SANTA ANA, CA (October 24, 2019) — WISEPlace, a nonprofit community of housing and hope for women in crisis dating back to 1929, has expanded its current capital campaign in response to significant early donor response, a landmark building partner commitment and increased local need for transitional and permanent housing.
Brateil Aghasi, executive director of WISEPlace, one of Orange County’s first communities devoted specifically to unaccompanied homeless women in transition, announced a $21 million building partnership with Jamboree Housing Corporation (Jamboree) which brings the campaign that much closer towards its $25 million goal.
Irvine, Calif.-based Jamboree is a nonprofit housing development company that develops, acquires, renovates and manages permanently affordable rental and ownership housing throughout California for working families, seniors and people with special needs.
The WISEPlace Embrace Capital Campaign was launched in 2017 as the largest building campaign in WISEPlace’s 90-year history. At the time, it sought $5 million to modernize its aging 1950s facility in Santa Ana to create 30 new permanent supportive housing rooms while maintaining its current 19 transitional housing rooms.
Updating a sold out room of long time supporters, recent contributors and the nonprofit community at the 2019 WISEPlace Annual Gala, Aghasi revealed plans for a visionary renovation project and capital campaign that will allow WISEPlace to capitalize on the Jamboree partnership to become a long-term solution for unaccompanied homeless women in Orange County.
WISEPlace’s expanded vision seeks to raise $3 million to close the funding gap on future permanent housing and provide overhead and other expenses that will better position WISEPlace to address growing homelessness in the county and Southern California, where one in four homeless adults are women. When WISEPlace and Jamboree’s vision is fully realized, it will afford WISEPlace the opportunity to permanently house and end homelessness for 52 unaccompanied homeless women, while still offering the same trusted programs and support for women in need of transitional shelter.
Jamboree and WISEPlace are working together to design and complete an expanded and fully modernized and ADA compliant renovation of WISEPlace’s current 26,030-square-foot facility in Santa Ana. The new facility will include 52-units of fully-furnished permanent apartments, a fully operational kitchen with dining hall, financial empowerment learning labs, dedicated wraparound service areas with private counseling and case management spaces, and a welcoming outdoor area complete with community gardens and space for domestic pets.
“For more than 90 years, WISEPlace has served one of the largest overlooked and underserved segments of our homeless population: unaccompanied women,” explained Laura Archuleta, president and CEO of Jamboree. “This new community will allow us to permanently end homelessness for 52 vulnerable women, furthering both WISEPlace and Jamboree’s mission of transforming lives and communities through high quality, affordable housing. We are thrilled to join this exceptional community organization as we work together to address the unique needs of unaccompanied, homeless women in Orange County.”
“Thanks to our partnership with Jamboree, the time is right to expand our view of what’s possible – especially the role of permanent supportive housing as a solution to end homelessness among vulnerable women.”
According to Aghasi, WISEPlace will use its collaboration with Jamboree as a model for future public/private partnerships committed to creating supportive housing for women in Orange County and beyond. We will plant the seed for future women’s communities committed to protecting single women alone on the street.”
For ways to get involved at WISEPlace, contact eLiz at eLiz@wiseplace.org or at (714) 542-3577 x123.
About WISEPlace: WISEPlace transforms the lives of more than 300 women each year, by providing safe, affordable transitional and emergency shelter, healthy meals, financial-empowerment curriculum and employment assistance, to help women move from homelessness and hopelessness to a path of personal self-reliance. Case managers and counselors provide personalized wraparound services to help each woman overcome hardships that led to unemployment and homelessness.
Since its inception in 1929 as the South County YWCA, WISEPlace has been committed to providing care and concern to women, children and families. The doors of the first facility opened in 1929, and the current facility opened in 1951. In 1987, we opened the Hotel for Women, a 19-room transitional housing shelter for single women. In 1999, the agency disaffiliated from the national YWCA organization to focus on women’s homelessness in the community and became known as WISEPlace. Most recently, in 2018, WISEPlace opened an emergency shelter in their gymnasium to house an additional 60 chronically homeless women. During its history, WISEPlace has transformed the lives of more than 7,800 women. For more information, visit wiseplace.org.
About Jamboree: Founded in 1990, Irvine, CA-headquartered Jamboree Housing Corporation is an award-winning, broad-based nonprofit housing development company that develops, acquires, renovates and manages permanently affordable rental and ownership housing throughout California for working families, seniors and people with special needs. A leading community development organization, Jamboree is committed to sustaining excellence with high quality affordable housing that benefits the environment, the economy and local communities. It currently has $627 million in affordable housing projects in its development pipeline and a portfolio value of $3.2 billion that includes the development of and/or ownership interest in more than 9,000 homes in more than 93 California communities.
Currently, Jamboree offers resident services that foster learning, health and wellness, and community building at 34 Jamboree communities with designated staff at each location. For more information, visit jamboreehousing.com and follow Jamboree on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram at @JamboreeHousing.