Plots Provide Food Source at Pomona Housing Site

In the first of its kind in California, a “tenant cultivation” housing development has opened in Pomona, where 15% of the residents’ diet comes from food grown on the site.

The 31-unit, low-income housing complex, funded by the Los Angeles County Community Development Commission and several private donors, features large garden plots tended by the development’s tenants, and energy-conservation equipment, such as solar panels, which has cut tenants’ energy bills by as much as 30%.

Cal Poly Pomona professor Paul Sommers helped design the garden, and volunteers from the school teach gardening and nutrition classes to the tenants. There is a waiting list of 100 families for the conservation-friendly development, where two-bedroom apartments go for $360 to $500 a month. Three-bedroom units run from $400 to $600 monthly.