A former rice cake factory in downtown Los Angeles is now serving up affordable housing for hundreds near one of the city’s largest homeless populations.
The nonprofit Little Tokyo Service Center has opened The Umeya, a 175-unit complex on the site of the century-old rice cake company near Skid Row. The $100 million, six-story project includes 88 units of permanent supportive housing for formerly homeless residents and 87 apartments for low-income households, as well as 13,000 square feet of community and commercial space.
“We’re going to move people in who might not have survived another year or two on the street, but they have a completely different outcome now because of this housing," said a statement from Josh Hoffman, director of homeless services at Little Tokyo Service Center. The group has developed more than 1,350 affordable units citywide and has five additional projects in its pipeline; it also provides community social services in the Little Tokyo neighborhood of downtown Los Angeles.
The Umeya opens as Los Angeles grapples with a housing affordability and homelessness crisis. A recent University of Southern California report found that LA County has completed fewer than 100,000 housing units since 2021, far short of the 700,000 units required by 2029, including nearly 300,000 affordable homes. Vacancy rates are among the lowest in the country, and average rents are 32% above the national average.
Homelessness in Los Angeles has ticked down for a second year in a row, with the 2025 point-in-time count showing a 3.4% drop in the city and a 4% decline countywide, according to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority. But with more than 72,000 people still unhoused across the county, many living in tents, cars or makeshift shelters, officials and real estate professionals say the crisis remains staggering despite recent progress.
Building a community hub
The Umeya Rice Cake Co. was a bustling family-run factory where steamers turned out chewy mochi-style rice cakes for nearly a century, serving as both a workplace and a gathering spot for generations of Japanese Americans in Little Tokyo.
After the business closed in 2017, Little Tokyo Service Center acquired the site from the Hamano family, which wanted the property to remain a community-serving space.
The group gutted and rebuilt the site into a six-story apartment building, replacing the industrial interiors with housing, community space and a landscaped courtyard while preserving the cultural legacy through an on-site exhibit.
The state government provided $75 million, about three-quarters of the project’s cost, while Citi Community Capital provided an $86 million construction loan that will convert into a $16 million permanent mortgage.
Redeveloping the site into housing was a way to honor its legacy while addressing pressing needs in Skid Row and Little Tokyo, according to Debbie Chen, director of real estate for Little Tokyo Service Center.
“We’ve worked for years with community organizations in Skid Row and Little Tokyo to really build out what we feel will be a community hub,” a statement from Chen said.
Resident services at The Umeya will go beyond housing support to include after-school programs, youth leadership training and senior wellness activities, Chen said.
Supportive housing
The Umeya project marks the latest supportive housing addition in the epicenter of the region's homelessness crisis in Skid Row, where thousands of unhoused residents live in a dense, 50-block area that has resisted revitalization for decades, said Los Angeles City Councilmember Ysabel Jurado.
Supportive housing projects such as The Umeya operate much like traditional apartment tenancy, but with key supports tailored for residents exiting homelessness. Applicants are referred through the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, which matches individuals to units.
Tenants sign leases in their own names, pay around 30% of their income — often supplemented by public vouchers or subsidies — and may stay indefinitely if they comply with lease terms.
The Umeya expands Little Tokyo Service Center's housing portfolio beyond 1,350 units, with new developments planned in Little Tokyo, Chinatown and South Los Angeles. The nonprofit, which turned 45 this year, described the project as central to its mission of combining housing, cultural recognition and community-serving space.
The Umeya is one of several supportive housing efforts recently opened or underway across Los Angeles. The largest, 600 San Pedro, developed by Related California, replaced a downtown parking lot with 228 studio units, 47 one-bedroom units and three on-site manager apartments, with 40 units set aside for veterans.
The challenges to these efforts include high land costs, permitting delays and complex financing structures, meaning these supportive housing projects can be expensive and relatively slow to complete. Los Angeles County's average cost to build a subsidized affordable housing unit exceeds $1 million, nearly double the cost in Texas, Arizona and Georgia, according to a federal report.