🌟 Housing Element Spotlight 🌟
Jeanette from Daly City As our cities begin to craft their housing element, HLC is collecting housing stories from our residents to highlight the impacts of the housing shortage.  Meet Jeanette Yue: Her parents purchased a 3 bedroom 1.5 bathroom home for their family 19 years ago in Daly City. While she had to share a room with her younger sister, the home was just the right size for this young family. Unfortunately, tragedy struck when Jeanette’s mother passed away when Jeanette was only 14 years old. Her father eventually remarried and a new baby was welcomed into the family; her step-grandparents moved in shortly after. Within a matter of months, Jeanette’s family grew from 4 to 7 people; all while living in the same 3 bedroom home. This prompted her father and step-mother to start looking for a new home to accommodate their growing family. As is the case with so many of our community members here in San Mateo County, both of her parents worked full time jobs, but their earnings could not keep up with the rising costs associated with purchasing a new home. Faced with this reality, Jeanette’s family decided to put their home-buying efforts on hold - taking comfort in the fact that she’d soon leave for college, with her sister following a year later. Upon college graduation, both Jeanette and her younger sister found themselves in a similar situation to their father and step-mother: gainfully employed, but unable to afford a home. The sisters were right back where they were 5 years prior: sharing a room, but now as adults... Like so many of us pre-pandemic, Jeanette commuted to her place of employment; averaging 40 minutes each way. During COVID-19, she began to feel the impacts of her less than ideal living situation as she tried to adapt to working remotely. With the entire family living and working under the same roof, she found it difficult to do her job well due to the lack of a designated work space and a means of getting away from the sounds of home life. In spite of it all, Jeanette considers herself lucky. She says: “it's not uncommon for a lot of families in Daly City to be ... living under the roof with multiple generations in the same household.” In her youth she would often visit her friends in their homes and notice the similarities in living arrangements, but with one key difference: instead of living in a single family home, her friends primarily lived in smaller, multi-family homes. | 
