LAGUNA BEACH : Site Found for AIDS Victims’ Housing

A group that has searched for more than two years for a site in Laguna Beach to house people disabled by the AIDS virus and other ailments announced Friday it has found a building it plans to convert into a 25-unit apartment complex by 1995.

The City Council has supported the low-income housing effort and in 1991 allocated $50,000 as seed money.

This week, the Laguna Beach Housing Committee voted to recommend that the city spend another $375,000 to help subsidize the project, City Manager Kenneth C. Frank said Friday.

“It’s something the city’s been trying to do for a long time,” Frank said. “It’s a very high priority for the council.”

A spokeswoman for Affordable Housing Project of Orange County Inc., which is directing the project, said the apartment complex may be the only one of its kind in the county.

It also is one of only a handful of such projects in the nation being financed by the Department of Housing and Urban Development under a relatively new funding program that recognizes a positive HIV status as a disability, she said.

The HUD grant for the project was just less than $2 million, she said.

According to information released by Affordable Housing Project on Friday, the group has entered into a “purchase option agreement” with GTE to buy a building at Mermaid and 3rd streets.

The two-story building, with a basement used for parking, will be transformed into an apartment complex where disabled residents can live independently. One-bedroom apartments will rent for between $150 and $250 per month.

Walpin said the housing group has begun contacting neighboring residents, churches, businesses and community groups in Laguna Beach to explain the plans. Additional meetings will be planned for coming months, she said.

“It’s always good to sit down with your neighbors and hear any input they have in terms of advice or suggestions,” she said. “It’s an enormous concrete building, and I would assume neighbors are going to be happy (since) it’s going to be much more attractive-looking than it is now.”

The project has been co-sponsored by AIDS Services Foundation in Irvine and Housing for Independent People in San Jose. Affordable Housing Project’s board is made up of board and staff members from those organizations and from the Mary Erickson Foundation.