SAN DIEGO (CNS) - An apartment building for low-income and formerly homeless seniors in San Ysidro opened Thursday, providing 99 units of affordable housing.
City leaders cut the ribbon Thursday on the Ventana al Sur development, built in collaboration with the San Diego Housing Commission. It features one- and two-bedroom rental apartments in a four-story building -- including 25 for seniors who have previously been homeless. The units will remain affordable for 55 years.
"This project itself is tangible proof of the fact that we are making progress on this key issue of housing affordability and homelessness," San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria said at the ribbon-cutting event. "Affordable housing projects like this one help us to address the rising cost of rent, which we know is pricing too many people in our community.
"It's one of our direct responses to that kind of challenge to make sure that we create a city that is safe, that is stable and is more affordable for all of us."
Ventana al Sur will see its first residents move in next month. The structure was also built by Metropolitan Area Advisory Committee on Anti- Poverty of San Diego County, along with Kingdom Development.
"Having your parent or grandparent be able to be near you as you're raising kids, it's an amazing, amazing thing," Assemblyman David Alvarez said. "That's what this community is about. And that's what this building and this housing is about because the statistics of San Ysidro are that it's an older community. Our older community stays here and lives here and wants to be close to their families, and this gives them that opportunity."
According to a city statement, the rental units will be affordable for seniors with income ranging from 20% of San Diego's Area Median Income -- currently $21,200 per year for a one-person household -- to 50% of AMI -- $53,050 per year for a one-person household.
"What Ventana al Sur is going to do is address not only our population who had been unsheltered, but it's going to give people an opportunity to see that the members of this community deserve better," said San Diego County Board of Supervisors Chair Nora Vargas.
SDHC awarded a $4.4 million loan toward the project, coming from funds it administers from the city's affordable housing fund and the state's Department of Housing and Community Development's Local Housing Trust Fund.
Financing for Ventana al Sur also included $5 million from San Diego's Bridge to Home program and $50.4 million from the state's Multifamily Housing and California Housing Accelerator programs.
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