Affordable-Housing Complex Is Opened

A new affordable-housing complex for low-income residents has opened in northwest Fullerton.

The $12-million project was built with the help of a city redevelopment loan and a nonprofit group that helps indigent families and senior citizens find affordable housing.

At a ribbon-cutting ceremony Wednesday, city officials, the project’s developers and Tom Willard, executive director of the Foundation for Affordable Housing, which will run the Courtyard Apartments, said the project is innovative.

“It’s not the old box-stacked-upon-box project,” Willard said. “If you were to live near it or drive by it or live in it, you would be pleased.”

The gated, 108-unit complex, at 4119 W. Valencia Ave., consists of two-, three- and four-bedroom townhomes, a pool, two playgrounds and a clubhouse. It is the first of five affordable-housing projects that Kaufman & Broad Multi-Housing Group has planned for Southern California.

For the next 55 years, monthly rents will range from $414 to $961; tenants must earn less than $24,000 annually, officials said.

Shantell Cotton, 25, has already moved into one of the three-bedroom units with her 5-year-old son, her nephew, her sister and a friend.

“This is like a dream come true. It’s beautiful,” Cotton said.

“We had to share one bedroom where we lived before, and it was in a bad neighborhood. Now the kids love to come home. It’s amazing that the developers, the city and the foundation got together to help people like us who need a nice place to live.”

Now that construction is complete and people have moved in, there have been no complaints from neighbors who had opposed the project when it was first proposed last year, officials said.

“This is an absolutely gorgeous, high-quality project,” Willard said.

“Every citizen deserves to have affordable housing to live in.”