Irvine is one of the nation's largest planned urban communities, spanning 65 square miles throughout Orange County in Southern California. The Doria Apartments are an integral part of this community, incorporating state-of-the-art design and providing high-quality workforce housing for 60 families with 10 homes set aside for residents with mental illness, including fully-funded, ongoing supportive services. Its Spanish colonial-style architecture integrates with the surrounding community and the development's rich colors and textures give residential character and warmth while creating a vision of a higher design standard for neighboring market rate, multifamily properties.
CSH has provided ongoing support and extensive technical assistance to Jamboree (owner), John Stuart Company (property manager), the County of Orange (which provided MHSA funding), and several other service providers throughout the county that are involved in the project. From a series of crosswalk meetings when the project broke ground, to regular meetings throughout the lease-up period and several months thereafter, CSH discussed all aspects of quality supportive housing with partners and explored how the Doria project team would operationalize quality supportive housing principles.
In November of last year, Doria Apartments was a finalist in the design category of the 2012 CSH Supportive Housing Quality Awards in California.
As a past grantee in CSH's Assuring Quality Initiative, Jamboree has embraced the need for significant and frequent communication among team members and have also spent a lot of time figuring out how property management addresses the unique needs of supportive housing. CSH commends Jamboree on embracing supportive housing principles, and integrating these principles into their entire housing portfolio.
CSH continues to work with Jamboree and partners as well as the housing authority (providing project based Section 8 vouchers) on Doria II, the second phase of the project which will begin leasing in October of this year.
