Mayor Eric Garcetti announced Monday that $50 million in private funding is available to help developers build or maintain affordable housing units in Los Angeles.
Garcetti said the $50 million added to the New Generation Fund was leveraged using $10 million the city put into its own affordable housing fund.
“The public and private sectors must work together to preserve and expand affordable housing,” Garcetti said. “The New Generation Fund is an excellent example of how the city can leverage limited resources to pursue these goals. The new retrofit features are especially important to Los Angeles, and should help us move more quickly on preservation.”
The $50 million — contributed by Citi, Wells Fargo, Metropolitan Life, JPMorgan Chase and Deutsche Bank — will be offered as loans to help developers with “pre-development” and acquisition costs.
Jeff Schaffer, vice president of Enterprise Community Partners Inc., which manages the New Generation Fund, said “early-stage funding is critical in the development of affordable housing, especially in a high-cost city like Los Angeles with great market pressures.”
The New Generation Fund, established in 2008, has so far offered $69 million leading to the creation and preservation of 1,355 affordable units, including apartments at the Rosslyn Hotel, which houses 264 formerly homeless people, the 120-unit Metro@Hollywood and the 77-unit Riverwalk in Reseda.
— Wire reports