San Diego city leaders and housing officials announced an $8.5 million Affordable Housing Preservation Fund aimed at helping keep existing rental homes affordable, saying preserving current housing is just as important as building new units. Housing officials said about 13,000 households in the c ity are at risk of being priced out of their rental homes. While San Diego already has an ordinance intended to help preserve affordable housing, officials said the new fund will provide the financial backing needed to make it more effective. The San Diego Housing Commission, Council President Pro Tem Kent Lee, and City Councilmembers Sean Elo-Rivera and Vivian Moreno said building affordable housing alone is not enough to meet the city’s growing need. “We’ve heard from many residents who are doing everything right, paying their rent and yet still fear their entire lives will be upended when they hear their landlord is planning on evicting them and their neighbors, displacing them from San Diego or even leading to homelessness,” Elo-Rivera said. Moreno helped pass a preservation ordinance several years ago that gives the city the right of first offer and refusal when affordable housing units are put on the market before they can be sold to private investors. Officials said the new preservation fund would give that ordinance the resources needed to act when properties become available. “We are creating the fund so that the 8 million dollars can go into this fund so that when affordable units come to the market, guess what? First they have to go to the San Diego Housing Commission. Do you want it, San Diego?” Moreno said. A recent study identified thousands of affordable housing units whose rent covenants and deed restrictions could expire over the next few decades, potentially causing those homes to lose their affordable rental rates. “When we’re hearing from community members or owners that are struggling to keep their units up, struggling to keep them affordable, they can come forward to us,” Lisa Jones said. Officials said the goal is to preserve affordable housing before it is lost so residents are not displaced. The $8.5 million for the Affordable Housing Preservation Fund will come from neighborhood enhancement fees already collected from developers and earmarked for housing preservation. This story was originally reported for broadcast by NBC San Diego. AI tools helped convert the story to a digital article, and an NBC San Diego journalist edited the article for publication. ...read more read less