Burbank lends funds to nonprofit to create transitional housing
The Burbank City Council has teamed up with a pair of local nonprofits in an attempt to address the affordable-housing shortfall in the city.
Council members unanimously voted Tuesday to enter into an affordable-housing agreement with the Burbank Housing Corp. to allow the nonprofit to purchase a triplex at 1932 N. Ontario St. and rehabilitate the units to be used as transitional housing for extremely low and very-low income families.
The agreement entails Burbank lending the nonprofit roughly $590,000, which the city receives from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development as HOME Investment Partnerships Program funds, said Maribel Leyland, the city’s housing authority manager.
Additionally, the Burbank Housing Authority will lend $547,622 to the nonprofit. Those funds will come from the city’s Low and Moderate Income Housing Asset Funds, which are also federal monies.
The Burbank Housing Corp. will kick in $17,000 to purchase the triplex, which is being sold to the nonprofit for $900,000. The property was originally listed for $949,900, Leyland said.
Rehabilitation costs for the three two-bedroom units in the triplex are estimated at $354,641, which will include asbestos and lead-paint abatement, termite repair, new windows and floors, bathroom and kitchen upgrades and new paint. There will also be new concrete walkways installed, as well as a new irrigation system.
In addition, the nonprofit Family Promise of the Verdugos is donating $125,000 it received from donors to help pay for the rehabilitation of the triplex. The organization will also be handling the transitional-housing program for the triplex at no cost to the city or the Burbank Housing Corp.
Leyland said $100,000 of the funds being put into the project is being put aside as a relocation budget to assist the two families who are currently living in the triplex in finding a new home.
She added that those families will be offered one of the transitional housing units if they meet the criteria.
The Burbank Housing Corp. has rehabilitated more than 300 units in the city to be used as transitional or affordable housing over the past 20 years.
Leyland said the goal for the three units is not to give low-income families a place to live but to allow them to have an affordable home where they can save enough money to move on to more permanent housing, whether it be to rent another apartment or buy a house.
anthonyclark.carpio@latimes.com
Twitter: @acocarpio
