Apartments offer affordable housing and more in Oakland's Chinatown

The Madison Park Apartments. Photo courtesy of EBALDC.

Directly across from the Lake Merritt BART entrance, Laney College, and the Oakland Museum; on the outskirts of Oakland’s bustling Chinatown; nestled at the corner of two relatively quiet cross-streets—This is where you can find the Madison Park Apartments.

The East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation (EBALDC) restored the original turn-of-the-century building to award-winning condition in 1995. The beautiful Victorian complex stretches half a city block and includes a total of 98 units—20 studios, 69 1-bedrooms, and 9 2-bedrooms—all of which are “fully subsidized through the Section 8 Moderate Rehabilitation Program,” according to the EBALDC website. That is to say, residents at Madison Park Apartments pay 30% of their total income as rent. Most residents are seniors.

In keeping with the goals of EBALDC, the Madison Park Apartments are a mixed-use development: along with housing, the building includes a large community room for residents and community organizations. The apartment complex also leases space to the Oakland Unified School District, which provides ESL and computer classes to adults.

Melody Sage is a student in the Public Interest Reporting Program at Mills College in Oakland. This article is part of an ongoing series exploring Oakland's Chinatown.