SANTA MARIA - It is one of many projects in Santa Barbara County designed to deal with a serious lack of low income, affordable housing in the county and in Santa Maria.
The 16 unit, nearly $3 million Casa de Familia low income apartment complex on the Good Samaritan campus in Santa Maria is eagerly awaited by many waiting and hoping for an affordable place to call their own.
"This is going to help some of our smaller families out and give them a place to live", says Good Samaritan staffer and apartment hopeful Tricia Bausch.
"This is only going to be a drop in the bucket of the amount of housing that is really needed for this population", adds Good Samaritan CEO Jack Boysen,
Casa de Familia is scheduled to be completed early in 2013 with Santa Barbara County funding the project with federal Housing and Urban Development (HUD) money.
But now Santa Barbara County is under a federal audit for failing to keep adequate records and oversight on how and where that federal HUD money has been spent including with the Casa de Familia project.
Good Samaritan has been identified in the HUD audit as lacking certification to be able to use HUD funds for its project.
Good Samaritan believes its all a paperwork issue that will be resolved at the county level soon.
In the meantime, hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid invoices for construction of Casa de Familia are started to pile up in county offices while work on the project continues.
"Obviously the contractor is not going to go forever if they don't get paid", Boysen says about getting approval from HUD for the county to pay for the project, "it would be a shame to delay such an important project over some minor paperwork findings of a government agency."
"A lot of families are living altogether, multiple families in one house, just to be able to afford a place to live", adds Tricia Bausch about the urgent need for the Casa de Familia project to be completed, "this is going to be well needed and much appreciated."
Good Samaritan CEO Jack Boysen says he expects to hear back from Santa Barbara County about the HUD audit and the continued funding for Casa de Familia as early as next week,
