Santa Ana Veterans Village will provide affordable housing and other services for homeless military veterans
A long-empty asphalt lot that last housed a service station will be transformed into Orange County’s largest complex dedicated to providing a home to those who served their country in the military.
With 75 permanent supportive housing units exclusively for ex-service members, Santa Ana Veterans Village on west First Street near Harbor Boulevard was hailed at a ceremonial groundbreaking on Monday, Jan. 7, as a big step toward a goal of ending homelessness among the county’s military veterans.
“This is a place of coming home, where stories can be told and people band together,” said U.S. District Court Judge David O. Carter, a decorated Vietnam War veteran and the judge in an ongoing civil rights lawsuit that has spurred a flurry of action to address homelessness.
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Carter joined several guest speakers in the crowd of about 200 people assembled inside a huge tent on the 1.5-acre lot, where construction of the $29 million, two-story Spanish Revival-style apartment complex is scheduled to begin Jan. 14 and take about a year. It is financed with tax credits, loans and government funding.
Judge Carter wore a Purple Heart received when he served in the U.S. Marine Corps – something he rarely does in public.
“It’s not only housing,” Carter said of the veterans village concept, “it’s recuperation.”
Military veterans are estimated to make up 12 percent of the county’s homeless population, based on the county’s 2017 Point In Time homeless census. That count put the number of homeless veterans without shelter close to 400. A new census, in need of volunteers, takes place later this month.
Other smaller housing projects in Orange County have included units earmarked for homeless military veterans – including the Potter’s Lane project in Midway City built from shipping containers and a 50-unit veterans village in Placentia that began construction in November.
Santa Ana Veterans Village is a project of Jamboree Housing Corp., an affordable housing developer that built Orange County’s first permanent supportive housing nearly 10 years ago in Anaheim and has dozens of other housing communities around California.
The site of the veterans village, next door to the Vietnamese-Buddhist Congregation Association’s temple, was most recently used to park trucks.
“It was just waiting to be developed,” said Laura Archuleta, president of Jamboree, before the groundbreaking ceremony got underway.
All of the units at Santa Ana Veterans Village will be subsidized by Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing (VASH) vouchers, valued at $1,580 for one-bedroom apartments and $1,994 for two bedrooms. The average resident is expected to pay about $270 in rent.
Beyond affordability, the complex will feature a variety of on-site “wrap-around” services that define permanent supportive housing and help tenants rebuild their lives after struggling with homelessness and other issues. A dog run and spa also are planned.
Step Up, an organization experienced in working with people who have serious mental health issues and those who have been chronically homeless, will oversee operation of Santa Ana Veterans Village. Step Up operates about 650 permanent supportive housing developments around Southern California.
Jamboree also is partnering with several other service providers: the VA Long Beach Healthcare System for mental health counseling and wellness services; Goodwill of Orange County’s Tierney Center for employment services; Veterans Legal Institute for pro bono legal assistance; Strength in Support for individual and family therapy, mentoring and on-site workshops.
“Veterans need extra special help and there’s no reason why we can’t provide that,” said Peter Katz, who lives in the vicinity of Santa Ana Veterans Village and is president of Com-Link, an association of representatives from 64 of the city’s neighborhoods.
Katz, 71, also is a Vietnam War veteran and experienced homelessness years ago when he spent about a year sleeping in his car.
“Once they get the veterans services up and running, yeah, I’ll come over and see what they have to offer,” Katz said.
The services to be located at Veterans Village also will be available to any veteran in the general community, something that Orange County First District Supervisor Andrew Do hopes will encourage more veterans to seek assistance when needed.
“Sometimes it can be hard to navigate through the system that we have,” Do told the crowd.
Robert Torres, an Army veteran who says he was homeless off and on for about five years, sat at a table by himself to listen to the speeches. Torres, 50, grew up in Anaheim and spent three years in the Army, discharged in 1990. He became homeless after losing a steady job in retail during the Great Recession.
Torres got help that included two years of subsidized housing through Volunteers of America. Now he is employed by the organization, screening veterans in need of assistance and securing donations of clothing, hygiene products and other necessities.
Torres can now afford the rent for his Fullerton apartment on his own. He believes there should be no problem attracting homeless veterans to Santa Ana Veterans Village.
They might be wary at first, he said, but once they see that it is legitimate, “They’ll come in a heartbeat. They’re looking for someplace to live.”