City Pledges Up to $400,000 for Low-Income Housing

The Fillmore City Council has pledged up to $400,000 toward development of a 60-unit, low-income housing project--the largest low-income development the city has ever helped finance, Fillmore’s city manager said.

The complex is intended to house former residents of the Fillmore Hotel left homeless when the earthquake-shattered building was demolished last month.

Many of the residents have received federal housing vouchers that expire after 18 months. The planned completion date for the townhouse project is October, 1995.

The Cabrillo Economic Development Corp. which has built low-income housing projects across Ventura County, would develop the complex in conjunction with Del Investments, a development firm.

The council’s vote Tuesday night “is a giant, positive step,” said Ernie Morales, a former Fillmore City Council member who is president of Cabrillo’s board of directors. “This has been a big void for so many years.”

Morales said because of the extreme lack of low-income housing in Fillmore, some landlords neglect their properties, secure in the belief that no matter how rundown their properties may become, their tenants have little choice.

“People are living in unsafe, unhealthy, illegal conditions,” he said.

The City Council originally considered the project at its meeting two weeks ago. At that time, however, Councilman Roger Campbell raised concerns about committing so much money to the project when other earthquake-ravaged buildings downtown need repairs. Council members postponed a vote on the project while city staff put together a preliminary list of quake-related expenses to help the council set spending priorities.

On Tuesday, with the new list on the table and Campbell having gone home early to nurse an ankle he broke the week before, the council approved the expenditure by a vote of 4 to 0. The council had already agreed informally about a year ago to commit $300,000 for construction of 13 low-income housing units in an 88-unit complex to be built by Del Investments.

But Del officials say in light of residents’ urgent need for low-income housing since the earthquake, they will shelve the 88-unit complex and work with Cabrillo on the 60-unit townhouse project. The city will contribute $100,000 more because some of the cost will be picked up by federal grants and special bank loans.

“The city’s money will be leveraging approximately $20 on the dollar,” said Jesse Ornelas, Cabrillo’s manager for the project. “That in and of itself is a tremendous investment in the community.”