On October 14, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Marcia Fudge paid a visit to Oakland’s Fruitvale Transit Village, including award-winning Casa Arabella, the 94-unit affordable and supportive housing project that opened in 2019. The visit was part of an area tour of solutions for the nation’s housing crisis, which has hit California, and Oakland, especially hard.
"Every person should have a place like this," Fudge noted after touring the project. The secretary was accompanied by project developer partners Andy Madeira of East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation (EBALDC) and Chris Iglesias of The Unity Council, U.S. Representative Barbara Lee, Mayor Libby Schaaf, Council Member Noel Gallo, Alameda County Supervisor Wilma Chan, members of East Bay Housing Organizations, and others.
The path to developing acres of Fruitvale Station surface parking into a mixed-use transit-oriented community has taken decades, but has yielded a national precedent in the production of community-serving housing. PYATOK worked with EBALDC, The Unity Council, and the Fruitvale neighborhood to deliver a culturally-sensitive, family-oriented, and veteran-serving affordable community at Casa Arabella; the project has gone on to receive an Urban Land Institute Americas Award of Excellence.
"We intentionally prioritized a visit to Casa Arabella because it sits at the intersection of mass transit, affordable housing, and community development," notes HUD Deputy Regional Administrator Wayne Sauseda in an EBALDC press release. "This project was co-developed by two Oakland non-profit organizations that reflect the cultural and ethnic identities of the surrounding neighborhoods. For decades, EBALDC and The Unity Council have demonstrated a successful track record of bringing together local, regional, state and federal partners to achieve large-scale, equitable developments."
The visit also served to highlight the importance of funding affordable housing development through federal infrastructure legislation – a key component to putting an end to the housing and homelessness crisis.
