Video / Photos - Disneyland Resort Supports Grand Opening of Finamore Place Affordable Housing Community in Anaheim

This morning in Anaheim, just a short drive from Disneyland Resort, the nonprofit affordable housing developer Jamboree Housing hosted a Grand Opening ceremony for its latest property, named Finamore Place– and in attendance to deliver speeches honoring the occasion was not only Anaheim Mayor Ashleigh Aitken, but also Disneyland Resort President Ken Potrock.

In the 50-minute Grand Opening ceremony, Potrock and Aitken joined a handful of others to congratulate Jamboree and its partners U.S. Bancorp Impact Finance and the Orange County Housing Trust for completing this project, which was a number of years in the making. Jamboree’s representatives also made it known how thankful they were in the generous contributions that Disneyland Resort itself has made to the affordable housing efforts in Anaheim in recent years. Last to speak was a newly placed single-father resident of Finamore Place who could barely contain his overwhelming emotion in being chosen for the community along with his young son. You can watch the full ceremony in the embedded video below.

Watch Finamore Place Grand Opening Ceremony – Affordable housing community in Anaheim near Disneyland:

After the Grand Opening ceremony, I was given the opportunity to speak with Ken Potrock directly about why it’s been so important for Disneyland Resort to participate in this type of community outreach so close to its Orange County location, and how the future of the ever-evolving resort will continue to impact and improve the Anaheim area. Watch the interview in the embedded video below.

Watch Ken Potrock (Disneyland Resort President) interview at Finamore Place Grand Opening in Anaheim:

Jamboree describes Finamore Place as its “largest and most service-rich property to date,” and notes that it features 102 units of residential space, plus an outdoor public space, public art, and even a St. Jude Neighborhood Health Center, Orange County Head Start child education center, and the Child Guidance Center for family behavioral services, which are open to all who reside in the City of Anaheim. “Bringing a shared commitment to the betterment of Anahim, this comprehensive new neighborhood asset demonstrates how city, business, and non-profit leaders can come together to ‘build for good’ and help area residents and families thrive,” said Jamboree in a statement. The new facility was named after the late Marcy Finamore, “whose passion for Jamboree’s mission to provide high-quality housing and community services helped propel them to their leadership position today.”

Disneyland Resort’s involvement, specifically, was to provide a $1.5 million grant through the Orange County Housing Trust. “I think it’s very consistent with Disneyland’s philosophy on being a great community partner right here in the City of Anaheim,” said Resort President Ken Potrock during our interview above. “One of the things that we think about all the time is not just the fact that we need to drive the tourism business, but ‘how do we make our Cast Members’ lives really positive with career pathing and opportunities for success?’ One of the challenges in this city has been homelessness and affordable housing, and so the Finamore project is an investment that we’ve made– along with some others as well– that allows for people to be able to get a fresh start. Maybe they were homeless, maybe they get an opportunity to get back into a safe facility. This facility in particular is what I call a wraparound facility: it creates the ecosystem for support across education for their children, mental health, physical health, job creation, business development, all of those kinds of things. This really gives people a chance to be successful in their lives.”

Lastly, I asked Mr. Potrock how future expansion of Disneyland Resort with new attractions and long-term projects like Disneyland Forward will impact guests of the theme parks and residents of the surrounding community. “We talk a lot about the fact that the Disneyland Resort is 68 years young,” remarked Potrock. “But we think our best years are ahead of us– now, that’s really saying something. Those ‘best years’ are built on the fact that we believe that there’s dynamic growth still available at the Disneyland Resort. The Disneyland Forward project is our opportunity to work with the city to recreate an entitlement structure that allows us to develop the land that we already have in ways that could be much more successful, to drive tourism into the marketplace. And if we drive tourism into the marketplace, we drive revenue into the marketplace, from a tax revenue perspective. And if we do that, now the services to the residents get benefitted in very positive ways– whether that’s police officers or firefighters or parks or libraries– all of those kinds of things. It’s an engine of economic growth that we feel very strongly about, and again I think that’s what our future is going to be. The decades ahead are gonna be spectacular.”