Source ::\u00a0USC Daily Trojan,<\/em>\u00a0By Laura Ybarra USC alumnus Sonny Astani ‘s $1.5 million donation to the Skid Row Housing Trust will enable the completion of a downtown apartment complex that will house 115 of Los Angeles’ mentally ill homeless.<\/p>\n The donation will allow Abbey Apartments, located at 625 S. San Pedro St. , to open in 2008. The apartments will provide on-site social, medical and mental services, said Mike Alvidrez, executive director of the Skid Row Housing Trust.<\/p>\n “We provide supportive housing services integrated with property management that is geared to the needs of the residents,” Alvidrez said.<\/p>\n The trust was founded in 1989 by community business leaders and activists who were committed to preserving affordable single-occupancy housing in downtown.<\/p>\n Since 1990, the organization has developed or restored 19 hotel properties that have provided affordable housing for about 1,200 people.<\/p>\n “Sonny wanted to provide something to the city that would have a lasting benefit. It is good for all of downtown,” Alvidrez said.<\/p>\n Astani, who is a Los Angeles downtown developer, said it felt natural to help the homeless with housing development.<\/p>\n “I believe when you provide housing, you provide it for everyone \u2026 the homeless \u2026 or the affluent,” he said. “Downtown is for everyone. Everyone has to have housing.”<\/p>\n Ever since Astani was a graduate student at USC during the 1970s, he said he has been aware of the city’s homeless population.<\/p>\n “We live in a country where federal and state funding for public housing is dried up for various reasons,” Astani said. ” L.A. has become the de facto capital of the homeless. It’s a shame.”<\/p>\n Today, Los Angeles County has a homeless population estimated at 88,000.<\/p>\n When Astani learned the $26 million apartment complex was over budget, he offered to donate the $1.5 million needed for completion, he said.<\/p>\n “My goal was to identify an organization that was providing a long-term solution,” Astani said. “After talking to them for about 10 minutes, it was clear they knew what they were doing. They are helping the ones who really need help.”<\/p>\n Astani earned a master’s degree in industrial and systems engineering in 1978. He has worked in Southern California real estate for more than 25 years.<\/p>\n He is the chairman of Astani Enterprises Inc., which is headquartered in Beverly Hills .<\/p>\n With three major projects underway, his company is developing some 2,000 condominiums valued at $1 billion throughout downtown, Hollywood and Koreatown.<\/p>\n Astani serves on the boards of the USC Viterbi School of Engineering and USC’s Lusk Center for Real Estate Development.<\/p>\n Last year, Astani was awarded the inaugural Distinguished Alumnus Award by the Viterbi School ‘s Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering.<\/p>\n Astani said he would like to see the Los Angeles business community help Skid Row’s homeless population.<\/p>\n “(Homelessness) is a problem, and we should all help,” he said. “People have to instigate something.”<\/p>\n Councilwoman Jan Perry said in a statement, “This is the kind of public-private partnership we need if we are going to solve the problem of homelessness.”<\/p>\n \u00a9 Copyright 2006 Daily Trojan<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Funding Allows Project To Provide Medical Services To Homeless Beginning 2008. Source ::\u00a0USC Daily Trojan,\u00a0By Laura Ybarra Date :: Nov 9, 2006 USC alumnus Sonny Astani ‘s $1.5 million donation to the Skid Row Housing Trust will enable the completion of a downtown apartment complex that will house 115 of Los Angeles’ mentally ill […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/astanienterprises.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/astanienterprises.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/astanienterprises.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/astanienterprises.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/astanienterprises.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=553"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/astanienterprises.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":554,"href":"https:\/\/astanienterprises.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553\/revisions\/554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/astanienterprises.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/astanienterprises.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/astanienterprises.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nDate :: Nov 9, 2006<\/p>\n