Marin County will receive $3.1 million in federal funding for workforce housing and child safety improvements under a sweeping appropriations package signed into law last week. 

The funding is included in the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, which is part of a broader package of appropriations measures that together fund more than 95% of the federal government through Sept. 30. 

Three Marin County projects are slated to benefit from the allocation. 

The largest share, $2 million, will support the Point Reyes Workforce Housing Development and Construction Project. Led by the Community Land Trust Association of West Marin in partnership with the county, the project aims to address acute housing shortages for low-income residents and workers in West Marin. 

Many of those affected are agricultural and service-sector employees facing displacement due to housing instability and ranch closures. The funding will help advance both interim and permanent affordable housing units in Point Reyes Station. 

An additional $850,000 will go toward safety upgrades at the Fairfax-San Anselmo Children’s Center. The center provides state-subsidized child care to 110 low-income children, representing about 12% of all subsidized child care slots in Marin County. Planned improvements include seismic retrofitting, HVAC upgrades and other safety renovations. 

The remaining $250,000 will support a workforce housing project in the San Quentin area of unincorporated Larkspur. The Oak Hill Apartments, managed by the Marin County Public Financing Authority, will create 250 long-term affordable housing units for workers essential to the local economy, with construction anticipated to begin this year. 

“These investments reflect both the urgency of Marin County’s housing and child care challenges and the strength of our partnerships at every level of government,” County Executive Derek Johnson said, thanking U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman and U.S. Sens. Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla for their support. 

Ruth Dusseault is an investigative reporter and multimedia journalist focused on environment and energy. Her position is supported by the California local news fellowship, a statewide initiative spearheaded by UC Berkeley aimed at supporting local news platforms. While a student at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism (c’23), Ruth developed stories about the social and environmental circumstances of contaminated watersheds around the Great Lakes, Mississippi River and Florida’s Lake Okeechobee. Her thesis explored rights of nature laws in small rural communities. She is a former assistant professor and artist in residence at Georgia Tech’s School of Architecture, and uses photography, film and digital storytelling to report on the engineered systems that undergird modern life.