"Then the dueche bags said, 'maybe we can eat their bodies too?'"

Rich Bay Area towns mull 'disturbing' scheme to dodge low-income housing

Affluent enclaves are openly weighing whether to use developmentally disabled adults as a low-income-housing loophole

Alex Shultz and Eric Ting

On Jan. 30, the affluent town of Hillsborough held a city council meeting to discuss its floundering housing element plan. The plan, which lays out how towns and neighborhoods will meet state-mandated housing targets within eight years, was supposed to be submitted to California’s Department of Housing and Community Development by Feb. 1.

It wasn’t. And it remains in limbo more than a week later. More troublingly, a Hillsborough resident proposed a loophole that’s been popping up in other affluent Bay Area towns trying to meet their housing requirements: build a segregated development specifically for developmentally disabled adults, thus preventing a potential influx of other unwanted “low-income” neighbors.

Hillsborough is required to zone for 554 units of additional housing by 2031, a portion of which must be “affordable” based on the area’s median income. As is the case with many ultra-wealthy neighborhoods, Hillsborough residents and local politicians have expressed skittishness at city council meetings about absorbing residents whose income levels are categorized as “very low” for the area. (In Hillsborough’s case, “very low” is considered $87,000 a year for a family of four.)

During the meeting about their lack of concrete housing plans, Hillsborough residents used the public comments section to run through a series of desperate plots and pleas intended to change as little as possible. One resident expressed solidarity with Atherton’s Steph Curry, who sent a letter to that town’s city council saying that he and his wife do not want multifamily housing built near their home. Another resident posited that perhaps Hillsborough could annex nearby land, thus reducing their housing requirements. 

Then a resident named Gib took the podium. He offered a rather specific plan: building housing for what he called “special needs” adults, whom the National Center on Disability and Journalism refers to as developmentally disabled adults, a group that includes “autism spectrum disorder, spina bifida, cerebral palsy and intellectual disabilities.”

“Very low- and low-income housing is going to freak out a lot of people in this community, because we all know what it brings with it, right?” Gib began. “But as the father of a special needs son … the very low- and low-income [housing units], a lot of those can be used up here by providing special needs housing for people here.”

Gib said he believes that unlike other people who might qualify for low-income housing, developmentally disabled people “don't commit crimes, they don't bring drugs, they don't bring trouble. They don't bring all the lunatic stuff that goes along with it.” They also can’t drive, Gib claimed, “so you don't have a whole bunch of extra cars and God knows what.”

“I'm urging everybody,” he continued, “take a step back, and say that maybe, we don't have nearly enough special needs housing. They don't cause any problems, they stay there forever. We're providing a safe place for them here in this town.”

After Gib concluded his remarks, Hillsborough Mayor Christine Krolik responded, “Thank you very much, that’s a great point.” (In an email to SFGATE, Krolik said she was simply “agreeing with the resident that housing for the developmentally disabled is also a need.”)

A day later, Woodside Town Councilmember Dick Brown — who set off a firestorm last year when he tried to block new housing by invoking the supposed endangerment of mountain lions —  made a similarly naked pitch that his city, too, should be considering housing for developmentally disabled adults as a means of staving off the possibility of unwanted neighbors and traffic. A Woodside resident spoke up at the same meeting to say that the folks in Portola Valley, a nearby wealthy enclave in San Mateo County, had already laid out a possible blueprint: a housing development for developmentally disabled adults called Willow Commons. 

Still in its early stages, Willow Commons promises to bring 13 housing units to Portola Valley. It could go a long way toward satisfying Portola Valley’s very low-income housing requirements. Its developer has also claimed Willow Commons residents won’t contribute additional traffic, and that “local employers will benefit from having a source of loyal, entry-level employees.”

“I agree with you, the optics are terrible,” Portola Valley Mayor Jeff Aalfs said to SFGATE when asked about some of the stated reasons for the construction of the Willow Commons development. 

The California State Council on Developmental Disabilities' models indicate that, out of a total population of nearly 4,300, there are about 67 adults in Portola Valley with developmental disabilities. However, on its (rejected) housing element draft, the town itself tallied just three adults with developmental disabilities in Portola Valley. In other words: Portola Valley politicians are under the impression there are very few developmentally disabled adults in their town, but they’re backing Willow Commons anyway.

“My best guess would be that it would be a few local people [at Willow Commons], and then a few other people who are from the Bay Area,” Aalfs said of how the town would find people to live there. “I'm guessing there'll be a preference for the local population. But I honestly don't know.”

The developer of the Willow Commons project did not immediately return an SFGATE request for comment.

Drawing from the same less inclusive survey system that Portola Valley uses, Hillsborough believes it has 27 adults with developmental disabilities, and Woodside believes it has 20. Based on California State Council on Developmental Disabilities models, those numbers are undercounted by about 147 and 61, respectively. Hillsborough’s total population is about 11,000, and Woodside’s is approximately 5,130.

