KOREATOWN : Low-Income Units at Community Center

The Korean Youth and Community Center will soon expand its involvement with the community by inviting it to move into the center’s new home. Well, not the entire community, but as many as will fill the 19 low-income family apartments that are part of the center’s nearly completed $4.6-million facility at Wilton Place and 7th Street.

This is the first low-income family housing project built by a nonprofit Korean American group in Los Angeles, said project manager Helen Kim.

“If you look at how KYCC has developed from working with youths in gangs to working with others in the immigrant community, you can see how the scope of services we’ve needed to provide has expanded,” Kim said.

Concern over the shortage of affordable housing and job opportunities in Koreatown prompted the center to launch an economic development program and get into the housing business, Kim said. She and other members of the center’s staff have worked with Inclusive Homes, a consulting company that provided financial and technical services and advice to help navigate the project’s design, funding, regulatory and construction phases.

The center secured funding from federal tax credits and from such public and private sources as the Los Angeles Housing Department, the Local Initiatives Support Corp., the state Department of Housing and Community Development and Hanmi Bank.

“It’s an incredibly complex process, and with all the permit fees, regulations and other expenses, the costs of doing affordable housing don’t seem all that affordable,” Kim said.

But the need is so great that community-based organizations have a responsibility to help provide it, Kim said.

Indeed, a report released last week by researchers at UCLA’s Urban Planning Program on the growing economic hardships faced by Asian Americans in Los Angeles recommended, among other things, “that nonprofit Asian American community-based organizations help fill the housing void by developing housing.”

By last month’s deadline the center had received 167 rental applications, Kim said. A lottery and interview process will be conducted to select tenants, with income level being a primary criterion.

Rents will range from $261 for a studio to $596 for a four-bedroom apartment, with some of the tenants receiving rental assistance, Kim said.

The center expects its new home will be filled with tenants from a variety of backgrounds, most of whom are likely to be eligible for the center’s social service programs, Kim said.

The first floor of the four-story building, which will have two levels of underground parking, will be used as office space for some of the center’s staff; other employees will work at the current Wilshire Boulevard office or another site. An open house is planned for next month.

Information: (213) 365-7400.