AAOC Partners With United to End Homelessness

David Cordero

The Apartment Association of Orange County has partnered with United to End Homelessness. The partnership has established Welcome Home OC, which will work together to look for solutions to the growing homeless population in Orange County. Through the program, apartment owners will rent housing to formerly homeless individuals and families holding vouchers and receiving supportive services. Those supportive services include case management, budgeting, problem-solving, tenant education and more.

“Almost two years ago, Orange County United Way approached the Apartment Association of Orange County about participating in a new initiative that would bring together Orange County’s top business, philanthropic, governmental, faith-based and non-profit leaders, to bolster the creation of permanent supportive housing and help put an end to the homelessness crisis in our own back yard,” David Cordero, executive director of the Apartment Association of Orange County, tells GlobeSt.com. “A major part of this initiative would involve placing individuals and families experiencing homelessness, with a housing voucher in hands, into market rate apartments and providing them with wrap around support services, to assist them in successfully transitioning from living in a homeless shelter or on the streets, to a safe, secure residence where they could begin getting their lives back on track. This effort is what would eventually become the Welcome Home OC program.”