People’s Self Help Housing, or PSHH, is a Central Coast affordable housing nonprofit. It just released its 2020-21 Impact Report detailing its recent and planned projects.
PSHH CEO and President Ken Trigueiro said the nonprofit’s mission is to build affordable housing and help people own homes and rent apartments.
“We’re really trying to focus on those people making no more than about 60 or 80 percent of the area median income,” Trigueiro said. “We try to serve people who are in the lowest income brackets all along that scale.”
The nonprofit has served San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara and Ventura Counties for more than 50 years. But the recently released Impact Report details the organization’s expansion, for the first time, into Southern Monterey County.
Seven residential homes broke ground in King City through PSHH’s Sweat Equity Program, through which homeowners are assisted in building their own home.
“Those properties are, just this month, now ready to occupy,” Trigueiro said. “So we’re going to be handing over the keys officially any day now.”
Trigueiro said PSHH also invested in a property in the Monterey County city of Greenfield that has almost 40 lots available to build affordable single-family homes.
The Impact Report details 18 new properties at various stages of development in PSHH’s project pipeline, including the Tiburon Place Apartments which are expected to provide 68 units of affordable housing for low-income families and veterans.
Trigueiro said construction is starting this fall on two other housing complexes in San Luis Obispo County — the Pismo Terrace and Templeton Place II. They will provide housing for transitional youth, formerly unhoused individuals, seniors and veterans.
Trigueiro said these kinds of affordable programs are more important now than ever.
“There’s quite an issue going on with those who are experiencing homelessness, but through COVID, I think we all saw that even more so,” Trigueiro said.
He said a huge part of the mission of PSHH is providing services in addition to housing. During the last year PSHH provided clinical case management for more than 1200 residents, helped more than 50 unhoused households move into permanent housing, arranged more than 900 referrals for extra support and distributed about $385,000 in direct financial support to residents.
