Nestled within the working-class neighborhood of Solar Valley stands a brilliant purple and white four-story dice constructing, which dramatically contrasts with the dated beige and grey condo blocks surrounding it.
The Solar King Flats presents stability for once-homeless households resembling Anica Rubang and Angel Leon, who’ve struggled to remain housed for years. What made them eligible for this house was their energetic 3-year-old daughter, Religion Leon, who attends the Pacoima Early Schooling Heart just a few miles away.
When Many Mansions, an reasonably priced housing nonprofit, bought the half-acre parcel reverse what was previously Solar Valley Excessive College in 2017, the Los Angeles Unified College District approached it with a proposal to develop the land into housing for homeless households with kids within the district.
After practically seven years of overcoming bureaucratic and pandemic hurdles, the venture is completed. Households started shifting into the 26-unit residential constructing in December.
Rubang’s household of three was among the many first to maneuver in on Day One. This was the primary time any of them had a spot to name house.
“We have been very scared however excited,” Rubang stated. “It was the primary house our child has truly ever needed to herself.”
Rubang and Leon first met in a shelter in Bakersfield in 2022, every battling homelessness for years. Rubang, 21, left house when she turned 18, a choice brought on by an emotionally demanding house life. And Leon, 25, has been homeless for the reason that age of 16.
The companions took an opportunity making the 103-mile trek to Burbank earlier within the yr after Leon obtained a job on the Burbank Airport. However not realizing anybody within the San Fernando Valley remoted them, and their pay was not sufficient to afford the excessive prices of a long-term condo lease.
Whereas in Burbank, the couple obtained an emergency housing voucher from the Division of Public Social Providers. In September, they found the Solar King advanced by means of the district, receiving help from Many Mansions and the Housing Authority of the Metropolis of Los Angeles, or HACLA, for the paperwork course of.
“The transition was positively tough as a result of if you come right here with no sources, and when it’s solely you and your loved ones, it’s actually laborious to get a step up,” Rubang stated.
This effort marked LAUSD’s first collaboration with Many Mansions and HACLA, targeted solely on serving to homeless college students and their households.
Many Mansions obtained venture funding from the state, together with town’s HHH funding program — the proposition that gives funds for the event of supportive housing for homeless people and households all through town.
Initially estimated to price about $15.5 million, the ultimate whole for the venture reached $21 million, about $807,000 per unit.
LAUSD and the county’s Coordinated Entry System for homeless companies recognized households who self-identified as experiencing homelessness and would meet the factors primarily based on family revenue and dimension. These households have been then referred to LA Household Housing for an in depth eligibility evaluation earlier than being positioned in residences.
HACLA supplied tenants with project-based Part 8 vouchers, with residents paying not more than 30% of the space’s median revenue.
“As a part of their strategic plan, LAUSD wished to advertise housing stability,” stated Rick Schroeder, president and chief government of Many Mansions. “That may be a large want for the children’ success at school and of their lives.”
Almost 15,000 college students within the district are experiencing homelessness, in response to the LAUSD. Nonetheless, this determine is probably going an undercount for the reason that information depends on self-identification, which many college students and households select to not disclose.
Schroeder famous that the Solar King Flats homes 47 school-aged kids, with most households being single-parent households.
“Homelessness impacts kids if you’re dwelling with two or three different households, in a small cramped house, the place there may be crime and it’s soiled,” Schroeder stated. “With households which can be homeless is the place you actually see the injury that homelessness has brought about.”
In 2022, L.A. Metropolis Council District 6, house to Solar Valley, ranked third highest in homeless counts for households with at the very least one baby youthful than 18 and one grownup over 18 in L.A. Information from the Los Angeles Homeless Providers Authority recorded 361 such households within the district.
A Solar Valley native and the district’s council member, Imelda Padilla, underscored the importance of sources resembling Solar King Flats in addressing homelessness, notably with households in her space.
“This must be profitable as a result of we want to have the ability to level to it and say, ‘It is a mannequin that must be replicated,’” Padilla stated.
The indicators of a neighborhood setting tailor-made to households and kids are evident: a communal room organized for an upcoming after-school program with computer systems and a cooking station, a number of outside leisure areas, a laundry room, an on-site case supervisor and a deliberate house for a library.
Since settling in, Rubang described a way of neighborhood on the advanced, the place older kids befriended Religion and neighbors drop off meals at their home. She calls it a “fixed cycle of giving again to one another.”
Religion’s mom famous a big change in her daughter’s happiness since adjusting to the brand new condo. Religion eagerly begins every day by opening the blinds and welcoming daylight into the condo.
Anica Rubang has enjoyable together with her daughter, Religion Leon, 3, in a standard space at Solar King Flats on April 10, 2024, in Solar Valley.
(Dania Maxwell / Los Angeles Occasions)
“The most important factor for us is we’re beginning to actually develop as mother and father and develop with our baby primarily as a result of there may be stability,” she stated.
Each mother and father are at present employed, with Leon working for safety firm Allied Common and Rubang being an authorized nursing assistant.
“Stability was actually missing within the family due to the fixed fears and components going by means of your head,” Rubang stated. “It’s positively turn into a burden off our shoulders not having to fret about the place we’re going to sleep.”
