A huge apartment building in California will give homeless people a brand-new place to live with high-end features like a café, gym, and TV room.
The Los Angeles Times reported that the 19-story tower will have wide views of downtown Los Angeles and the San Gabriel Mountains when it opens this month in the Skid Row neighborhood.
Weingart Center Assn. CEO and President Kevin Murray told the news source, “We’re trying to make our little corner of the world look and feel a little better.”
Murray came up with the idea and started the plan with Chelsea Investment Corp., an affordable housing developer, in 2018. The tower will have the most permanent supportive living units in all of Los Angeles.
The 278-unit building for people who used to be homeless will have a lot of nice features, as well as a floor for property managers and caseworkers. This building has a TV lounge, a gym, an art room, a soundproof music room, a computer room, a courtyard, a TV room, and six big balconies.
One of the kitchens in the house will also serve the shelter next door, which has 600 beds.
This building is one of three tall ones. The other two will be built around the outside of Weingart’s charity work.
There are 228 studio flats and 50 one-bedroom apartments in the first tower. There will be a TV in every room.
Proposition HHH, state housing funds, and $56 million in state tax credits will pay for the project, which is estimated to cost about $165 million. It is planned that each room will cost $600,000.
The idea behind the building is to face inward to protect the renters from the troubled neighborhood.
He told the Times, “Down here, you don’t have to go out into Skid Row to walk your dog.”
A lot of important people in the town have said good things about the new building.
Pete White, who is in charge of the Skid Row advocacy group Los Angeles Community Action Network, said that the project shows what a “stabilized” Skid Row can look like and that the area needs more homes.
“I see the tower as providing a great need, a great housing need in Skid Row and a design that says poor residents are worthy,” he said.
