Santa Monica : Center Gets $3.2 Million

Ocean Park Community Center has been awarded state and federal grants of $3.2 million for a 55-bed transitional housing project for the homeless.

The agency, which runs a transitional housing program in a church basement, has bought the defunct Casa Descanso retirement home at 1447 16th St., Executive Director Vivian Rothstein said. It will be transformed into quarters for 55 homeless people, who are working toward getting off the street.

Rothstein said the grant was important in that it endows a permanent program to address the needy in Santa Monica. “Gentrification can’t drive us out,” Rothstein said.

The Ocean Park Community Center was one of 103 projects in the nation to receive money for transitional housing from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The HUD grant is for $2.8 million, with the state awarding $447,000.

The facility will have on-site career, financial and psychological counseling, including a program for battered women. Rothstein said the owner of the retirement home property, Steve Ticciolo, assisted in the project by giving the agency a five-year, interest-only, $1.2-million loan. Construction is to begin this spring.