Santa Monica Homeless Apartment Complex Offers Hope - Los Angeles Times Page 1 of 2

Santa Monica homeless apartment complex offers hope - Los Angeles Times Page 1 of 2

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News/Opinion California | Local National World Business Sports Washington Science Environment Opinion Genaro Molina, Los Angeles Times Most Viewed Most E-mailed Step Up on Fifith in Santa Monica. 1. GM to shutter Pontiac, cut dealers and plants Arts/Entertainment The new Step Up on Fifth apartment complex is a beacon of hope for the city's 2. Critical mess Entertainment homeless, offering its tenants a 'protective internal environment.' 3. A return to Salt Lake wouldn't be great for Lakers The Guide 4. Italian liner repels pirates Company Town By Barbara Thornburg April 25, 2009 Arts & Culture 5. Deepening woes for the Imperial Valley Calendar 6. Beatrice Arthur: A towering comedic talent from For eight years, Craig Blasingame dined out of dumpsters and called the bushes at another era The Envelope Rose and Centinela avenues home. 7. Swine flu raises travel concerns in Europe TV Listings 8. Swine flu prompts U.S. emergency Movie Showtimes "Everyone says to look for the light at the end of the tunnel -- but I couldn't even find the tunnel," the 52-year-old says with direct eyes the turquoise of a Caribbean bay. 9. Brad Keselowski crashes victory lane Making up the Murphy bed in his new studio apartment in Santa Monica, he adds Living 10. California counties cut healthcare to illegal matter-of-factly, "I haven't had a bed to make for eight years." immigrants Travel

Health For the last two months, Blasingame has called Autos Step Up on Fifth home. The modern five-story Home & Garden building, designed by Pugh & Scarpa Architects, is a beacon to the tenants lucky enough to land Food one of the 46 units. To qualify, residents must be ADVERTISEMENT Image homeless and have a chronic mental illness. Books Apartments were filled on a first-come, first-serve Brand X basis, says Tod Lipka, president and chief Magazine executive of the nonprofit Step Up on Second, who oversaw the $18-million public-private Data Desk Photos: L.A. housing housing project with Dora Gallo, chief executive of Video that helps the... affordable housing developer A Community of Photography Friends. Obituaries In 2002, Lipka began actively looking for sites Crosswords/Sudoku ADS BY GOOGLE to build permanent supportive housing, Your Scene eventually deciding on a parking lot

sandwiched between an auto body shop and a Blogs Find Cheap Apartments Now Salvation Army senior housing center on 5th Columnists Affordable Apartments by Location, Street (hence, Step Up on Fifth). Print Edition Price and Size. Start Saving Today. Readers Rep www.Move.com/BudgetRentals The mandate to the architects: "We wanted a Corrections protective internal environment," Lipka says, Jacksonville FL Apartment All Sections "and we wanted to incorporate the mission of Free Rent Move-In Specials Two our program -- to create a sense of community and connectedness -- into the building, while Buy, Sell & More Great Southside Commutities myapartmentinformation.com still being a part of the larger community." Jobs Cars Fill Your Apartments To that end, project architect Angela Brooks Real Estate Target renters in the neighborhood spearheaded Pugh & Scarpa's design, which called for a large, open courtyard with a Foreclosure Sale We send direct mail to complexes. prominent stairwell that could be a gathering Rentals www.MARKOTSDirect.com spot for residents. A perforated wall on the Personals southern side filters natural sunlight, creating a Local Values play of light and shadow throughout the day.

http://www.latimes.com/features/home/la-hm-stepup25-2009apr25,0,4257591.story 4/27/2009 Santa Monica homeless apartment complex offers hope - Los Angeles Times Page 2 of 2

Coupons Full kitchens on the second and third floors provide communal cooking and community

Newspaper Ads rooms for residents that encourage mingling, and sliding pocket doors create a seamless connection to the adjacent courtyard.

Place an Ad Corridors are bright. Stucco walls are painted a light, dove gray "to bounce light off the In the Newspaper court into the surrounding studio apartments," Brooks says. Online But it is the building's lively facade, with shutters in soft desert hues of yellow, sage Settings/Services and lilac, that is most welcoming. The anodized aluminum panels offer privacy and a feeling of security, while connecting residents to views of the busy urban streetscape. Sign In Register "It's the front of their house essentially," Brooks says. "We wanted to create a building E-Mail Newsletters they could be proud of coming home to." RSS Feeds Residents enter each studio from a shared, open balcony, which helps to make the Help apartments as light-filled and airy as possible. Inside, the studios are small -- 220 to Contact Us 345 square feet. L.A. Times Archives Reprint Requests Each contains a mini-kitchen, a 30-inch table with a pair of chairs, and a closet with a Work for Us drop-down bed that can double as a sofa. A 7-by-8-foot wheelchair accessible bathroom seems large by comparison. Home Delivery Blasingame doesn't mind the tight quarters. Customer Support Subscribe "It's my very own place," he says, pointing out his first purchase, a new TV with a yellow happy-face tchotchke on top. "I'm making new friends and new memories," says Blasingame, who has a job two days a week at the local farmers market. "I can finally see that light at the end of the tunnel everyone talks about."

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http://www.latimes.com/features/home/la-hm-stepup25-2009apr25,0,4257591.story 4/27/2009