Building hope
At the new Cesar Chavez Gardens apartments, around the corner from Chinatown’s main strip of shops and restaurants, Alejandra Nieto stepped into her sunny living room, unable to suppress a smile as she showed off the beige carpets, modern kitchen and three spacious bedrooms in her $463-a-month rental in the contemporary multifamily complex.
A month ago she was paying $350 for a dilapidated one-bedroom Pico-Union unit -- a water heater was in the kitchen -- that she shared with her two children and her husband, an apparel industry worker.
Thirty miles south, in the shadow of Disneyland, a group of children splashed in a swimming pool while a handful of students hunkered down in the computer room of Hermosa Village. The rehabilitated, 293-unit affordable-housing development resembles a resort and gleams in the former Jeffrey-Lynne neighborhood of Anaheim, where three years ago families wouldn’t venture out after dark.
Thanks to federal and state housing tax credits, renewed political will and the perseverance of nonprofit developers, more innovative low-income housing developments now dot the five-county region of Southern California. Not only are these buildings changing the landscape of once-blighted neighborhoods, they also are enriching the lives of many of the low-wage earners who take advantage of on-site child care services, job training and English classes.
“It’s a miracle,” said Nieto, whose family competed with 1,100 applicants for one of the 47 units at Cesar Chavez Gardens, which has a stately 100-year-old Moreton Bay fig tree at the building’s entrance. “We actually got one!”
Her surprise is understandable. Affordable housing is in woefully short supply in the region. As of 2000, the last year for which data are available, the city of Los Angeles was 60,481 units short of meeting the area’s overall housing needs, according to the Southern California Assn. of Governments’ Regional Housing Needs Assessment.
In fiscal year 2002-03, Los Angeles spent $43.16 per person on building affordable housing, while New York spent $74.88 per person, the most of any major U.S. city, according to the Southern California Assn. of Non-Profit Housing.
*
As rents soar, so does need
“The need for low-income housing is more urgent than ever before,” said Tony Salazar, president of the West Coast office of McCormack Baron Salazar, a real estate development firm that specializes in redeveloping urban neighborhoods. “The rapid appreciation of real estate, the price of land going up and skyrocketing rents have converged to push low-income people down further.”
As a result, competition is keen when new units become available. Eligibility is based on a family’s need and the area’s median income, which varies depending on a development’s location. Rents fall within 30% of a household’s income, the affordability standard recommended for all renters and homeowners.
Generally the housing is targeted toward the working poor who may not qualify for government-subsidized housing or who simply cannot afford decent market-rate rentals.
Applicants typically are skilled laborers who earn 60% of the median area income, or $33,840 for a family of four in Los Angeles County and $45,360 in Orange County. About 30% of Los Angeles’ populace earns between $20,000 and $34,999 a year.
“Everything starts with housing,” said Bill Harris, executive director of Hollywood Community Housing Corp., a nonprofit development company that has built 440 affordable units, including the Carlton Court Apartments in the Hollywood area. “In the Old West, they’d make camp, then look for food and water. It’s the same today; you have to have decent housing before you can grow and gain self-confidence.”
*
Reversing stereotypes
Over the years, affordable housing assumed some ugly stereotypes that have been hard to shake: barracks-style federal housing projects with unkempt grounds and spiraling crime. The stigma, whether deserved or not, is so pervasive that even Americans who believe housing is a right feel less than hospitable at the mention of low-income developments, say affordable-housing advocates.
In an attempt to turn that image around, low-income housing developers focus today on the concept that good design makes good neighbors, resulting in projects that are indistinguishable from market-rate residences.
They typically are well-designed, multistory buildings on gated, landscaped properties with individual unit entrances, subterranean parking, picnic areas, state-of-the-art playgrounds protected within courtyards, on-site laundry facilities and after-school programs for resident and neighborhood kids.
Hope Village Apartments, at Hope and 11th streets in downtown Los Angeles, is a tricolored, 66-unit complex that would look at home in any neighborhood, with separate townhome-style entrances, wrought-iron gates, balconies and architecturally interesting windows. The complex has a day-care facility, children’s play area, indoor recreation area and counseling space.
The 100-unit Casa Heiwa in the Little Tokyo area of downtown Los Angeles boasts an intricate ceramic tile mosaic on the archway leading into the building and provides a family literacy program, parenting classes and job training, among a variety of other social services.
