Avelina, an affordable rental housing community for seniors includes landscaped grounds, a pond, a community room and an onsite video theatre. When Sisters of the Holy Family sold the land to MidPen, the exchange created one of the Bay Area’s most robust debates about the need for affordable housing in the area. Today, Avelina is a model intergenerational and multi-ethnic community that is welcomed by and integrated into a surrounding upscale neighborhood. Avelina was built on land originally inhabited by Ohlone Native Americans, whose descendants participated in a ceremony blessing the new site and recommended that the development be named after “Grandmother” Avelina Cornates, one of the last full-blooded Ohlones, to whom many living Ohlones in the area trace their lineage.
