INGLEWOOD, Calif. — Brigitte Grim was living in Section 8 housing in Inglewood when she saw a new building being constructed on a blighted lot down the street. Now she lives in what that property has been transformed into — a 42-unit affordable housing complex for seniors, U.S. veterans and families known as Beach Terrace.
“This is the best place I ever had,” she said.
Grim, 62, moved into Beach Terrace in January when it opened. She’s especially fond of her one-bedroom apartment’s walk-in closet and a bathroom wide enough to accommodate her walker.
“Everything is nice. The people is nice. I love it.”
It’s easy to understand why. Each unit in the four-story building includes a full kitchen, air conditioning and window blinds. The building itself is also designed to create a sense of community with a TV lounge, fitness center, laundry room and landscaped outdoor spaces for playing and sharing meals, as well as monthly resident parties, coffee socials, movie nights and bingo.
“This lot was always so crummy,” Inglewood Mayor James T. Butts said at a Beach Terrace open house Tuesday. “It was not a good place, and to come and see 42 units of affordable housing upgrading this neighborhood, it warms my heart.”
In the works for six years, Beach Terrace is the latest in a long string of affordable housing developments Thomas Safran & Associates has helped create in Inglewood. The first building project of company namesake Thomas Safran was on Eucalyptus Avenue in the early 1970s, when he used a portion of his retirement account from the short time he worked at the U.S. Housing and Urban Development Department to create a 93-unit Section 8 housing project known as Eucalyptus Park.
“Thomas Safran & Associates has been such a partner to the city as we try to maintain affordability for our residents,” Butts said of the property developer who has built seven projects in Inglewood. Since the building of SoFi Stadium, the South LA city has seen rapid gentrification that’s driven up rents and made affordable housing more imperative.
All but 10 of the units at Beach Terrace are rented to tenants for 30% of their adjusted income. For Tyra Bufford, who moved into the building with her five children earlier this year, her new apartment has been a lifeline.
“We moved from a drug-infested area. My kids, they’ve seen a lot, and living here, it shows them a better way of life,” Bufford said.
When her husband died three years ago, “the financial burden has been a lot to where I felt like I was drowning most of the time,” she said. “Now me and my children are able to breathe. I don’t have to worry financially if I’m going to have the rent or am I going to pay the car note and not the rent?”