Housing designed for the disabled will open

A number of adults with developmental disabilities will have a new place to call home beginning this week, when they take up residence in a newly constructed complex of affordable apartments in Pasadena.

The 13-unit development, designed specifically for the needs of the disabled, is the culmination of seven years’ work by United Cerebral Palsy, which lined up the partners to make the complex a reality, said Ronald Cohen, executive director of United Cerebral Palsy of Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara counties.

“Without this apartment complex, these tenants would be living in institutions or licensed care facilities or with their parents,” Cohen said.

The nonprofit advocacy group, in partnership with the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Los Angeles County, the city of Pasadena and others, raised the $2.7 million to build the project.

The tenants’ rents are set by HUD and are one-third of their adjusted incomes, Cohen said. For some tenants, that could be as low as $150 a month.

United Cerebral Palsy has three other affordable-housing projects in the works in Santa Monica, Goleta and Burbank.