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The Stockton City Council approved a $396,000 loan Tuesday to a partnership between Mutual Housing California and the Asian Pacific Self Development and Residential Association to renovate the 208-unit Park Village Apartments, a center of activism and resolve in the city’s Cambodian community for more than 40 years.
With the city’s federal HOME Investment Partnerships Program loan in hand, Mutual Housing and APSARA will now seek to obtain the bulk of the Park Village rehabilitation funding through the state’s Affordable Housing and Sustainability Communities program. Administered by the state’s Department of Housing and Community Development, the AHSC program allocates greenhouse gas reduction funds through an account established to receive Cap-and-Trade Program auction proceeds. The renovation of Park Village, in Stockton’s Oak Park area, will include the installation of significant bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure.
“We are thrilled that the city is supporting us in this partnership with APSARA,” said Holly Wunder Stiles, the director of housing development at Mutual Housing. “APSARA has long served as an important Cambodian community resource, and we can’t think of a better partner to work with in creating and maintaining a resident-based affordable housing community for people whose struggle to survive has been legendary.”
Park Village, home to more than 500 residents, has long been a residential focal point in Stockton’s Cambodian community of more than 10,000 people. The neighborhood was an initial point of entry into the United States for refugees who fled the Cambodian genocide in the 1970s, and residents of Park Village and the surrounding community suffered more death and tragedy during the 1989 Cleveland Elementary School shooting in which five students were killed and 32 injured.
APSARA, formed in the aftermath of the schoolyard shooting, eventually acquired the Park Village Apartments from the federal government. Over the decades, it has led community organizing efforts to increase civic participation among its residents, diminish gang activity and establish educational programs such as Head Start, as well as to serve as a cultural touchstone for the Cambodian community
“I’m really excited and thankful to the City Council,” said Sovanna Koeurt, founder and executive director of APSARA. “With this funding, we can leverage other funding from the state. And it will be put to good use. It’s been 28 years since we bought Park Village and now it is at the age where the whole property needs to be fixed. We have to replace the roof. We also need to replace the second-story walkways and the stairs. The sewage system needs to be fixed, too, for the health and safety of the residents. We don’t want Park Village to be what it was like before – very deteriorated.”
Mutual Housing, known for the extensive community development, educational and organizational programs it provides for its residents, combined forces with APSARA last year to apply for the loan from the city, in a partnership under which they will jointly own and manage Park Village. It would be Mutual Housing’s first community outside Sacramento and Yolo counties.
Park Village is home to low-income families that live on 60 percent or less of the area median income.
“Preservation of affordable housing units is an important strategic component that ensures continued growth of the City’s affordable housing stock,” said Carrie Wright, the city of Stockton’s economic development director. “The Mutual Housing and APSARA rehabilitation of Park Village Apartments is an excellent example of a project that achieves our collective objective of providing and maintaining quality, affordable housing for our community members. APSARA has been an active partner by providing such housing at Park Village Apartments for decades, and we look forward to this continued partnership.”
APSARA program manager Hengsothea Ung illustrates the planned new bicycle paths to serve the community members health and transit needs.