In Los Angeles, Senior Housing Is Keeping One Neighborhood Alive

History is repeating itself at the Little Tokyo Towers, a nonprofit affordable senior apartment building in Downtown Los Angeles. The project has its origins in the 1970s, when the Little Tokyo neighborhood endured significant redevelopment due to the expansion of the nearby Civic Center and local street widening projects. Meanwhile, many seniors, who were often first-generation immigrants, lived in decaying hotels slated for demolition. Because of the displacement underway and the poor quality of housing for seniors, a group of local charitable organizations—the Japanese American Citizens League, the Southern California Gardeners Federation, the Southern California Christian Federation, and the Los Angeles Buddhist Church Federation—banded together to create a place so their elders could remain in the neighborhood, and the development was born.