Ground Broken for 8-Unit Housing Project

The Mothers of East Los Angeles broke ground Friday on an eight-unit housing project designed for low-income, first-time homeowners.

The community organization decided to develop the project as a way of bringing affordable housing to a neighborhood where it is scarce, said President Mary Lou Trevis.

“The community is overcrowded and needs decent homes,” she said. “Many times people are forced to leave and go somewhere else.”

Located at 1050 Indiana St., the two-story condominiums are 1,740 square feet each, with three bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths and two-car garages.

The bulk of the funding for the $1.4-million project will come from the county Community Development Commission, said Frank Villalobos of Barrio Planners Inc., the architectural firm designing the condos.

The project is named Villas de Castillo after Aurora Castillo, an environmentalist who led the mothers group to fend off a state prison, a toxic waste incinerator, a hazardous waste treatment plant and an oil pipeline--all of which were proposed for East Los Angeles.

The county-owned site had been an abandoned lot for 15 years and was used as a homeless camp and trash dump before the group acquired it, Trevis said. Her organization is planning to develop a similar project involving two single-family homes on an empty lot at 134/138 Bonnie Beach Place this year.