Where Working Families Live in St. Helena
Change usually comes slowly to St Helena, which is one of the many advantages of living in a small town. As we marvel at the incredible natural beauty that still surrounds us, it is easy to forget about how our town has evolved. Once a mid-valley center for a farming community that surrounded our town of 3,200 residents in the 1970s, we have now doubled in size and transitioned to an entirely different economy and environment while still retaining some semblance of our small-town character.
Hunts Grove Apartments
As grape vines replaced orchards and cattle in the valley, the need for skilled vineyard workers put a strain on our community, with many workers sleeping in cars and on the riverbed because of lack of housing. Monsignor Brenkle, a longtime advocate for affordable housing, gathered several respected vineyard and winery owners to initiate a plan to provide housing for lower-income workers and their families. In the early 1990s, St Helena built not one, but two income-qualified housing developments with the goal of housing the farmworker and winery staff so vital to the burgeoning wine industry.
Hunt’s Grove, located at the end of Hunt Avenue, consists of 56 one-, two-, and three-bedroom apartments in seven buildings scattered around a tree-shaded site. It was developed and continues to be managed by Bridge Housing , a non-profit housing developer, on land provided by the City of St. Helena.
Stonebridge Apartments
Stonebridge, located on College Avenue next to the Napa Valley College up-valley campus, has 80 units ranging from one to four bedrooms encircling a central park-like area. It was built on land generously donated by local housing advocate David Garden, who sadly passed away in 2023. It was developed and is managed by EAH Housing, another non-profit housing developer.
Both projects were funded primarily with Low Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTC). This is a federally funded program that is the most important resource for creating affordable rental housing in the United States. In a LIHTC arrangement, the non-profit housing developer is the general partner, and private limited partners provide equity for project development in exchange for tax credits. This equity subsidizes the construction and rehabilitation of rental housing for low- and moderate-income tenants so that the cash flow from the lower rents can support the project long term.
Organizations like Bridge Housing and EAH Housing build and manage rental properties meant to be affordable in perpetuity and are not to be sold. Therefore, great care is taken in the building, maintenance and management of these properties. In keeping with this mission, when each of these two complexes reached the end of their initial financing period both were re-syndicated with LIHTC funds which provided an influx of cash for renovations and upgrades and a guarantee of viability for another three decades.
Hunt’s Grove and Stonebridge are tailored to family living with open space, playfields, community gardens and meeting rooms. The success of these communities is evident in the four- to five-year waiting lists for prospective tenants. The majority of tenants work in and around St Helena in the wine, hospitality, healthcare, education, and various service industries. They are raising families, participating in local schools and sports activities and making positive contributions to our community.
Hunt’s Grove apartments
It has been over 30 years since the 136 rental units of Hunt’s Grove and Stonebridge were built and only 18 additional income-qualified rental units (Magnolia Oaks Apartments and Turley Flats) have been built during this time frame. Meanwhile, prices for rental and ownership housing continue to escalate throughout our region, outstripping wage increases and adding to the housing burden for many in our community.
The lack of housing to support local workers in St Helena led to the formation of Our Town St Helena (OTSH) in 2009, a local non-profit housing advocacy and development organization. In 2024, OTSH’S board of directors set a strategic goal of completing 105 affordable homes in St Helena by 2035 to help ease the housing burden in our small town. This is being accomplished through a combination of building new and acquiring existing properties and recording long-term affordability restrictions on them. To date, OTSH has 75 units at various stages of development or completion. This is a very complex and time- consuming mission and would not be possible without the support of community donors and volunteers, local government, and other non-profit partners.
Click here if you would like to support our current housing projects.