“Most complexes have [services],” said Dean Matsubayashi, project manager of Little Tokyo Service Center Community Development Corp., a partner, with Chinatown Service Center, in Cesar Chavez Gardens. “We want to encourage a higher degree of economic self-sufficiency among our residents.”
Francisco Ceja, a 13-year resident of Hermosa Village, agrees. “The social programs have helped people focus on different directions for their lives,” he said. “They’re growing and getting better jobs.”
The transformative powers of these housing developments extend beyond the buildings’ exteriors to the lives of residents and the quality of neighborhoods. Owners of affordable-housing complexes report that crime is low, incidences of graffiti in and around the developments are rare and nearby residents often start sprucing up their own homes or buildings.
Before the $50-million rehabilitation of Hermosa Village, residents -- most of whom work in service jobs that support Anaheim’s tourism industry -- lived in 432 cramped, substandard one-bedroom units that cost about $650 a month. Now they occupy one- to four-bedroom units that rent from $548 to $1,174 a month, said Gloria Chavez, spokeswoman for the nonprofit Southern California Housing Development Corp. in Rancho Cucamonga, which has created 4,300 units of affordable housing in Southern California.
*
Services for children
Developments such as the New Harbor Vista Apartments in Wilmington provide a safe haven for families. On a recent sunny afternoon at the 132-unit affordable-housing development, nine toddlers enjoyed a snack and playtime in the on-site Comprehensive Child Development New Harbor Vista center, while outside, a group of older kids laughed as they splashed one another with hoses at a fund-raising carwash. Three hundred children and their parents live at the development.
Before the nonprofit Los Angeles Community Design Center rehabilitated it three years ago, the complex was a crime-ridden site with only 50 of the 180 units occupied. Today the gated complex features cheerful yellow buildings with orange trim, the sides of which are covered with vines. Palm trees surround the complex, and a tiled common patio with barbecue grills occupies a spot where a carport used to be.
Matilde Gonzalez, who used to share a rundown two-bedroom apartment nearby with her two sons and her husband, Jose, a restaurant employee, watched contentedly as 8-year-old Gustavo did his homework on the stoop of her neat two-bedroom apartment, while her mother, Maria Martin, sat in a chair knitting, catching a breeze from the open door.
“It’s much, much better here now,” said Gabriel Chea, 39. The student is an 18-year resident of the development who, along with his 34-year-old wife, Paulina, a nurse, and 8-year-old daughter, Gabriella, was relocated during the building rehabilitation and now rents a two-bedroom unit there for $522. “This new development has helped the whole neighborhood. Kids who live near here come over and play safely. They don’t want to leave.”
*
Improvements bring jobs
Neighborhood improvements do not go unnoticed by for-profit developers.
The affordable projects appear to be spurring private investment in older buildings and bringing commercial interests, which in turn help to bring jobs nearby.
“When we redevelop land, people see that we’re investing in their community and adding value to their houses,” said Jeff Lee, a Marina del Rey for-profit developer who builds for-sale units that can sell for up to $1.5 million. His company, the Lee Group, just completed the Village at Willowbrook near Watts, a 34-home development of low-income houses for sale from $185,000 to $205,000. The homes are reserved for those earning 80% to 120% of the area median income.
“Developers and planning officials who study housing issues say attention has to be paid to infill projects ... around employment, transportation, schools,” said Stuart Gabriel, director of USC Lusk Center for Real Estate. “Increasingly this is the wave of the future.”
With innovation in mind, some affordable housing, such as the award-winning Casa Verde in Hollywood, are designed for “green” sustainability, while others, such as the Metro Hollywood apartments and commercial complex going up at the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Western Avenue, are constructed above rail hubs, creating “transit villages.”
Successes such as Hermosa Village and New Harbor Vista are what keep developers in the profitable, but always challenging, business of building affordable housing.
“It’s really rewarding at the end of the day,” said Ashley Wright, director of project development for Southern California Housing Development Corp. “I’m a lot grayer and a lot balder, but it’s worthwhile.”
*
(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)
How L.A. measures up
Despite a great need for low-income housing in Southern California, Los Angeles spends less per person on affordable-housing production than other major U.S. and California cities.
*--* City Expenditure Population Cost per Person San Jose $93.5 million 918,000 $101.87 New York $599.7 million 8.0 million $74.88 San Diego $87.1 million 1.3 million $69.40 Chicago $167.7 million 2.9 million $57.89 Los Angeles $159.5 million 3.7 million $43.16 Phoenix $40.3 million 1.3 million $30.52
*--*
Source: Southern California Assn. of Non-Profit Housing
