Foundation Makes Loan to Restore Bunche Home

The California Community Foundation issued a $100,000 interest-free loan Tuesday to allow a nonprofit group to restore the boyhood home of Ralph J. Bunche, the Nobel Peace Prize winner.

The home, on East 40th Place, has been declared a cultural landmark but remains boarded up and covered in graffiti because of a funding delay in City Hall.

Bunche, who grew up in South Los Angeles and attended UCLA, was the first African American to win the Nobel Peace Prize, for his work in drafting the 1949 Israeli-Arab armistice.

Mayor Richard Riordan’s Targeted Neighborhood Initiative has promised to grant $100,000 to the Dunbar Economic Development Corp., a local nonprofit group that bought the home three years ago with plans to turn it into a museum.

But the money has been delayed for two years in red tape. Meanwhile, vandals and trespassers have broken in and spray-painted graffiti on the walls.

In response to a Times article about the condition of the house, officials at the California Community Foundation, one of the oldest charities in Los Angeles County, offered the loan until the city funding is approved.

“We think it’s a shame that [Bunche’s] home would not be treated with the appropriate level of attention and respect that it deserves” said foundation spokesman Allan Parachini.

Anthony Scott, executive director of the Dunbar group, said he has already instructed an architect to start work on the Bunche restoration plans. He could not estimate when the project will be complete.

“I’m just excited that the California Community Foundation came forward so quickly,” he said.

He added that the mayor’s office is also working to speed up the city funding for the project.

“The response has been great,” Scott said.