Dear Editor and Culver City residents:
Did you receive a flyer from Culver City Neighbors United (CCNU) on your doorstep? Did you know that CCNU is a Political Action Committee funded primarily by developer Michael Hackman, a billionaire who owns the Culver Steps downtown and the property leased by Amazon Studios? (https://culvercitycrossroads.com/2025/06/03/dear-editor-are-these-the-people-in-your-neighborhood/)
Lies people are telling you about Jubilo Village
The flyer says the funding is going to a “private developer.” FALSE. Community Corporation of Santa Monica (CCSM) is a non-profit 501(c)(3) developer (https://communitycorp.org/) whose only business is building and managing affordable housing, which they have been doing for more than 40 years. Our city staff have limited experience with affordable housing, because Culver City has financed almost none. The last affordable housing development built in Culver City was Tilden Terrace, which opened in 2013. Part of its funding included $11.8 million from the Culver City Housing Authority’s Low/Moderate Income Housing Fund.
The flyer calls the $20 million a “giveaway,” a “non-refunded loan.” FALSE. Residual receipts loans are a standard component of affordable housing financing, and CCSM has repaid these loans on all their other projects. Also, nearly $8 million of the loan for Jubilo Village is from restricted funds that can ONLY be used for affordable housing.
The flyer says “The city is already $14 million in debt.” FALSE. The city has no long term debt whatsoever. You can verify this on the city’s audited financial statements, available at https://www.culvercity.org/files/assets/public/v/2/documents/finance/finance-dept-page/fy2023-2024-annual-comprehensive-financial-report.pdf. The city does have a structural operating deficit, which is caused primarily by increases in pension obligations, tying police salaries to the Los Angeles Police Department and LA County Sheriff’s Department’s contracts, and claims and judgments, such as the $4.5 million awarded to the family of the mentally ill man shot in the back by Culver City police (https://www.galipolaw.com/winning-record/).
The flyer says we will be “giving up rent vouchers for 20 years.” FALSE. The Section 8 Project Based Vouchers awarded to Jubilo Village were allocated to the Culver City Housing Authority but were UNUSED, in part because it’s so difficult to persuade landlords to accept them. There is NO EFFECT on the households currently using Section 8 vouchers to live in Culver City.
Sadly, the people putting out this information don’t care about facts. Sound familiar? DON’T BE FOOLED BY THEIR MISINFORMATION CAMPAIGN!
Could you afford to move to Culver City today? Can your children afford to live here? The average monthly rent for a 2-bedroom apartment in Culver City in June 2025 is $3,300 (https://www.zillow.com/rental-manager/market-trends/culver-city-ca/?bedrooms=2). Using the 30% of household income defined by state law as “affordable housing cost,” household members would need to make at least $132,000 to afford this rent.
Why is the rent so high? One reason is because building is expensive, especially in California – although the lack of affordable housing has become a national crisis. Landlords need to charge enough rent to cover the cost of land, new construction, building operations, and a return on their investment. Another reason is the acute shortage caused by decades of failure to build housing by communities throughout the state. In the long term, the increased supply of housing being demanded by the state should act to moderate price increases. But in the meantime, market-rate housing is simply too expensive for many people. The only way to create affordable housing is to find funders willing to subsidize it.
The vast majority of affordable housing construction today is financed using the Low Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTC) mechanism. These are granted by the state and federal government to private developers, who then sell them to investors to obtain capital for housing construction.
Another key component of affordable housing finance is the federal Housing & Urban Development (HUD) Section 8 program. Most people think of Section 8 as a tenant-based program in which a low-income person receives a Housing Choice Voucher (usually after years on a waiting list!) that pays the landlord the difference between what the tenant can afford and the allowable rent. However, HUD also permits local Public Housing Agencies to allocate vouchers to a specific housing project. Project Based Vouchers are key to the success of 100% affordable projects, because they guarantee a revenue stream that enables the project to pay off its loans.
Both LIHTC and Section 8 have long had bipartisan support in Congress. Large corporate apartment owners and REITs depend on Section 8 for stable cash flow. As of this writing, the only mention of HUD programs in the “One, Big, Beautiful Bill Act” currently being considered by the U.S. Congress is an increase in the state housing credit ceiling for low-income housing, and rescinding the balance of funding in the “green and resilient retrofit” program for multifamily housing. There has been a significant reduction in the number of HUD employees. That is not the same thing as cutting the funding programs. The major changes contained in the Actl that would impact low income people are reductions in Medicaid and SNAP (food stamps).