“It is frustrating to see public entities use housing for people with certain types of disabilities as a way to circumvent housing element objectives and oppress other populations they perceive to be less desirable for their community,” Michelle Uzeta, senior counsel at Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund, wrote in an email to SFGATE. “These types of affluent communities routinely oppose housing for people with mental health disabilities and people recovering from addiction.”

Problematic in more ways than one

There’s an affordable housing crisis in the state of California, and that crisis certainly applies to developmentally disabled adults, many of whom live on a small, fixed income. In 2017, estimates indicated there were 628,998 developmentally disabled adults in California. According to data gathered by The Kelsey, a nonprofit organization that co-develops “accessible, affordable, inclusive multifamily housing for people with and without disabilities,” there were approximately 113,000 developmentally disabled adults in the Bay Area in 2021.

“Disabled people are disproportionately impacted by the state's housing crisis,” said Allie Cannington, the senior manager of advocacy and organizing at The Kelsey. “California and the nation have existing policy mandates … to create integrated and affordable housing options for people with disabilities who need services and support in their homes. Our state still has failed to build this needed supply.”

Navneet Grewal, an attorney at Disability Rights California, also told SFGATE that there’s an acute need to provide more housing for California adults with developmental disabilities. But that doesn’t mean approving any and all developments for the developmentally disabled, especially if those developments are cordoned off from surrounding communities, she said.

“The need is significant, but we believe that the housing needs to be integrated,” Grewal said. “We’re opposed to just creating more institutions. There needs to be a mix of incomes and types of units offered.”

The ideas tossed around in the Hillsborough and Woodside council meetings constitute segregated housing, because they propose putting a group of developmentally disabled adults in one building or cluster of buildings apart from others. This presents its own legal risks, according to disability rights advocates who spoke to SFGATE.

This may also be a problem for Portola Valley’s Willow Commons development, which is formally underway, though only barely. The project was originally dreamt up for reasons that go beyond meeting affordable housing requirements; the developer has a developmentally disabled child and started planning for the property well before the town’s housing element came into shape, Aalfs, Portola Valley’s mayor, told SFGATE. “This was not in any way a strategy on our part,” Aalfs said. “This project came to us. And it just happens to fit with our requirements.’

Willow Commons in its final form is imagined as a “multifamily residential community” of 11 one-bedroom apartments for developmentally disabled adults, as well as two accessory dwelling units for supervising staff to live on site.

“Anytime you restrict housing to just one type of person you risk violating numerous federal and state housing laws,” Grewal said. “You can violate the law in two ways. One: if you’re excluding people, and two: if you’re creating an institutional setting.”

Grewal pointed to a Supreme Court opinion in 1999 that held that “unjustifiable” segregation of people with disabilities violates the Americans with Disabilities Act. The ruling allows for the possibility that localities could sufficiently justify having separated housing, but the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development advises integrated settings “where individuals with disabilities are able to live and interact with individuals without disabilities, while receiving the health care and long-term services and supports they need.”

Aalfs acknowledged to SFGATE that the integration status — or lack thereof — of Willow Commons “has become an issue,” though he added that he still supports the project. “I would argue that supportive housing is in short supply in California, that all the different categories of below-market-rate housing are critical,” he said.

‘Disturbing’ and ‘infantalizing’

While Portola Valley maintains it is seeking to increase needed housing for people with disabilities, the motives offered by a Woodside elected official are transparently less altruistic.

“There’s been a lot of concern … about traffic, noise, congestion and the potential for crime expressed at every meeting where we’re talking about low-income, multi-unit housing proposals,” Brown, the council member, said at his town’s meeting, which took place on Jan. 31. (Woodside, like Hillsborough and Portola Valley, still hasn’t adopted its housing element plan yet.)

After discussing the state’s requirements for increased housing, Brown offered “a suggestion that I think can overcome all these issues, and that is that we develop a property of 20 studio and one-bedroom apartments, plus two ADUs to serve as a home for independent living adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities, mostly autistic adults, and two or three full-time supervisors.”

“It will not have much impact on the surrounding community because they are very quiet, crime-free, they generate almost no traffic because almost none of them drive, and they are closely supervised 24/7,” he continued.

When asked, among other things, why he believes Woodside needs its own independent living home, and where the adults with disabilities would come from, Brown wrote in an email to SFGATE: “Thanks for your interest but I have nothing to add to my comments made at the meeting.”

Uzeta, from the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund, said comments like those made at the Hillsborough and Woodside council meetings are “disturbing, infantilizing, and illustrative of the NIMBY attitudes that are pervasive throughout the state.”

“It’s offensive that they would use people with disabilities as a wedge to prevent accessible, affordable housing,” added Grewal, the lawyer from Disability Rights California.

Aalfs said that as far as he knows, no one in Portola Valley has openly used the sort of language expressed in the Hillsborough and Woodside council meetings. But he didn’t rebut questions about why some community members in his town, which is nearly as affluent as Hillsborough and Woodside, are in favor of a development like Willow Commons.

“I'm sure that a lot of people find this more palatable than just a below-market-rate housing project for some of the reasons you're talking about,” he told SFGATE. “I am not proud to say that about our community. But I can't deny the sentiment is there.”