Community Corporation of Santa Monica posted a video to its website earlier this morning to celebrate its 40th Anniversary. Founded in 1982, the non-profit affordable housing developer has built or restored more than 100 properties throughout Santa Monica, creating nearly 1,900 affordable homes. The video shows “everything we stand for in 13 minutes” says Community Corporation announcing the video.
In recent years, community corporation has started building housing outside of Santa Monica in neighboring West Los Angeles communities such as Mar Vista.
For the most part, Community Corp enjoys the support of Santa Monica residents and the city’s political structure. As of 2019, roughly 5% of Santa Monica’s residents live in Community Corp housing. Even so, the waiting list to be housed in Community Corp properties (5,000 people) was larger than the total amount of residents in Community Corp properties (4,000 people). According to a recent homeless count, roughly 1,000 people are experiencing homelessness in Santa Monica.
“There’s a big spectrum in how to address homelessness and affordable housing is absolutely part of that,” explains Tara Barauskas, the executive director of Community Corp. “Some people may not make the connection, but most do.”
For more on how Community Corporation builds and operates, check out this article profiling the agency published in Streetsblog in June of 2019.
