Jamboree Breaks Ground on Affordable OC Project

Santa Ana Veterans Village

Jamboree Housing Corp. has begun work on Santa Ana Veterans Village, a 75-unit affordable housing project in Santa Ana, Calif. The permanent supportive housing development will cater to formerly homeless veterans earning no more than 30 percent of the area’s median income. Jamboree’s Quality Design and Construction Inc. is the general contractor of the project, Architecture Design Collaborative is the architect, and The John Stewart Co. will provide property management services

Located at 3312 W. First St. between Harbor Boulevard and Fairview Avenue, Santa Ana Veterans Village will be less than three blocks from bus service line 64 and less than 1 mile from Cesar Chavez Campesino Park and a shopping center. The property will be built on a 1.5-acre former parking lot, as part of the City of Santa Ana’s Harbor Mixed Use Transit Corridor Plan.

Total development costs have been valued at $29.7 million, with the U-shaped three-story building encompassing one- and two-bedroom apartments. Plans also call for a 10,000-square-foot courtyard and a 4,500-square-foot community center. Other amenities of the project include a barbecue area, sports court, pet spa, and fitness center.

The development was designed to achieve LEED Gold certification and to comply with Americans With Disabilities Act requirements. All units are set to have Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing vouchers with values of $1,580 for a one-bedroom and $1,994 for a two-bedroom unit. Residents will pay a portion of the rent, based on income.

Complex financing

Nine entities financially contributed to this project. Among them, Union Bank provided $12.9 million tax credit equity, a $23 million construction loan, and a $9.9 million permanent loan. Santa Ana Veterans Village also received $1.5 million from The Orange County Community Foundation and $2.9 million from the Orange County Housing & Community Services/ California Housing Finance Agency.

According to a 2017 survey of Orange County’s homeless population, 12 percent of the homeless were veterans. The county adopted a plan to fund construction of 2,700 supportive housing units over the next three to five years and Jamboree’s Santa Ana Veterans Village is the first project of this countywide plan.

Santa Ana Veterans Village is the nonprofit developer’s first dedicated property for veterans and, upon completion, will be Orange County’s largest housing development exclusively for veterans. In 2017, in a collaboration with West Sacramento Housing Development Corp. and the City of West Sacramento, Jamboree completed the $29.8 million West Gateway Place, one of the first transit-oriented, workforce housing developments in California to receive the state’s cap-and-trade funding.

Image courtesy of Jamboree Housing Corp.