development
Irwin Jacobs gives $50 million to Father Joe’s Villages for a new downtown housing campus
The largest gift in Father Joe’s history will help rebuild the Joan Kroc Center into a campus with more than 500 homes and expanded services for homeless seniors.
Qualcomm co-founder Irwin Jacobs has pledged $50 million to Father Joe’s Villages, the largest gift in the nonprofit’s history. The donation was announced Monday, Sept. 28.
The money will go toward rebuilding the nearly 40-year-old Joan Kroc Center, at Imperial Avenue and 15th Street, as the Joan and Irwin Jacobs Family Campus. Plans call for more than 500 housing units across three residential towers, with new services aimed at older homeless adults, including assisted living, hospice care, case management and job help. KPBS and FOX 5 put the number of senior units at about 150.
The project is expected to cost more than $300 million, and Father Joe’s is still raising the rest. Plans are preliminary, and published timelines vary, but it is expected to take about five years. Father Joe’s President and CEO Deacon Jim Vargas and County Supervisor Paloma Aguirre spoke at the announcement.
FOX 5, citing local data, reports that adults 55 and older make up about a third of San Diego’s homeless population.
How this story was made: drafted with AI assistance, then checked line by line against the sources below by a San Diego Insight editor before publishing. Our standards.
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