ST. TERESA HOUSING PROJECT NEARLY HALF-WAY DONE
When complete in 2022, it will provide homes for about 500 people BY GARY WARTH
Standing on the fourth f loor of the St. Teresa of Calcutta Villa project under construction in downtown San Diego’s East Village, Deacon Jim Vargas can see the need for the building by looking just across the street.
In the shadow of what one day will be a 14-story building, at least a dozen homeless people were huddled in tents or leaning against a graffiti-covered wall on Commercial Street, where they would spend the spend the night.
Someday, he said, this building may provide a home for them.
“To see our vision to start taking shape makes me more and more excited for that ribbon cutting in February (2022), when I know all that day we’ll be able to take 550 people off the street,” said Vargas, president and CEO of Father Joe’s Village. “This is a vision coming true.”
The groundbreaking was held
last January at 14th and Commercial streets adjacent to the Father Joe’s Villages campus. Construction crews worked on the foundation for months before the building began to take shape.
“There were some challenges going in,” said Jamie Beyer, senior project manager for Level 10 Con
struction at the site. “Every day is a step forward. Now we’re going vertical, and it will go very quickly.”
St. Teresa of Calcutta Villa will have 407 residential units, rooms for case workers to meet with clients on each f loor, a fitness center, terraces on the eighth and 11th f loors and a large courtyard patio on the second f loor. Its entrance will be on 14th Street. “We want to build that sense of community,” Vargas said. “We want people to feel this is their home.”
Just a few blocks east of Petco Park, the project is beginning to be a noticeable site in the East Village landscape. A towering red crane sits in what will be the courtyard of the U-shaped building. The towers to the north and west will be 14 f loors and made of concrete while the five-story tower to the south is wood-framed.
Wearing a face mask, hard hat and other safety gear, Vargas toured the interior of the site for the first time last month.
“This was my vision, back in 2015,” he said about his first year at the helm of the service provider. “In 2016, we got together as an organization to decide what we needed to do to take people off the street.”
Vargas said the nonprofit has provided shelter and other services for homeless people for 70 years, but the organization recognized more should be done to create permanent, affordable housing. The Turning the Key initiative set a goal of creating 2,000 affordable units.
The first step came earlier this year with the opening of Benson’s Place, an 82-unit apartment building in the South Bay neighborhood of Nestor that was created from a converted E-Z 8 Motel. Other projects are on the horizon.
St. Teresa of Calcutta Villa is the nonprofit’s most ambitious housing project. Vargas said he worked for years on financing for the $145 million project, which was helped by a $10 million donation from philanthropist and Caster Group founder Terrence Caster. Caster and his wife, Barbara, also
founded Serving Hands International, which built an orphanage and shelter for homeless people in Tijuana and worked with Mother Teresa by supporting her Mexico ministry.
Vargas said rent from tenants in St. Teresa of Calcutta Villa will cover the financing, so no fundraising will be required in the future. Beyer said the 115-person crew soon will increase to 150 as framing and more concrete work begins. Most rooms will be 335 square feet, and framing for walls already are in place on lower floors.
While work on the project will continue through the new year, Father Joe’s Villages also is expanding its staffing in anticipation for a greater need in the community as the pandemic
and shutdowns continue. The nonprofit recently announced openings for 100 positions, including residential services, administrative and kitchen assistance, security and health care. A list of positions is online at my.neighbor.org/jobs-career/.
“We’re looking for people who have a passion for working with our population,” Vargas said.
Father Joe’s already has expanded its meal services to feed more people in needy during the pandemic, and Vargas said he is concerned about that need growing if government assistance ends and people begin facing evictions.