In the span of six months, Mike Clemons lost everything. He lost his home to an eviction slip and a bulldozer. He lost his personal belongings to a house fire in Camarillo. He lost his best friend to suicide and his dog, Rojo, to old age.
“It’s been my year, man,” he said, lighting a cigarette.
But in the span of two months, he gained some of that back. With the help of a social worker, the Navy veteran was placed into transitional housing. Weeks later, he found a puppy crossing nearby train tracks.
“He needed a good home,” he said. “And he’s been good for me.”
Clemons is now among the many looking to enter The Cove, a 90-unit affordable housing complex that celebrated its grand opening Wednesday.
“Today is a great day to be alive and a perfect day to live,” said Jason Smith, a former U.S. Army Sergeant who spoke on his arrival to the Cove after years of periodic homelessness.
“Sergeant Smith now has a place to call home. … Sometimes that’s just how life works out,” he read aloud to a seated audience.
Construction began on the complex in 2022, finished earlier this year and had its first tenants move in by July. Funding, like with many public housing projects, came through a 10-piece patchwork of grants, loans, state and federal earmarks and private donations.
It’s the newest addition and sixth phase in renovating buildings at Century Villages at Cabrillo, a 27-acre campus in West Long Beach that offers supportive housing, social services and other points of welfare to the poor, formerly homeless and otherwise disadvantaged.
One official with Century Village said the seventh phase will consist of razing older transitional housing at the site, formerly used to house naval shipyard workers in the eighties and nineties.
Construction on that, they added, is expected to start in 2026.
While permanent housing is no stranger to the campus, this building is exclusively for veterans. Sixty of the units are for veterans holding a supportive housing voucher, while the other 29 are for low-income veterans.
Once moved in, occupants pay 30% of their income for rent, while the remainder is provided by federal funds under a low-income subsidy program. The building offers communal amenities like computers, classrooms, study areas and storage for bikes.
According to pamphlets provided, there are about 2,000 residents across the campus, including nearly 700 veterans — half of which live in temporary housing.
It’s part of Long Beach’s “record pace” to ramp up housing production, said Mayor Rex Richardson, stating there are more than 2,500 housing units under construction.
According to Community Development Director Christopher Koontz, Long Beach has issued 1,658 permits in 2024, the most since the late 1980s. That includes around 600 accessory dwelling units, a similar count to the year prior.
These gains have coincided with a decrease in the number of unhoused veterans in Long Beach, said Deputy Chief of Staff Dr. Usha Subramanian with the VA Long Beach Healthcare System, who said the city’s unhoused veterans population has dropped by a fifth in the last year.
But no system is perfect. The Cove, six months after it opened, is half full. Eligible tenants must go through a tedious screening process between multiple departments that staff said can take three weeks to two months to complete.
Clemons is one of those stuck in the tedium. He applied several weeks ago and awaits a response. Despite confidence from his caseworker that he will be accepted, he’s anxious.
He said he can’t wait to leave his current building, where he shares a room and “follows too many rules.”
“It’s better than living under a freeway overpass,” he said, grumbling as a staff member made him snuff his cigarette.
Editor’s note: This story was updated to show that there are more than 2,500 housing units under construction, not specifically affordable housing units.