IN House - Collaborative Affordable Housing Design

Housing affordability

Rates of homelessness

Resilient communities

Advocate for policy

Trainings and/or in-person engagements

Create new tools or technologies for greater civic/political engagement

Increase participation in political processes

Influence individual behavior

IN House is a collaborative affordable housing design initiative between City Fabrick, affordable housing providers, community partners, and local residents to site, program, and design a collection of 5-7 affordable housing developments in Long Beach and surrounding communities in South Los Angeles County. The intention will be to assist affordable housing developers — seeking to leverage the expansion of resources and legislation, to expand the availability of affordable housing. This will be done while educating and empowering residents to be participate and guide these developments to serve these new residents, as well as those already living in these communities.

Working with students and faculty of California State University Long Beach’s Geography Department, City Fabrick along with affordable housing providers and community partners will map and define optimum areas within South Los Angeles County to consider developing new affordable housing. This will be based on a variety of factors including access to transportation, community amenities and services, funding sources, and availability of developable opportunities. Within these opportunity areas, focus areas will be identified for City Fabrick and community partners to engage.

City Fabrick and community partners will initiate contact with core constituents to determine the landscape of needs and opportunities for affordable housing and community development within these focus areas, determining the most well suited development partner for each area. This can include target populations for housing — like senior living, families, or those with special needs, as well as amenities, services, and assets that can be leveraged to best serve these communities. Residents and community partners will begin to learn about the development process, so they are empowered to constructively participate in defining these and future developments.

City Fabrick will collaborate with these affordable housing developers and community partners in each of these focus area, reaching out to the broader community to further define and refine those needs while collectively identifying opportunities for affordable housing in those communities. This will balance optimum development opportunities with the ability to maximize the future public-private investment for community development. This will also consider the capacity to leverage existing assets and proposed future investments to maximize their collective impact.

A series engaging workshops with residents and community partners will facilitate collaboration for each proposal through conceptual design. This process will continue through until initial submittal to the approving jurisdiction, where the local government will likely lead the design’s refinement for their approval. With the substantial groundwork of participation, the intention will be for community partners and local residents to remain actively engaged along with the design and development team.

IN House will provide a space for affordable housing providers, community partners, and local residents to deliberating collaborate to place, define, and design affordable housing development in their community. The intention is to proactively engage residents to guide the design process so that public-private investment in their community so that it serves those news residents, as well as those already living in the neighborhood.

There is a growing awareness across the region about housing affordability, gentrification and resulting displacement, and homelessness is impacting the makeup and stability of their communities. This is reflected in recent passing of Measure H and Measure HHH to support creating more affordable housing and expanding homeless services, as well as countless legislation at the local and State levels of government to expand housing and affordable housing development.

Yet, the development process is still obstructed by trepidation from communities of all backgrounds and socioeconomic characteristics, for both new affordable and market-rate housing. The intention of IN House, is for City Fabrick, affordable housing developers, community partners, and local residents to collaborate to define how these substantial public-private investments can best serve new and current residents of these neighborhoods.

The most obvious success of IN House will be determined in the medium term, as new affordable housing and mixed-use development that began as part of this initiative are constructed and open to new residents while serving those living in the communities they are located. The goal of this initiative would be for IN House to kick off 5-7 new affordable housing developments across Long Beach and South Los Angeles County. While they will not be completed within the timeframe of this round of LA 2050, the proposals should be clearly articulated, and some of them within their approval stages.

Short term success of IN House will be measured by the quantity and quality of collaboration among the community partners, affordable housing providers, and local residents. This will be quantitatively measured by number of workshops, meetings, and events, along with the number of participants at each of them. The quality of the collaboration will be measured by the regularity of participation, application of the learning, along with the consensus and ownership of the designs that emerge from the process.

Long term attainment of IN House will be evident based on its ability to continue — even grow from the initial LA2050 scope, to become a sustainable enterprise. Ideally, the success will propagate similar initiatives within other communities — without out City Fabrick’s direct participation, instead becoming self-perpetuating.

Within five years that IN House will be a sustainable initiative of City Fabrick, encompassing multiple projects in progress throughout Long Beach and South Los Angeles County. Some of the initial cluster of affordable housing developments will be completed or in the construction phase. Their success will define a new model for how linking affordable housing and community development - designed in a collaborative environment, can lift neighborhoods for the current residents while expanding their capacity to include new neighbors.

City Fabrick is among an emerging field of nonprofit design studios dedicated to improving communities in need, by providing creative and professional services. As an active participant in this space, we will share those lessons learned throughout the process, with those in design as well as other affordable housing developers. This will further extend the reach of the IN House initiative beyond what City Fabrick and our partners can do alone.