Work has started on the Dolores Huerta Apartments in South Los Angeles, a privately funded supportive housing project that backers say is the first of its kind.
A development team that includes RMG Housing and SDS Capital Group broke ground on the 40-unit complex Friday, according to the Los Angeles Daily News. Huerta, who is 91, gained fame as a leading labor rights advocate and activist starting in the 1960s.
Besides RMG and SDS, the team includes Homeless Health Care Los Angeles and local church organizations.
Backers say the project, constructed with shipping containers at a cost of around $200,000 per unit, will serve as a model for efficiency and design. Few projects funded through the city’s Proposition HHH bond program have been completed, and they have been costly, sometimes totaling $600,000 per unit.
The Dolores Huerta complex is rising on city-owned land at 5215 S. Figueroa Street, but is otherwise funded with $7 million from SDS’s Supportive Housing Fund.
The development group contends private funding allows for quicker construction at a lower cost than a comparable project funded with public dollars. The Dolores Herta complex has a fairly short six-month development timeline.
SDS said in February it had raised $106 million to build 1,800 units of supportive housing citywide.
[LADN] — Dennis Lynch