BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KERO) — Affordable housing is hard to come by across California including in Kern County. But the Housing Authority of Kern is working on a project to bring more housing units to one community in Bakersfield.
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Affordable housing is coming to Northeast Bakersfield
This affordable housing site in Northeast Bakersfield will be called the Residences at East Hills. There will be 80 units available and half of them will be reserved for Kern County veterans. This $17.5 million project broke ground in July 2020 and executive director of the Housing Authority of Kern, Heather Kimmel, says it is important now more than ever to provide more housing in Bakersfield.
“Before the pandemic, it was hard to find affordable housing, we had several residents in the city of Bakersfield and the county of Kern paying half of their income towards rent, then you layer in the pandemic on top of that and now we have pandemic layer income issues, we’ve got a tighter rental market with a historic vacancy rate for this area.”
The site is expected to finish construction in September but Kimmel says the applications are open if you want to apply now.
