A National Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI)Flexible Loan Capital Customized to Create Affordable Housing

With partial financing of $7.1 million from Community Housing Capital, Little Tokyo Services Center builds SMV Center in Los Angeles

In 2016, Community Housing Capital (CHC) began working with the Little Tokyo Service Center (LTSC) to build 187 deeply and permanently affordable apartments in Los Angeles, California. Using a $4.6 million draw from its $5.5 million line of credit with CHC, LTSC acquired three adjacent sites. Combined with sites owned by the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA), the project encompasses nearly an entire city block. Rising as a series of 6-story buildings above the Red Line’s Vermont/Santa Monica Station in East Hollywood, the new apartments will be 100% permanently affordable. Apartments will serve extremely low-income residents with earnings at or below 50% of the area median income (AMI), with 85 of the apartments at 30% AMI or below. In 2019, CHC renewed the original land acquisition loan and increased it to $7.1 million to cover a substantial portion of predevelopment costs.

“The Santa Monica Center & Vermont Apartments is one of the most impactful projects that CHC has ever supported,” said Cindy Holler, President and CEO of Community Housing Capital. “The impressive planning combines an innovative transit-oriented location that incorporates the current MTA metro plaza with a new, six-story, mixed-use development. The 187 new apartments will not only be permanently and 100% affordable, but roughly 50% of the units will also be reserved to provide permanent housing for homeless and special needs households.”

While attending the recent Los Angeles NeighborWorks Training Institute (NTI), the first in-person NTI since the beginning of the pandemic, CHC staff had the pleasure of visiting the construction site from behind fencing and the sound of heavy equipment. Visiting the SMV Center construction site with Cindy Holler was CHC’s CFO, Arif Rizvi, CHC’s Senior Loan Officer, Ingrid Avots, and CHC’s Credit Administrator, Odessa Washington. All agreed that it was gratifying to experience LTSC’s impactful vision coming to life.