Stephanie Berger, Kasey Burke, Meta Housing Corp.
Stephanie Berger and Kasey Burke
Vice president and controller; president; at Meta Housing Corporation
In 2019, Los Angeles was experiencing an affordable housing crisis. That July, Reuters reported that the city experienced double-digit growth in the number of homeless people (a 16 percent uptick); it was, according to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, the highest number of people living on the streets in 10 years.
That was last year, when America was in economic growth mode, and before we fell off the economic and public health cliff.
The pandemic has only made a bad situation much, much worse. A report over the summer showed a 30 percent dip in multifamily development in the L.A. metro area, with permitting down 45 percent in the second quarter of this year.
If ever there was a moment for affordable housing, this is it — and Meta Housing Corporation, an affordable developer established by its CEO John Huskey in 1993, is seizing the moment.
The company has some 18 projects under construction or in pre-development, according to its website. These include 130 units of senior housing at Metro @ Buckingham; an 80-unit artists colony (geared toward veterans) in Palmade called Courson Arts Colony-West (and another 81 geared toward low-income families at Courson Arts Colony-East); and 42 units of supportive housing that Meta is working on with LifeSTEPS and the County of Los Angeles Department of Mental Health in East L.A. at Whittier and Downey NW, plus another 71 units at Whittier and Downey SE.
Also under construction is another artist-focused community called the Santa Ana Arts Collective in Orange County, which will deliver 43 affordable units to working artists and their families, as well as provide exhibition space.
Meta President Kasey Burke, who joined in 2002, has developed some 3,800 units of multifamily housing and oversees the company’s tax credit and bond applications. Wading through the byzantine rules about low-income housing tax credits is the company’s vice president and controller, Stephanie Berger.
Since its inception, Meta Housing has built some 6,400 residential units and, in this environment, more can’t come a minute too soon.—M.G.
