Complaint: Santa Ana Arts Collective's Affordable Housing Comes With Price of Living in Fear
Lisa Warmuth thought she found an ideal community of likeminded creatives when moving into the Santa Ana Arts Collective apartments a year ago. The silverpoint artist sold her lakefront home in northern Minnesota and looked forward to a new lease on life.
The five-story bank building along 17th and Main streets transformed into a highly touted 58-unit affordable housing complex intended to be a live-work haven for low-income artists. Meta Housing, the Los Angeles-based developer behind SAAC, even received Innovative Development honors at the Affordable Housing Awards in September.
But instead of inspiration or innovation, Warmuth found dread at her doorstep after regular run-ins with several nonresident drug users who seemingly had easy access to the premises.
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