A company that
provides affordable housing for people with special needs is looking to
Moreno Valley for its first development of independent living homes.
The city's Planning Commission agreed this month to sell 1.57 acres
at the northeast corner of Atwood Avenue and New Street to
Redlands-based California Housing Foundation. The private nonprofit
organization plans to build bungalows comprising 15 units.
California Housing Foundation owns 18 group homes for the disabled
in Riverside and San Bernardino counties, said Executive Director Steve
von Rajcs.
Unlike its
predecessors, the Moreno Valley development will be a multifamily
project where those with milder disabilities can live more
independently. Seven of the duplex units will lodge low-income seniors,
so both groups can mingle together, von Rajcs said.
"We see this as our showcase that we hope to duplicate," he said.
Of the 18 homes the agency already owns, it built 10, bought six and received two as donations, von Rajcs said.
The California Housing Foundation leases each house to a care
provider selected by the Inland Regional Center, a government-funded
nonprofit organization that coordinates services for people with
disabilities. Rent is covered by tenants' disability checks, the Inland
Regional Center and the state.
The group homes, which top out at five adults, are nestled amid
residential communities in Apple Valley, San Bernardino, Riverside,
Redlands, Hemet, Perris, Norco and Beaumont. The residents typically
have some combination of mental retardation, autism, epilepsy and
cerebral palsy and require constant care.
His agency also gives one-time grants of $5,000 to Inland clients to
help cover rent, utilities and furnishings and has distributed more
than $750,000, he said.
A banker for 27 years and a Moreno Valley resident since 1986, von
Rajcs signed on to the California Housing Foundation four years ago.
Soon after, von Rajcs said, he approached the Moreno Valley Economic Development Agency to scour available properties.
"Every city has a need for this," he said. "The trouble is, affordable housing is not always in the safest or cleanest places."
The site that Moreno Valley has sold to the agency is adjacent to
another low-income housing project for seniors and is near a bus line,
shopping mall, community center and medical offices.
The bungalows' future tenants might be married, have children and
work jobs. The Inland Regional Center will provide their needed support.
Von Rajcs said he hopes to break ground by December so the family homes will be ready by fall 2010.
The developer is Community Homes Inc., a Redlands-based
not-for-profit corporation that has built, sold and managed affordable
Inland housing over the last four decades.
"It's exciting," said Bob Botts, the mayor of Banning, who serves on
Community Homes' board of directors. "Once it gets built, the
California Housing Foundation owns it forever as a nonprofit, so that
developmentally disabled know it won't be sold over and over and will
keep the costs down for them."
The Moreno Valley plan calls for early California mission style,
one- or two-bedroom, single-story duplexes. The units will range from
750 to 950 square feet. The property would be open, with tables, chairs
and grills surrounded by a garden.
"If this works, we can look at other communities," Botts said.
Reach Laurie Lucas at 951-368-9569 or llucas@PE.com
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