Guest Opinion | Katja M. Guenther: Supporting the Rosemead Family Apartments Is the Right Thing To Do for Our Community

Pasadena officials and residents have an important opportunity to move towards correcting the massive deficit of affordable housing in our city by supporting the development of the proposed 133-unit Rosemead Family Apartments at 600 North Rosemead Boulevard. I’ve lived less than one mile from the proposed project in Northeast Pasadena for over fifteen years and have witnessed rent in Pasadena increase steadily, sometimes as much as six percent in a single year, making our city increasingly inaccessible to people of various income levels.

The key reason to build affordable housing is ethical: affordable housing is an essential social good, and we should do whatever we can to make more of it available. Affordable housing is a boon both to those in need of such housing and to the communities that welcome affordable housing. Research consistently shows that affordable housing helps stabilize families, improves health and education outcomes for children and adults, and has a positive effect on the local economy. High rents–and the average rent for a two-bedroom unit in Pasadena is now over $3,000 per month–contribute to homelessness, which has significant individual and social costs, and to rent-burdened households that spend so much of their income on rent that they are forced to spend less on other essential needs like healthcare and food. The waiting lists for affordable housing options in Pasadena are typically full, and many are closed to new applicants because current waitlists will take years to clear. The need for affordable housing remains acute, and we need to keep building safe, convenient affordable housing.

Supporting Rosemead Family Apartments is both the right thing to do and the easy thing to do because this project has so many strengths. The project creatively repurposes and expands upon an existing mid-century office building. The location is ideal for potential residents and supports their connection to the community and its resources: there is a bus stop on the corner as well as easy walking or cycling access to major transit hubs (including the Sierra Madre Villa Metro station), grocery, big box, and independent retail stores, a large public park, a public library, three elementary schools (Field, Norma Coombs, and Don Benito) and Pasadena High School, houses of worship, and many other amenities. Over half of the apartments in the proposed development will be 2- and 3-bedroom units suitable for families, who often face particular hurdles to finding affordable housing. North Rosemead Boulevard is a broad corridor that is well-equipped to handle any additional traffic, while any increase in cars parked along the street will help calm traffic. For residents or visitors who do not have access to an assigned parking space in the building’s garage, there is ample street parking—with the 55 parking spaces provided at the site itself, by my count there are over 135 spaces available to residents and visitors (and even more just a stone’s throw further from the building along commercial corridors).

About fifty of the 131 units to be available for rent (two units will house building managers) are designated specifically for otherwise unhoused people, and supportive services through an established non-profit organization will be available on-site. Rosemead Family Apartments will thus help formerly unhoused people and families move into–and stay in–permanent housing. Pasadena had 581 unhoused residents at the time of the last count in 2025; getting ten percent or more of these neighbors into permanent housing would be a huge achievement, especially within a single building project. Beyond the moral imperative to provide safe and stable housing for all members of our community, allocating housing for unhoused people benefits the entire community by reducing public costs and improving community safety and wellbeing.

I am eager to welcome my new neighbors at the Rosemead Family Apartments, and will be proud of the community of Northeast Pasadena, and the entire city, for actively supporting affordable housing. I hope my fellow Pasadenans, including elected officials, join me in making the Rosemead Family Apartments a reality, for all our benefit.

Katja M. Guenther is a sociologist and resident of Northeast Pasadena.