The Press-Enterprise
When Leticia Burciaga first opened the door to her apartment, she burst into tears.
"I'm so grateful," she said, crying again at the memory. "Finally, something good."
Burciaga, 34, has lingered long in sorrow's kitchen. Since she and her husband split five years ago, she and her three children were squeezed into a cramped house with her mother and three others.
But since Nov. 3, Burciaga, her daughters, 13, and 12, and son, 5, have been living in comparative luxury at the new Oakwood Apartments in Moreno Valley that just opened for low-income, working families.
Burciaga, who works part-time at a dry cleaner, pays $588 for the three-bedroom apartment.
The gated complex features two pools, barbecues, playgrounds and access to cable television and high-speed internet.
Renters are primarily single parents working in service jobs, not welfare recipients, said Bernard Sandalow, a spokesman for Highridge Costa Housing Partners, which co-developed the project with the Sacramento-based nonprofit Housing Alternatives, Inc.
Despite accusations from the public that occasionally roil council meetings, city officials said they are not giving gang members and others from South Central Los Angeles vouchers to relocate to the 242-unit complex at 15170 Perris Boulevard.
"There is nothing to these rumors," said Barry Foster, Moreno Valley's economic development director.
"The city doesn't have any vouchers. (The federal) HUD has vouchers. It makes no sense that it would hand them to someone who lives in Los Angeles to live in Moreno Valley. There are enough people in the Inland Empire who qualify."
He said that the city has had no problem with residents in its half-dozen affordable housing projects. "These are much-respected mainstream developers who own properties all over the country," he said.
"There are extensive criminal, background and income checks on prospective tenants."
Sandalow said that so far, all but a couple of Oakwood's residents have come from within a 5-mile radius of Moreno Valley.
One of them is Shan'e Wesley, 25, a divorced mother of two young children. "I can see the playground from every window," she said. "I can sit on my patio and watch the children."
She was on a waiting list for 13 months until moving into Oakwood on Nov. 5.
Working at Jack in the Box in San Bernardino helps pay her $512 monthly rent for the two-bedroom apartment.
Under construction since 2007, Oakwood was designed provide quality housing for working families earning 30 to 60 percent of the median income for Riverside County.
Monthly rents at Oakwood start at $390 per month and top out at $1,068, depending on household income -- well below market-rate rents for apartments.
In order to qualify, households must include at least one working adult.
Funding for Oakwood is from several sources, including $19.4 million in federal low income housing tax credits; a $3 million loan from the City of Moreno Valley Redevelopment Agency, to be repaid through money generated by the project; a $12.6 million loan from Citibank and $10 million from the California Department of Housing and Community Development. The total cost of the project was $57.6 million.
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