Everyone wants "affordable" housing. But few people know what that is. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has defined affordable housing as no more than 30 percent of a household's income. That means you shouldn't be paying more than 30 percent of your income for housing — whether mortgage payments or rent — plus utilities each month. "People think affordable housing means just one thing. But it doesn't," said Sandra Hamameh, program director for the Sacramento Housing Alliance. "It means being able to afford a place to live, at whatever stage you're in in your life." Levels of affordability are also based on an area's median incomes. The median incomes for Sacramento

A proposal is in the works to create one of the largest permanent supportive housing projects in the city. The $41 million building at Seventh and H streets also is poised to become the city's newest single-resident occupancy, or SRO, structure. The infill project would feature sustainable design and materials, so the developers and architects will ask the U.S. Green Building Council to certify it as a sustainable building. But perhaps most unique about the public-private project being developed by Mercy Housing and the Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency is that it would offer support services to formerly homeless people in innovative and mixed-population permanent housing. Its

The final demolition of a former Sacramento police building has been halted again while concerns over an adjacent power station are worked out. Advantage Demolition was preparing to demonstrate Monday how the last two exterior walls could be pulled down safely next to transformers at a historic power station, now known as SMUD Station A, at Sixth and H streets. The station, whose origins date to 1895, supplies power to up to 40 percent of downtown Sacramento, said Sacramento Municipal Utility District spokesperson Dace Udris. Demolition of the building at Seventh and H streets began several months ago to make way for a 160-unit affordable housing project being built by the Sacramento Hou