But Port Hueneme's strategy of buying the homes itself and managing them as rental units is unusual, said Raphael Bostic, an economist at USC's Lusk Center for Real Estate.
"This is not brand-brand new, but it is a reversal of the prevailing trend away from public housing," he said. "Forty years ago, it wouldn't have been surprising at all."
Public housing got a bad name in the 1960s and '70s, Bostic said, when high-rise projects like Chicago's Cabrini-Green became synonymous with poverty, drugs and violence. Today, at least in California, most affordable housing is built by private developers.
Bostic said a lot of good was thrown out with the bad when public housing was abandoned. Small, targeted projects like the Jane Drive duplexes don't have the problems associated with massive high-rises, he said.
"I think it's a neat idea," Bostic said. "It seems to be hitting multiple objectives: community redevelopment, and maintaining the affordable housing stock. I think we're going to see much more of this."