Veteran Enriched Neighborhoods

Affordable housing and homelessness

County of Los Angeles (select only if your project has a countywide benefit)

Expand existing project, program, or initiative (expanding and continuing ongoing, successful work)

LA County is in the midst of a severe housing crisis, with a shortage of around 500,000 affordable units pushing many residents toward homelessness. Recent challenges—including natural disasters, the end of renter protections, inflation, rising insurance costs, and stricter building codes—have made recovery and rebuilding even more difficult.
Low-income veterans and military families are especially at risk. While LA has made strides in reducing veteran homelessness, it still has the nation’s highest number of homeless veterans. Barriers like complex eligibility requirements and long wait times often delay housing access, leading to process fatigue, distrust, and dropout.
If the lack of affordable housing and support for low-income veterans and military families continues unaddressed, LA will face escalating social and economic challenges. Persistent homelessness can strain public resources and most urgent to the efforts of LA2050, diminish progress in all 12 issue areas.

This grant will help expand and replicate our proven Veteran Enriched Neighborhood® program, an innovative model which builds affordable homeownership communities for low-income military families embedded with comprehensive wraparound services. We are currently building our fifth of these communities, all in LA. This program has directly addressed the urgent need for affordable housing for low-income veterans and military families by combining housing with comprehensive wraparound services that promote long-term stability and upward mobility.
Recognizing that veterans often face compounded barriers such as disability, trauma, and economic hardship, affordable housing by itself is not enough to create long-term economic and health success. Our replication initiative will focus on embedding our proven services such as financial literacy, trauma-informed care, employment and leadership training, and post-purchase support into other affordable housing developments. By targeting partnerships with builders, government agencies, and service providers, we can expand impact and access to funding.
Our program is scalable, sustainable, and economically beneficial for LA. Over time, the model becomes self-sustaining through licensing and consulting fees funded by rents, home sales, grants, and tax credits. The ripple effects—revitalized neighborhoods, increased property tax revenue, reduced reliance on public assistance, and stronger community ties—will benefit the County as a whole.

If successful, in 2050, LA will be the same but better. The same in its rich cultural diversity, its natural beauty, its economic vitality, and as a global hub of innovation and creativity; better in that it will be more equitable, resilient, safe, and community-driven.
Veteran homelessness will no longer be a chronic crisis but a rare and brief occurrence. Veteran Enriched Neighborhoods® will continue to provide affordable housing integrated with services, economic support, and pathways to homeownership. Our communities will be thriving, mixed-income neighborhoods where veterans, their families, and other low-income residents live with dignity, stability, and opportunity.
Underserved areas will be transformed through targeted investment, creating vibrant hubs of local employment, education, and civic engagement. Families who once lived in precarious conditions will be homeowners contributing to a stronger economy, less burdened by homelessness, mental health crises, and instability.