Daylight San Diego
Source: Wayback CDX index
The 2.2-acre property on University Avenue will become housing, health clinics, child care, a hub for small businesses and more.
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Refugees in San Diego have long struggled with displacement due to the region’s high housing costs. In neighborhoods like City Heights — once the primary hub for refugee resettlement — gentrification not only drives many out of homes, but threatens their cultural hubs, including religious and community spaces, immigrant- and refugee-owned businesses, and service providers serving those communities.
The Partnership for the Advancement of New Americans hopes to steward a solution hand-in-hand with immigrant and refugee communities with its Global Village project. The organization acquired 2.2 acres of property on University Avenue that it plans to develop into “The Global Village: The Refugee and Immigrant Cultural Hub.”
PANA purchased the land with $8.58 million in grants from philanthropist MacKenzie Scott, the California Endowment and the state government.
The organization facilitated planning workshops where more than 2,000 community members gave their input on what they needed from a development project and their design preferences. The planning included numerous immigrant and refugee communities in San Diego, including Somali, Afghan, Mexican, Burmese and more.
“We didn't come saying, ‘This is what we're going to do,’” said Rachel Lozano Castro, PANA's director of strategic partnerships and development. “We started from, ‘We have this asset. We are committed to self determination, refugee power, and what do you think we need to do?’ And over several sessions, the community spoke, and that's what we designed from. The community were the master planners, which I just think is really radical and awesome.”
Affordable housing was the number one concern. The project will include more three- and four-bedroom apartments than most multi-unit housing in San Diego in order to serve families. Lozano Castro said they also heard a desire from doctors within the community and plan to provide a culturally-responsive clinic. They also heard things like a women’s gym, and some unmet religious and cultural needs, like a mortuary, that they are still working on figuring out if and how they can incorporate them into the plan.
Lozano Castro said that community members expressed the need for a place to unpack years of trauma and inability to rest, while feeling safe and like they belong.
The project will also include some office space for nonprofit service providers, a community hall for gatherings and events, as well as a hub for small immigrant- and refugee-owned businesses in a space called The Global Marketplace.
The first business anchoring the Global Marketplace is Doh Doh Coffee, opened by Karen refugees.
Together with its communities, there are already details throughout the property where PANA is making clear how it values diverse perspectives. It has kept sections of the street art and tagging that existed on the property, and even found one of the artists to collaborate with. The building where Doh Doh Coffee now sits used to be a liquor store, and its long fridge space now houses art.
PANA has already hosted around 180 events on the property since acquiring the keys last year.
The property is adjacent to where the city plans to build Chollas Triangle Park, a much-desired green space in the area that the Global Village plans take into account. Both the park and the Global Village are projected to be finished in 2030. There are also plans in the works for a bike lane and a bus-rapid transit line on University Avenue, so the property will be accessible via public transportation.
But perhaps one of the most unique qualities of the Global Village is PANA’s dedication to co-ownership with the community. It’s still exploring different options on how this will look, but the goal is that community members will be able to invest in the property in a type of land trust.
“PANA is taking on a lot of the risk — and this is a big missional thing for us — but we're committed to the co-governance of this,” said Lozano Castro. “So we have over a dozen other organizations that are part of the co-governance, the Advisory Council.”
Nao Kabashima, the executive director of the Karen Organization which serves refugees from Burma, sits on the Global Village’s Advisory Council. The organization also has applied for grants to help turn the community hall and the Global Marketplace into cultural hubs for her community. Previously, people from her community had to find parks or go to other neighborhoods to be able to have their cultural celebrations and gatherings that sometimes weren’t accessible by public transit, and the Global Village property has already provided them a central, safe location for many of these events.
The organization was started in San Diego in 2009, but years ago, they began losing office and community gathering space to development in City Heights. Kabashima said giving her community the chance to participate in the design and governance of the property has been something they’ve never experienced before.“It was very exciting,” Kabashima said. “Our refugees from Burma, they’ve never had the opportunity to own land or even have a voice around how the city gets developed. That's the reason why I think our community members continue participating in the visioning sessions and join the celebrations of the design.”
— Maya Srikrishnan