From HUD Multifamily Housing’s Office of Recapitalization’s RADBlast! Newsletter:
Jordan Downs, located in the Watts neighborhood of southern Los Angeles, California, was built in the 1940s as housing for war workers during World War II. In the early 1950s, Jordan Downs became public housing under the management of the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles (HACLA). While it provides an essential lifeline in a city with rapidly rising rental costs, the property was in dire need of modernization. In addition, it was isolated, with its site in both a food desert as well as lacking transit access to economic opportunities for its residents.
Following years of resident and community engagement, HACLA deployed the Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) and other tools to reinvest in this community, rebuilding all of the existing homes, doubling the affordable housing on site from 700 to approximately 1,400 affordable rental units, adding market-rate units to ensure a mixed-income development, and reshaping the surrounding community. The City of Los Angeles is roughly halfway through implementing a 10-year master plan for the complex, with plans to continue to use RAD through 2027, while also adding nine acres of public park space and a new retail center, including a grocery store, at Century Boulevard and Alameda Street.
Read about how HACLA engaged residents throughout this transformation, how all residents have the opportunity to move into newly built apartments, and residents’ positive reactions as their neighborhood and housing is being revitalized through RAD.