National CORE has received a $1.3 million grant from CalOptima Health to help complete its Santa Angelina senior affordable living community in Placentia, one of several developments created in partnership with the Episcopal Church to address the region’s housing crisis.
Effective Dec. 1, the funding is part of $52.3 million in community grants from CalOptima Health to address homelessness for its insured members in Orange County. This funding, coupled with $21 million in grants approved in March by the Board of Directors, brings CalOptima Health’s 2023 capital investments in housing to $73.3 million.
Santa Angelina, which will open in early 2024, will provide 65 apartment homes to seniors ages 62 or better who earn less than 60% of the area median income. Twenty-one homes are reserved as permanent supportive housing for seniors who have experienced homelessness or who are at risk of becoming unhoused. Services will be coordinated by the Hope through Housing Foundation, National CORE’s nonprofit partner.
“We are incredibly grateful to CalOptima for supporting our Santa Angelina community, which provides critically needed housing for one of the fastest growing segments of our community – seniors in serious financial need, including those facing homelessness,” said Greg Bradbard, National CORE vice president for external affairs and Hope through Housing president.
CalOptima Health’s grants are earned through participation in California’s Housing and Homelessness Incentive Program (HHIP), which allows the agency to fund affordable and permanent supportive housing. HHIP aims to prevent and address housing insecurity for Medi-Cal members by ensuring those experiencing homelessness have a clear path into housing and can access the services needed to remain housed.
HHIP is aligned with California Advancing and Innovating Medi-Cal (CalAIM), an initiative that is transforming Medi-Cal into a more equitable, coordinated and person-centered program that maximizes members’ health and life experience.
“This grant for National CORE will deliver life-changing housing for seniors and expand housing resources for Orange County overall,” said Michael Hunn, CEO of CalOptima Health. “Simply put, housing is health. Stable housing is the very foundation for accessing medical and behavioral health services.”
The limited availability of suitable land for affordable housing development has been a significant barrier to addressing the housing crisis. National CORE’s church partnerships, which find new uses for underutilized properties, are one way of countering this challenge.
National CORE is working with Episcopal Church on a 66-home senior community in Buena Park and recently completed Legacy Square, a 93-home family community developed in partnership with the Santa Ana Methodist Church.
The developer also just opened Mountain View Apartments, a 71-home affordable housing development in Lake Forest. National CORE operates seven additional affordable communities across Orange County and is constructing an 86-apartment community in Anaheim.
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