Plans were unveiled, Saturday afternoon, for a future housing development and cultural hub specifically serving immigrants and refugees.
The Refugee and Immigrant Cultural Hub (RICH) was created from the 2020 census. More than 47,000 African, Arab, Middle Eastern, Muslim, and South Asian community members were contacted and counted across the Mid-City area of San Diego.
Uma Mohamed was among them. She came to the U.S. from Somalia with her mother in 1993. Now she’s raising her own children in what she considers an uncertain new world.
“You never know because my kids have a Muslim last name. People confuse them [and] still think they’re immigrants. They're U.S. citizens they [were] born here," Mohamed said.
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The Mohamed family joined a celebration Saturday on the 2.2 acres at the intersection of University Avenue and Chollas Parkway near City Heights.
"There will be a global marketplace with housing stacked up above it," said Brandon Martella with the Roesling Nakamura Terada Architects firm designing the project. The firm has collected community input and unveiled the latest design during Saturday's celebration that will include at least 150 units of affordable housing.
Public and private donations along with gifts from the California Endowment secured $8.5 million to purchase the land. An additional four million dollars is being raised to finish the hub by 2030.
Martella said, "The community has a lot of great big ideas and we make sure they can conform to what can be built, and conform to code and is actually obtainable within reach.”
"The housing crisis and gentrification displacement threatens that…so this is about creating permanent roots in our historic home and reclaiming a sense of belonging right here in San Diego," said Ramla Sahid who is Executive Director of Partnership for the Advancement of New Americans.
