First they built an affordable family housing project. Next will come the finishing touch, a beautiful design for the eight-foot street-level wall.

'98 Fellow Deborah Fu-Yien Ching is Executive Director of Chinatown Service Center in LA. They were the managing partners in the construction of the twenty-seven unit Casanova Gardens project, which is now home for 95 people.

The project, completed in late 1998, sits up on a hill with beautiful city views. Landscaping leads down to the 160-foot-long wall.

To qualify to live in one of the two-to-four bedroom Casanova Gardens apartments, families must meet low-income guidelines that are reviewed each year. The families at Casanova Gardens range from nuclear to extended families with residents from 3 months to 88 years old. With a critical shortage of affordable housing in the Los Angeles Chinatown area, these families pay a maximum of $375/month for a four bedroom, two bath apartment. With over 500 applications for the Casanova Gardens' 27 apartments, the families selected felt as though they had won the lottery.

Many never dreamed of being able to live in a new apartment with views usually reserved for the wealthy. Chinatown Service Center provides case management services for the residents and organize family and youth field trips that have galvanized the families into a community.

For her Leadership Impact Project, Deborah will bring the new community together with other groups in an ambitious art project. Residents will collaborate with artist Yong Soon Min to create art for the wall at Casanova Gardens-and another APAWLI Fellow, Soo-Young Chin, will bring a multiracial group of kids from other parts of the city to participate as well. Predominantly Chinese and Vietnamese immigrants and refugees, these first families of Casanova Gardens will leave a legacy of beauty and cooperation for future families and the community.