C O M M U N I T Y
The Right to Return
City of Santa Monica’s pilot program aims to welcome back historically displaced residents By Pat Mellon he City of Santa Monica has initiated a pilot program for low-income and black families (or their descendants) displaced by urban renewal during the construction of the 10 Freeway to welcome them back to the area. Historians and policymakers for the City of Santa Monica have announced that in light of around 800 Pico neighborhood families being forced out by the construction in the early to mid-1950s and 1960s, it is time to right a wrong. The initiative, which is part of the City’s Below Market Housing Program, is dubbed The Right to Return Program, and will provide priority in City-funded housing for up to 100 applicants, some of them descendants of households who were displaced, as stated on the City of Santa Monica website. A permanent exhibit was also previously installed around the City’s new sports field to commemorate Black families who had been displaced and lost their homes. “This pilot provides rents at current Below Market Housing rates,” said Natasha Guest Kingscote, program manager for the City’s Historically Displaced Households Program. “How much applicants pay depends on their income level and household size.” The announcement of the inclusion of the affected groups, approved by The City Council in July 2021, comes as Black History Month nears its end and serves to correct what many believe to be one of the most egregious acts of discrimination to ever affect a socioeconomic group. When the highway was proposed, it was learned that some homes weren’t geographically compliant to the construction’s success and would hinder completion without remedy, or in this case, demolition. A fairly common scenario now, the convenient removal of structure and/or residents for the sake of progress, for which there is almost always a large financial ingredient; the concept was different, if not completely overlooked, in the mid 1960s when hundreds of poor and
IMAGE COURTESY LEROY HAMILTON
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After 10 years, Café Gratitude teamed up with Katie Hodges Design to reimagine the Venice location as a calming, airy environment with minimalistic neutral furniture.
The Right to Return Program aims to welcome back low-income and black families displaced by urban renewal during the construction of the 10 Freeway in the 1950s and 1960s. black families lost their homes in the name of interstate beach access. Most of the families believed they’d be compensated for the inconvenience and given assistance for relocation, but were not. Instead, those families are being offered a place on the waitlist for the City’s Below Market Housing collection of
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low-income hopefuls. “Santa Monica has limited affordable housing and City Council voted to allow [these] families to gain priority on the BMH waitlist,” Kingscote said. “The priority is the same for folks [who] live or work in Santa Monica,” she added, clarifying that the BMH is open for general applicants, not just
these families who lost their homes years ago. “This is a pilot that will take the temperature of the amount of interest in affordable housing for this population, and City Council may consider expanding the program,” Kingscote said. “When it comes to housing, we do realize the demand far outweighs the
supply.” Feb. 21 was the deadline for displaced residents of the Pico neighborhood or Belmar Triangle to apply. For more information, visit the City of Santa Monica’s website. ” City of Santa Monica santamonica.gov
