Part 2: Affordable Housing and Homelessnes in our District

Hi everyone, Pat Wallis here:

In the last blog post (Part 1), I covered the mismatch between commercial development proposals and rural neighborhoods. If you haven't read that yet, you'll want to in order to follow along in this post. Here, I’ll be covering another impactful presentation from last week’s Morongo Basin Conservation Association (MBCA) meeting by Janet Johnston on the housing situation out here.

It’s about what happens when housing stops being for the people who live here.

If you don’t know, everywhere in this district, our people are being priced out. Whether that’s because of the folks who moved to into our district during the pandemic, or how commercial ventures, hedge funds, and vacation rentals gobbled up residential housing for vacationers over the same period.

Janet had pinned aerial maps of the residential desert neighborhoods throughout the Morongo Basin to the wall. On them, we could see the schools for those communities and the surrounding houses. That visual demonstrated that a third to a half of the housing stock had been converted to serve the needs of vacationers and partiers in the neighborhoods.

The implications for our desert communities are clear. Without that housing stock available to working people, families, and retirees in our district, the cost of housing for EVERYONE goes up. On top of that, think of the mismatch in the purpose of the people there. Taking away the opportunity to fill those neighborhoods with other families is problematic. It’s a problem for our schools and their funding.

Fewer students means less money for teachers and a good education. Fewer children means the kids that remain grow up with fewer friends their age. Fewer families, fewer kids, and less school funding are a toxic mixture for community resilience. And this isn’t just happening in the high desert; it is endemic in our mountain communities, too.

Big Bear Elementary closed five years ago due to these trends, and schools in the Morongo Basin are also under review and at risk of closure. When this happens, we find our children, from elementary school to high school, having to get on the bus earlier and earlier, farther and farther from where we live. In some places, kids are getting on buses at 5:30 in the morning. It’s outrageous.

The truth is that we live in one of the most beautiful regions in North America, if not the world. Think of the vast numbers of tourists to the San Bernardino mountain communities every year. Think of the nearly three million who visit Joshua Tree National Park annually.

Some people can never have enough, consequences be damned. And the result is that our beautiful lands become nothing more than the backdrop to Instagram and Facebook posts. They couldn’t care less about the trash they dump out here, the natural monuments defaced with graffiti, or how the working people here are being squeezed out.

What are the consequences of these trends? High mortgages, high rental rates, and rising homelessness. The next part of Janet’s presentation was devastating. It showed that the outcome was rising homelessness for schoolchildren in our district. Almost six percent of the kids (K-12) in the Morongo basin are homeless. That’s 488 children sleeping in tents, cars, or couch-surfing. And it’s the same for the entirety of San Bernardino County at large. At the county level, which takes up most of our congressional district, there were 28,266 homeless children in 2024. That’s nearly 14% of its 400,000 students. *https://indicators.sbcounty.gov/housing/homelessness-housing-insecurity

Our children have become sacrificial lambs to the regional economy, where affordable housing hasn’t kept pace with stagnant wages and incomes hollowed out by inflation. Instead of providing a needed lifeline, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBA), supported by my opponent, has only increased the financial strain on this district. Here, half the population, ~336,000 persons, receives Medicaid / Medical benefits. As population centers in this region shift from urban to rural areas, income levels drop significantly. 

For families living on the edge, the math no longer works. Even urban hubs like Redlands are affected. While it shows a statistical 'affordability surplus' on paper, that surplus vanishes for working-class families on the perimeter; there, they can face an income gap of up to 45% to purchase a starter home. In our rural desert communities, the gap widens into a chasm. As the elevation rises in our district, so does the income gap for acquiring a starter 2-bed/bath home.

The results show that a typical family in the Morongo Basin would need a 180% raise to afford the starter homes that were once the bedrock of America’s middle class. When the cost to purchase a basic home far exceeds local wages, we don’t just get a 'stressed' market; we see hard-working Californians chased from our district and state, or we witness the systematic displacement of our neighbors into housing insecurity.

As a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) professional and former AICP-certified planner with 15 years of experience, I conducted this analysis using U.S. Census data alongside a housing market survey of current Zillow listings for 2-bed/2-bath homes across thirteen population centers in the district. While this is not an official government study, the methodology is straightforward, replicable, and consistent with standard housing affordability analysis. The results are troubling—and anyone can verify them by running the same search.

While the sight of 28,266 children across San Bernardino County with no place to call home is a gut punch, it shouldn’t be a surprise once we understand the dynamics of our regional economy. These numbers shock the conscience. So, if you ever wondered what the impact of this narrow-minded development was, there it is laid bare. It's anti-community. It is literally making tens of thousands of children destitute. Is that the kind of “growth” and wealth we want to create in our district?

I think not.

It’s time for us to stand up and say, “NO!”

These outcomes aren’t the result of one policy or one person. However, they persist because those in power refuse to intervene. They’re playing games with our future. If they cared, wouldn’t they already have done something about it?

What we do know is that while working families in our district have watched housing costs and grocery bills soar or have lost their homes, Congressman Obernolte's ranking on the list of wealthiest elected leaders keeps rising.

Clearly, we need a change. I understand what’s happening to our communities and am willing to stand up for the people of our district. I’m asking that you support me for Congress as the US Representative for California’s 23rd district.

Please visit my campaign site at www.patwallis.com to donate and find links to our social media channels, then follow and share them. It’s a team effort, and I need your help to get the word out.

Thanks, and please donate to the campaign if you can, then share this with your friends.

Pat-