Culver City’s record of bad faith toward affordable housing
Culver City has never prioritized production of affordable housing. The California Redevelopment Agencies (RDAs) created in 1945 were supposed to help city governments address “urban blight,” increase affordable housing, and spur economic revitalization. Because cities throughout the state were not building affordable housing, the state legislature in 1976 passed a law requiring RDAs to set aside 20% of their incremental property tax revenues for that purpose. While Culver City was not alone in putting commercial development before housing, it was notable for how little affordable housing it produced. Culver City was singled out as one that spent Low and Moderate Income Housing Fund money on administration while creating little to no housing. An investigation by the LA Times found that between FY 2001 and FY 2008, the Culver City RDA spent $9.2 million of housing funds on planning & administration, $4.3 million on land acquisition, $3.9 million on debt payments, $3.6 million on housing rehabilitation, and $5.7 million on rental subsidies – and built zero units of affordable housing. (https://projects.latimes.com/redevelopment/) During this same period, Santa Monica built 508 affordable units. Furthermore, according to the California Senate Office of Oversight and Outcomes, “In May 2010, when all California redevelopment agencies were required to make payments to help balance the state budget, the Culver City Redevelopment Agency used $11 million from the low- and moderate-income housing fund to fulfill its entire obligation.” (https://sooo.senate.ca.gov/sites/sooo.senate.ca.gov/files/affordable%20housing%20report.pdf) Some of the same people attacking the city’s loan to Jubilo Village were in public office when that decision was made. Those affordable housing funds would be worth more than $20 million in 2025 dollars (https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm). If we had used them to create an Affordable Housing Trust, we would be making the entire residual receipts loan out of those restricted funds. But we didn’t, so a portion of the loan will come from our unrestricted General Fund Reserves.
Culver City needs Jubilo Village Culver City was supposed to develop 77 units of low income affordable housing between 2013 and 2021 (https://www.culvercity.org/files/content/public/v/2/city-hall/city-departments/planning-and-development/advance-planning-division/housing-element/appendixa.pdf). Only 23 rental units were built, 20 at Tilden Terrace (out of 32 total) and 3 at Culver Villas (out of 15) on Irving Place. Four of the 10 houses built by Habitat for Humanity on Globe Ave were restricted for purchase by low income families. In total, Culver City had only 310 units of affordable housing before the opening of Project Homekey in 2023, and fewer than 50 are reserved for low-income, non-elderly residents. Nearly all of the other affordable housing in Culver City is restricted to seniors. Prior to Tilden Terrace, the most recent affordable housing was Culver City Senior Housing (5166 Sepulveda Blvd), built in 1992.
The current Regional Housing Needs Assessment calls for Culver City to provide 1,712 housing units at extremely, very low, and low income levels by 2029. There is a great deal of proposed apartment development, especially in Fox Hills, but the city’s monthly residential and commercial pipeline report (https://www.culvercity.org/News/Residential-Commercial-Development-Pipeline-May-2025) shows only 466 units at these income levels – and that’s assuming Jubilo Village obtains the final piece of financing – the $16 million loan from Culver City – needed to break ground on its 93 units.
We currently have 37 units of interim supportive housing in Project Homekey on Sepulveda and 18 units of transitional shelter for families at Upward Bound House – but there is no permanent affordable housing in Culver City for these residents to move to once they have achieved stability in their lives. The Homekey permanent supportive housing is 100% occupied. Now, when families reach the end of their stay at Upward Bound House, children have to leave their schools and friends, and their parents need to move far away from their jobs to find permanent housing. Being able to help these families was the initial impetus behind Jubilo Village.
During the RDA years, Culver City spurred hundreds of millions of dollars in commercial development using tax increment financing, leading to thousands of new jobs – but it built almost no housing, least of all affordable housing, despite state law requiring it. Unlike Santa
Monica and West Hollywood, the city didn’t set aside funds in an Affordable Housing Trust or retain any property that could be used for affordable housing. In other words, the Culver City Redevelopment Agency made sure you could buy a $20 smoothie at Erewhon, but failed to support affordable housing that could have prevented young families from being priced out of the city.
Why is Community Corp. of Santa Monica asking Culver City for a $16 million loan?
Application for housing tax credits is very competitive. CCSM succeeded in winning $3.1 million in annual federal tax credits for 10 years and $16.7 million in total California state tax credits and authorization to use $39.3 million in tax-exempt California bonds for Jubilo Village.
The state awarded the tax exempt bonds and tax credits based on documentation that the project would receive 93 Project Based Vouchers, as initially approved by the Culver City Housing Authority. However, the Housing Authority subsequently informed CCSM it was able to provide only 50 PBV. The missing 43 vouchers represent approximately $850,000 in annual income over 20 years, or a gap of $16 million in current dollars. Without the full complement of vouchers, CCSM’s lenders require an equivalent amount in cash. Culver City had previously approved a $4 million residual receipts loan from the Low/Moderate Income Housing Trust in 2022.
The Jubilo Village development is completely designed and shovel-ready, with all required city approvals in hand. It is being value-engineered to assure that the construction contingency is sufficient to cover the increased costs associated with the recent wildfire losses. The loan from Culver City will enable CCSM to close its construction financing and break ground.
Affordable housing gives more people the opportunity to live and raise their families in a safe, culturally rich community with access to all the resources Culver City offers. It enables our community to remain diverse in terms of both ethnicity and socioeconomic status, which in turn teaches our children about different cultures and helps develop their skills as members of an increasingly diverse society. It enables people to live closer to their jobs, reducing vehicle miles traveled and thus carbon emissions.
Culver City needs and deserves Jubilo Village.
Sincerely,
Jeanne T. Black, PhD, MBA