A Home of Their Own
The South-Central Organizing Committee and the United Neighborhoods Organization want to build 600 townhouses in Compton to sell for about $60,000 each. Such a project would offer the best chance of home ownership for working-class families in the area who cannot afford to buy in Southern California’s astronomical real estate market.
The affordable housing would be patterned after the successful Nehemiah housing program in East Brooklyn, N.Y., in which a coalition of church-based groups built 1,000 small homes that sold for $41,000 each--a fraction of market value--in 1985. The Brooklyn project worked because costs were held below market. The land was donated by the city and the developer took a modest fee.
What SCOC is calling “Nehemiah West” would work in a similar fashion. SCOC and UNO, church-based groups representing 175,000 working-class and poor families, would develop at least 1,000 houses in Compton and Los Angeles. The small townhouses would be built for families with incomes between $18,000 and $26,000.
The project is expected to cost about $60 million. To help finance it, the organizers are applying, with the assistance of the Local Initiative Support Corp., for $15 million from the Century Freeway housing program for land acquisition. The organizers also have applied for federal housing money to provide a $15,000 no-interest second mortgage on each home, which would reduce the initial cost to the buyer.
Construction costs would be covered by an $8-million revolving fund, financed largely by churches. Archbishop Roger Mahony has committed $3 million in the form of a no-interest loan to the construction fund and has pledged to raise additional money. The Christian Methodist Episcopal Church, a predominantly black denomination, has pledged a $250,000 loan to the account.
The biggest problem is the land. Organizers have their sights on the Compton Auto Plaza located just north of the Artesia Freeway. Although the plaza was built to accommodate 14 car dealerships, only two are doing business and two others have failed. The townhouses would be located north of the existing car dealerships on about 30 vacant acres.
The Compton City Council, however, is studying commercial options for the site. A major shopping mall and market-value housing would generate more revenue for the city, at least in theory. But what are the chances of attracting major retailers and affluent consumers from surrounding communities? And how many upwardly mobile families, who can afford to live elsewhere, would choose to raise their children in a city plagued by high crime rates and poor schools?
Nehemiah West offers Compton a chance. The City Council should help poor families who are working to help themselves by making the land available for housing and then let the families and time work together to attract retailers.
