Santa Monica offers housing to families displaced by highway

SANTA MONICA, Calif. (AP) — The city of Santa Monica will offer affordable housing to Black families forced out during freeway construction and other urban renewal projects during the 1950s.

The Los Angeles Times reports Sunday that some 600 families lost their homes when Interstate 10 was built through the Pico neighborhood.

Starting in January, those former residents and their descendants will be offered priority access to apartments with below-market rents in the hopes that they’ll come back to the coastal city.

Affordable housing will also be available for families removed when the city bulldozed another Black area, Belmar Triangle, to build the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium.