UA Homes is one of many aging SRO properties in California that provide an important affordable housing resource for low‐income people who would otherwise be homeless. However, at nearly 90 years of age and with complicated layers of restrictive financing, UA Homes badly needed a major physical and financial rehabilitation. Luckily for its low‐income residents and the community, Resources for Community Development (RCD) was committed to giving UA Homes new life, even if it meant getting the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to provide something it had never provided before in California.