The article was published on www.sandiegouniontribune.com last November 9, 2015. For the online version, click HERE.
Bosa Development is announcing Tuesday that it will donate 64 homes to a poor area of Manila in the Philippines.
The roughly $5,000 cost per home or $320,000 in total, will come from sales at the company’s Pacific Gate condo tower under construction in downtown San Diego. The program is a partnership with the Canadian-based World Housing charity, which in turn has partnered with a Filipino nonprofit, Gawad Kalinga, whose U.S. headquarters is in Poway.
The announcement is coming at Tuesday’s 6 p.m. free public lecture on worldwide housing needs at Bosa’s ReThink Downtown exhibition at 700 First Ave.
“Through World Housing, we hope to set a new norm in residential development and inspire buyers, who will be the driving force in building this community,” said Nat Bosa, president of Bosa Development, in a statement.
The Tuesday event will feature a panel that includes Luis Oquinena, executive director of Gawad Kalinga (which translates as “give care”); World Housing founder Peter Dupuis; and Erin Spiewak, CEO of Monarch School for homeless children, which Bosa has supported financially.
The homes, intended to replace informal dwellings built in or near trash heaps, are described as two-story, 260-square-foot wood and concrete structures. They are erected in groups of 32 units and share such amenities as a health-care building, a daycare center and shared recreational and education facilities.
“With the sellout of Pacific Gate, 300 people currently living in a slum will move into a home with a roof over their head and a door that locks,” Dupuis said in a statement.
Gawad Kalinga, founded in 2003, has set a goal of eliminating poverty for 5 million Filipino families by 2024. So far it has helped about 60,000 in 2,000 communities in all parts of the country, according to its website.
Pacific Gate is a 41-story, 317-unit project under construction at the southeast corner of Broadway and Pacific Highway. Prices have not yet been announced but are expected to start at around $1 million each.
World Housing spokeswoman Melissa Orozco said this will be the organization’s second housing effort since it was founded in 2013 by executives of a luxury-housing market company, also based in Vancouver, Canada. The first was 360 homes in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, as a partnership between Vancouver developer Westbank and the Cambodia Children’s Fund.
Orozco said the developer-housing concept was modeled after Toms Shoes’ program to donate one pair of shoes for every pair sold. She said San Diego or Tijuana housing needs were not selected as participants since World Housing decided to focus on the poorest communities around the world where housing programs are generally absent.
“We have quite an extensive vetting process before we partner with organizations and make sure they are providing the full service of care, not just building a home in a remote area and not knowing who is going to get into the homes,” she said.
Developers also are selected based on their other philanthropic efforts in cities where they operate. Besides Monarch School, Bosa has supported the Cortez Hill Family Center, a downtown transitional housing facility, and San Diego State University’s downtown art gallery in Bosa’s Electra condo tower.
Orozco said World Housing has only four full-time employees but hopes to expand its efforts and interest present and future developers into future contributions.
“If it’s a model they are feeling good about and seeing the community is supportive, it’s a no brainer they’ll to it again,” she said, although there have been no additional commitments.