A new program designed to help people find housing in Santa Barbara continues to vex city leaders.

Although the City Council hastily approved the creation of the “HOPE” fund last October, council members and city leaders are still fumbling over the details.

The city’s three-member Ordinance Committee, made up of Councilmen Oscar Gutierrez and Mike Jordan and Councilwoman Kristen Sneddon, tackled the issue on Tuesday. They decided to push it off into a work session to give staff and the public more time to fully vet the possibilities.

At issue is how to spend nearly $3 million that the city council approved to launch the initial funding for the HOPE fund, which would help people pay rents, seek legal defense counsel when evicted, and purchase land, and decide what percentage of the money should go to the various income brackets.

Another $250,000 would be used for the “right to counsel” pilot program.

“It is the lowest-income households who are the most burdened due to the high cost of housing,” said Rob Fredericks, executive director of the Housing Authority of the City of Santa Barbara. “Given this, we should focus the use of the limited funds where they are needed the most.”

Fredericks and other housing activists want to see the money dedicated to low- and moderate-income households because the needs are “undeniably the most severe.”

According to data presented by the City of Santa Barbara at Tuesday’s Ordinance Committee meeting, as of April 2022, the median rent was $3,475 for a two-bedroom apartment, $3,500 for a three-bedroom and $6,600 for a four-bedroom. To afford a two-bedroom apartment in Santa Barbara, a family would have to earn about $139,000 to qualify, according to the city.

In March, the median price of a house in Santa Barbara was $2.1 million.

The median income in Santa Barbara for a family of four is about $100,100, according to statistics the city showed at the meeting.

City staff had proposed that the HOPE money fund people earning up to 200% of the median income, but that idea fell flat with Fredericks and others who want the money targeted toward the most in need. The fund was created after politically connected consultant Ben Romo presented a white paper on how to leverage money with wealthy community organizations to amass a large affordable housing fund.

However, Fredericks said he sees the concept as duplicative and unnecessary because the council already has the Housing Authority that has a proven track record of building and supporting affordable housing.

“We believe the most effective and efficient use of the funds should be under the current, adopted affordable housing policies and procedures handbook that have been crafted over many years and have been proven to work,” Fredericks said. “We cannot emphasize enough the need to serve those at lower-income levels.”

The city staff plans to set up a workshop to discuss the situation.

Sneddon said providing funding to income levels above 160% percent of the median income is missing the spirit of the HOPE fund. She said the money should go toward those who cannot make it financially, not those who just have a difficult time with housing needs.

“All of these considerations need to be limited to those under 160% of the area median income,” Sneddon said.