How services and amenities could play a life-changing role in affordable housing

It’s a simple fact many take for granted: Where you live can influence the smallest details of life. For affordable housing developments, adding amenities and services like a community center, recreation center, communal garden, reading rooms, and co-working spaces could drastically enhance the quality of life for residents, improving chances at long-term success and economic mobility.

Sunnydale co-developers Mercy Housing California and Related California are aiming to do more than provide housing, but strengthen community, too.

“It’s not just about the brick and mortar of rebuilding homes. It’s about how we create comfortable, vibrant communities,” said Ashlei Hurst, Mercy Housing’s vice president of community life, who is overseeing the revitalization of Sunnydale. “Our focus is on belonging. Do you feel like you belong here and can thrive here?”

At Sunnydale, many of these services are housed at The Hub, a 30,000-square-foot community center. It’s where residents and even neighbors who aren’t Sunnydale residents eat free meals and drink coffee, practice yoga, play board games, or enjoy amenities like a recording studio and library. Across the street, a new resource center offers counseling and supportive services.

For Lewis and his family, the new Wu Yee Children’s Services early learning center in the nearby Hub means his son, a toddler, has a place to be active during the day.

“The Hub is a really nice place to have a whole lot of activities here for people to do and everything,” he said.

The Hub is more than a community center for residents who’ve lived at Sunnydale for decades without many amenities. It’s become something for them to rally around.

“This is the heart of the neighborhood,” Hurst said. “People from all over San Francisco come to The Hub right now.”

To make The Hub and Sunnydale’s lengthy list of resources not only possible but sustainable, the development team turned to philanthropic partners in addition to traditional funding sources like city and state funds. “This work began more than a decade before construction started,” said Tiffany Bohee, president of Mercy Housing California.”

In a neighborhood long underserved, The Hub represents lasting change made possible through investments by Mercy Housing California and a coalition of philanthropic partners who believe in Sunnydale’s future.”

It will be another win if others can look to Visitacion Valley as an example of how a neighborhood can be rebuilt in a way that honors residents, new and old.

“I would like [Sunnydale’s revitalization] to be replicated,” Hurst said. “If we’ve figured out some of the pieces and also share lessons learned, I think it would be helpful for the next generation of people who are trying to do this in their neighborhoods.”

Emerging building by building are Mercy Housing’s colorful four-story apartments with affordable homes. Even the original street grid is getting a modern overhaul.

Key to the developers’ resident-centered “housing-first” model is not displacing residents who choose to stay, Hurst said, a principle baked into the project as part of the HOPE SF initiative. So, as new homes become available, Sunnydale residents — including many who’ve lived there for decades — move in.

Plus, once completed, the project will add room for hundreds more families, with roughly 1,000 affordable units and potential for 600–700 market-rate apartments with a development partner.