While our approach has changed, our work has remained constant for 15 years: financing quality affordable home development. Century Housing is a leading affordable housing lender in California, with flexible financial products designed to deliver value to our clients quickly and responsively.

As a Community Development Financial Institution, Century balances our Mission—to create quality affordable homes—with its financial strength and sustainability.

Where Great Projects Begin

Century operates through two companies serving our Mission and Vision:

Century Housing provides innovative loan and structured financial products for the development of apartment homes throughout California. See our Loans Page.

Century Villages at Cabrillo oversees a 26 acre campus in Long Beach offering supportive permanent housing and shelter for more than 1,000 homeless veterans, families and children every night. Century has invested more than $40 million in CVC since 1997. Visit the CVC site.

Our accomplishments so far:

• More than $550 million in financing for 16,000 new affordable homes.
• More than $135 million in capital under management and growing.
• Although historically focused on Los Angeles, Century lends throughout California.
• Attracted more than $40 million in private sector investment in CVC.

In The Beginning

Century Housing developed from one of the largest public works projects in U.S. history. And it all started with one of L.A.’s most iconic symbols: a freeway.

In 1972, planning began on the Century Freeway (I-105), a major thoroughfare that would connect the Los Angeles Airport to the city of Norwalk. Residents in areas affected by the proposed development fought the construction.

Lawsuits were filed including Keith v. Volpe, which asked the U.S. District Court to halt construction until the environmental and housing impacts of the freeway could be evaluated and minimized. The case tied up construction for several years until in1979 a solution was reached: the creation of the Century Freeway Housing Program (CFHP).

CFHP was tasked with creating nearly 4,000 units of affordable housing for those displaced by the freeway’s construction along with minority and female employment opportunities. Ten years later, CFHP had transitioned from a housing developer into a lender/financier to more efficiently leverage public and private lending sources.

In October 1993 the Century Freeway opened. At the time it was the nation’s largest public works project at a cost of approximately $2.2 billion.

Having successfully exceeded its initial housing development goal, CHFP was privatized and renamed “Century Housing Corporation.” We remain the only known California state program converted into a private, nonprofit corporation.

Today, Century Housing proudly continues our original goal of finding housing and opportunities for those most in need.