and inevitably take years to get approval on the local government level. In an area where affordable housing is needed now, it is more practical to allow ADUs to be considered as an option of housing in San Mateo County and would be beneficial in an area with very little space for building new housing.

Cities across San Mateo County are revisiting second unit ordinances or creating new ones as a strategy to responding to the housing crisis in San Mateo County. East Palo Alto sits on the frontline of this issue, and if done well, can serve as a model for other cities across the region. Creating a comprehensive, robust program to legalize ADUs in the long term in East Palo Alto is also a unique opportunity to create a genuine public-private partnership between City, County, Residents, Higher Education and Philanthropy.

GOALS:
1. Low-income homeowners in East Palo Alto that have been red-tagged for illegal ADUs will have the necessary knowledge to make informed decisions on legalizing or rebuilding an existing ADU on their property.
2. Low-income homeowners in East Palo Alto will feel knowledgeable and empowered to build ADUs on their property providing more affordable housing opportunities for low-income residents.
3. Improved physical conditions for existing ADUs or new units being built in East Palo Alto.

PARTNERS & ROLES:

• Rebuilding Together Peninsula (RTP): Responsible for the construction of legalizing four garage conversions in East Palo Alto identified by city building officials and for the project management of each conversion. RTP will work with all partners involved to ensure all processes, tools and resources being created align with city building and fire codes. RTP will also participate in the 2nd Unit Implementation/Reducing Displacement Task Force.
Contact: Cari Pang Chen, Associate Director | [email protected]

• City of East Palo Alto: Will work with homeowners of the four garage conversions to streamline the process to legalize the illegal ADUs on their property, providing them the opportunity and appropriate time to correct the situation without further penalty. The city will also work with RTP in ensuring all conversions are built to current building and fire code.
Contact: Sean Charpentier, Assistant City Manager | [email protected]

• Faith in Action Bay Area: Will be acting as a community resource for the homeowners of the four garage conversions, providing them with translation services, community education and communication created by the City of East Palo Alto, as well as act as a “clearing house” for homeowners with illegal ADUs that want to come forward and go through the legalization process.
Contact: Lorena Malgarejo, Executive Director | [email protected]

• City Systems: Will be looking at affordable housing in East Palo Alto through an engineering lens and will work on an interactive web-based tool derived from the information and research learned through the four garage conversions. Also responsible for the management of Stanford University students in the Architectural Design program to create a modular design approach to building ADUs with smaller footprints that would be easier to locate and transport into backyards than larger units requiring a crane. Students in
the Sustainable Urban Systems program will look at ADUs and affordable housing using big data, including an application or interactive web tool to analyze ADU viability on a property.
Contact: Derek Ouyang, Founder | [email protected]

Funder Information
• Facebook has named Rebuilding Together Peninsula as one of its housing partners through the company’s Envision, Transform, Build Coalition initiative, donating $250,000
over two years to help with home rehabilitations in the communities of Belle Haven and East Palo Alto. This funding is meant to specifically address the illegal ADU issues in
both communities.
• Rebuilding Together Peninsula applied for the Get Healthy San Mateo County Grant in the amount of $100,000. All applicants will be notified in December.