LAMONT, Calif. -- These apartments look like they could be in any new neighborhood, but the Lamont Family Apartments and the DiGiorgio Road Apartments in Lamont have been built exclusively for farmworkers and low-income families.

There's a glaring need for low-income housing in Lamont, which is why the Corporation For Better Housing, in conjunction with the county, stepped forward to provide the new apartment options.

"We found the market here to be very in demand for rental housing," said Gwendy Silver Egnater, the executive director for the Corporation For Better Housing. "So many people here are very pleased to be able to rent an apartment that's new, safe, affordable."

The Lamont Family Apartments, a 64-unit complex for low-income families, opened earlier this year and is already at 100 occupancy.

Just next door, the DiGiorgio Road Apartments just received its certificate of occupancy, which will enable residents to move in starting Monday. It's an 80-unit complex that offers low-income housing exclusively to farm workers. Some of the future tenants are currently homeless, and are eager to move in.

"When they're homeless, it creates an urgency to move somewhere," said Veronica Sierra, a leasing manager for Beacon Property Management. "I've met a lot of people who are homeless who come here for our homeless program and find that it helps out a lot."

The apartments offer a variety of social services to residents. They have forged a partnership with the Farmworker Institute for Education and Leadership Development, or FIELD, to bring English as a Second Language and high school diploma classes to adults. The property managers also offer tutoring, homework help and fun after-school activities for kids.

"Most people are extremely happy to be living in something new," Egnater said. "Other residents are just happy to be in a place where the school bus drops their children off after school and they walk right into a community room that's air-conditioned."

The Corporation For Better Housing, which owns several low-income apartment buildings throughout Kern County, worked with the county and Supervisor Michael Rubio to secure financing for the complexes, in addition to getting state and federal tax credits.

Both the corporation and Beacon Properties say they are committed to providing affordable housing to low-income families and farm workers.

"They come from something small where they value every dollar they make," Sierra said. "Coming to something like this that we're offering, a lot of which are things they can't afford, it just makes things a lot better for them."

The corporation has also purchased the two lots next to the apartments, which Egnater hopes will be used to build more low-income housing, based on the level of interest the receive from the community.

"So far, the response has been outstanding," she said.