OB’s Renovated Abbott Street Apartments About to Open for Formerly Homeless

The newly-renovated apartments on Abbott Street in Ocean Beach are about to open. And 13 formerly homeless people will be moving in very soon.

Dubbed “The Shores at North Beach” the low-income housing project is a $6 million dollar remodel paid for with local, state and federal tax money, including California’s Project Homekey. (See Fox5 San Diego report by Dan Plante.)

In just an amazing few months, Wakeland Properties have renovated the units, from the floors to the ceilings.

In May of 2023, the Rag reported:

At their May 12 meeting, the San Diego Housing Commission unanimously agreed to apply for state funds to help purchase a vacant apartment building at 2147 Abbott Street in Ocean Beach and the Ramada Inn in the Midway District  to provide permanent housing for homeless people.

The Commissioners voted to apply for up to $5 million to help purchase the apartment building which would create 13 units. The vote was an agreement to submit a joint application for $5 million in Project Homekey money with the nonprofit Wakeland Housing and Development Corp.

Vacant since January 2022, the property — if bought — would provide 13 units for people who had experienced chronic homelessness and whose income is up to 30 percent of the area median income, which is $27,350 a year for a one-person household.

The Abbott Street property has a history with the Housing Commission, as U-T reporter Gary Warth found. The Housing Commission, he reported:

… in 1997 restricted 14 units to be affordable for households with an income at or below 80 percent of the city’s area median income. It later allowed 10 units to be transitional housing for survivors of domestic violence.

The financing would be as follows, Warth reported:

The Housing Commission would provide a $1.5 million loan and 13 federal project-based housing vouchers for residents of the apartment, and Wakeland would raise money for its purchase and rehabilitation. The county also would provide a $1.5 million loan.

The acquisition cost is $4.5 million, or $347,000 a unit, but rehabilitation expenses would increase the cost to $6.8 million, bringing the per-unit cost to $525,000

Then, just this past March the Rag reported:

Check out this report from 10News:

The San Diego City Council has approved an agreement to build an affordable-housing project featuring support services in the Ocean Beach neighborhood, and construction is expected to begin next month. The agreement approved Tuesday, March 19, calls for the city and the San Diego Housing Commission to collaborate on developing the $6.8 million Abbott Street Affordable Housing Project and have it open next year, officials said.

Both entities will spend $1.46 million in federal American Rescue Plan Act money, along with $3.9 million from the state of California’s Homekey program, which focuses on building affordable housing with supportive services for people experiencing homelessness.

The Abbott Street project will involve the city acquiring and turning a vacant multifamily property into 13 affordable rental housing units for people now living on the street or are at risk of homelessness, the city said. Construction is expected to begin in late April.

According to city officials, Homekey “provides an opportunity to bring much-needed housing online faster and cheaper than traditional new- construction affordable housing, and is responsible for the addition of more than 600 affordable homes in San Diego for people experiencing homelessness.”

Christina Bibler, the city’s Economic Development Department director, said she was proud of the city’s ability “to swiftly deploy this federal funding to meet housing needs of San Diegans.”

“The city’s investment in the Abbott Street project continues to highlight the importance of leverage and collaboration of local partners to enable production of permanent housing for vulnerable populations and those at risk or experiencing homelessness,” Bibler said. 10News