LOS ANGELES, Nov. 16, 2016  —  The Los Angeles City Council selected the Actors Fund and Thomas Safran & Associates as the development team for the Hollywood Arts Collective, with YPI as the lead community-based partner. The new $35 million development will provide mixed-income affordable and market-rate housing with a preference for artists and space for nonprofit arts organizations, and is reinvigorating the landscape for local nonprofit arts organizations to support Hollywood as an accessible arts entertainment district.

Neighborhood Transformation

Choice Neighborhoods is a signature White House Neighborhood Revitalization program directed by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. This planning grant partners with publically-assisted housing located in Hollywood to develop a transformation plan for a sustainable, diverse, and affordable neighborhood for the community. This grant was awarded in late 2013. The final neighborhood transformation plan will be completed in November 2015.

Locally Driven Strategies

The Choice Neighborhoods Planning Grant embodies the essence of the power of locally driven strategies to comprehensively address pressing neighborhood issues around distressed public or HUD assisted housing. Various stakeholders from targeted housing and the surrounding community will obtain a better understanding of the issues confronting their community through a robust engagement process. Understanding how to overcome barriers to programs and services access that can help empower the community to create more equitable developmental, commercial, recreational, physical, and social services for their neighborhood.

Three Goals

The Choice Neighborhoods Initiative Grant focuses on three distinct goals:

1. Housing:  Transform distressed public and assisted housing into mixed-income housing and maintain or increase the current affordable housing stock over the long-term.
   
   
2. People:  Support and encourage positive outcomes for residents within housing developments and the surrounding neighborhood.  Increase outcomes as related to health, safety, employment, multi-modal transportation, and education.
   
   
3. Neighborhood:  Support and encourage the transformation of underserved neighborhoods into sustainable mixed-income, vibrant communities with access to well-functioning services, high quality schools, and employment opportunities, transportation, among other assets.

For more information, contact:

Vanessa Esparza
Director of Community & Family Support
[email protected]