Tahoe-area officials hear about the pressing need for affordable housing

In a room overflowing with the Tahoe Basin's leaders, government agencies, nonprofits, developers, business owners and residents, 20-year-old Ana Ramos stood at the podium to tell the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency's Governing Board about her very personal need for quality housing that she could afford.

The crowded and controversial Tahoe Regional Planning Agency meeting was Ramos' first.

She told the 15-member governing board about two of her friends, who work hard just to provide for their families, but end up without much time to spend with their children. She described her own home - a small space in Kings Beach where she lives with her 7-month-old son, Yahir, and her husband, who couldn't attend the meeting because he was working.

"(My son) doesn't have any space to play," Ramos said. By the end of her speech, tears had welled up in her throat.

Ramos was one of 13 Latino Kings Beach residents who came to the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency meeting to show their support for the Domus Development affordable housing proposal. Domus is one of nine preapplicants the governing board invited to continue in the Community Enhancement Program on Wednesday.

"There are community members who care about where they live and how they live," said Sylvia Ambriz, executive director of the family resource center.

Only a few of the 13 spoke at the podium, but a statement was made simply by their physical presence at the meeting.

"When you put faces - when you can connect faces and see real people who are affected by (the issue) - it's powerful," said Dennis Oliver, spokesperson for the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency. "That's how you get stuff done."

The North Tahoe Family Resource Center and the Truckee Tahoe Community Foundation, among a handful of other local nonprofits and Community Enhancement Program applicants, sponsored a bus that cost $465 to take those 13 people to the meeting.

"(The Latino) voices aren't being heard," said George Koster, an affordable housing advocate who coordinated the bus ride. "Because they can't afford to get to a meeting in the middle of the day."

It wasn't easy for those 13 people to come to the meeting.

The family resource center provided additional childcare services on Wednesday and sent someone to pick up their children when school got out.

At least another 13 expressed interest in attending the meeting, said Blanca Barron, who spread the word about the bus.

But most couldn't afford to take the day off from work to attend the meeting.

"I could have stayed at home," said Gladis Marshall, on the bus ride home. "But I like to be involved in the community and help the Hispanic community in every way I can."

Marshall also gathered the courage to speak before the governing board for her first time.

"It's our responsibility to provide to our children, healthy, safe and secure living conditions," she said. "It's a right that they have and it's our responsibility to provide that."