Grant Awarded for Housing for Disabled

A Ventura County affordable-housing agency has received a $1.3-million federal grant--its largest ever--to turn a Simi Valley apartment complex into housing for the disabled.

Thousand Oaks-based Many Mansions will use the money from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to acquire the 14-unit Casa de Paz apartment complex in west Simi Valley. The grant will also be used to rehabilitate the complex for one-bedroom apartments for disabled individuals, couples and possibly families, Many Mansions Executive Director Dan Hardy said.

Residents will pay no more than 30% of their monthly income toward rent.

Hardy said the project will be the first of its kind in Simi Valley and Many Mansions’ first venture there.

“This type of housing has got to be the No. 1 need in that city,” Hardy said. “It’s something that’s incredibly, desperately needed, and the statistics show it.”

There is a three-year waiting list in Simi Valley and throughout the county for certificates for Section 8 housing, under which rent is capped at a percentage of resident income and subsidized by HUD.

HUD has operated the Support of Housing for Persons with Disabilities program since 1991. Many Mansions applied for the grant in May.

“It’s a highly competitive grant that HUD issues once a year,” Hardy said.

Although Many Mansions has a contract to buy the complex and expects to acquire it in early 1999, Hardy said it could take up to two years before the apartments’ residents can be relocated, the units remodeled and the new residents moved in.

The agency also must obtain city approval for the renovation, although Hardy said the project would help meet the city’s goals for affordable housing.

Out of the $1,333,500 grant, $1,122,000 is earmarked for acquisition and remodeling of the complex. The remaining $211,500 will subsidize residents’ rents for up to five years.

Many Mansions has received $1-million loans from HUD before, but this is the agency’s largest grant in its 19-year history, project manager Lee Milman said. A HUD grant of $446,000 paid over three years has been used to operate a transitional housing program in Thousand Oaks.

Also receiving a HUD grant, through a separate program, is Consumer Credit Counseling Service of Ventura County. The Camarillo-based agency was awarded $70,301 to provide housing counseling for one year to home buyers, homeowners and renters.

This is the second year the agency has applied to the Housing Counseling Program. Last year the agency received $75,000, said Sharon Morse, director of education and marketing.