Care Campus Oakland Receives Real Estate Deal Of The Year Award
By Carl M. Dameron
Lao Family Community Development (LFCD) will receive a “Real Estate Deal of the Year” award for the purchase of its CARE Campus, a 285-room, former Motel 6 property, located on 3.2 acres in Oakland. The San Francisco Business Times, which sponsors the annual award program, describes the winning projects as the boldest and most creative real estate deals done in the Bay Area in 2022.
LFCD converted its CARE Campus into one of the largest interim permanent housing pilot programs in the region serving Alameda County’s homeless AB109 Re-entry and City of Oakland’s homeless encampment adults. Participants voluntarily commit to graduating into marketplace permanent housing and full-time jobs in 6 months or less. The campus has 24-hour site access control, a visitor center, food service, onsite laundry, a community health clinic, cognitive behavior therapy-substance abuse-mental health service, a City of Oakland America’s Job Center of California employment, and computer lab, an independent high school diploma and career education program for adults, a second chance banking, individual development savings accounts, and budgeting program, and more. It is staffed with a multi-disciplinary team of onsite housing navigators, case managers, public benefits counselors, career coaches, alumnus, and others delivering intensive one-on-one service and group support activities.
LFCD was formed as a non-profit 501(c)(3) in 1980. Today the organization serves individuals from 40 nationalities, delivers service in 35 languages, and impacts the lives of nearly 35,000 annually in Alameda, Contra Costa, and Sacramento counties. LFCD is headquartered in Oakland. The organization has four decades of history with a track record of realizing LFCD’s mission, which is to advance the financial and social well-being of diverse communities through culturally informed employment, housing, education, and supportive services. LFCD and its employment and community services programs are accredited through CARF International, an independent, nonprofit accrediting body.
The LFCD delivers effective, cost-efficient, and concrete core program outcomes such as permanent housing, full-time jobs, increased earn income and health and well-being, enrollment and matriculation from high school, career, and post-secondary education programs, etc., funded by over 60 contracts in both the public and private sectors. LFCD’s proven holistic approach is team-based and client-centered recognizing the many facets of needs clients have. LFCD concentrates on five core service areas: 1) adult education and vocational training, 2) youth education, leadership, and employment, 3) financial coaching and asset development, 4) work support and health access, and 5) affordable housing and home ownership development.
LFCD’s CEO, Kathy Chao Rothberg, says the organization’s success, over time, has been accomplished through a carefully designed Integrated Service Delivery Model, which is tailored to timely address the needs of special populations that comprise the underserved and hardest to reach in the S. F. Bay Area and Sacramento region.
The awards ceremony was held Thursday, March 30th, at the Westin St. Francis Hotel, when 30 award recipients were honored.
