Janice Hsu – a lifetime connection to UH

Janice Hsu has spent most of her adult life in and around the University Heights neighborhood. Her first memory of the area was when she was a young girl growing up in La Jolla and her father (a real estate developer in the mid-city area) developed the Buddhist Temple at 4536 Park Blvd. When the temple officially opened in 1988, the Dali Lama himself was in attendance.

Janice moved to University Heights in 2006 because she loved Trolley Barn Park, and, as a single mom, she thought it would be a great place to raise her son. Fast forward to the summer of 2012, when she met James Lee at Small Bar on Park Blvd. James, a Sailor stationed in San Diego and living in Hillcrest, broke the ice by asking her to take a photo of him and his friend. A long conversation led to a summer fling that grew into a serious romance, and seven years later, in the summer of 2019, they got married. They wanted their wedding to reflect their love and appreciation for University Heights, so it was only fitting that their ceremony take place at Trolley Barn Park. After the ceremony, the entire wedding party walked to the reception at Madison on Park.

Janice worked in business development for a local non-profit at the time, primarily focusing on women’s issues. After getting married, she and James took time off and drove around the country living the “van life.” In the summer of 2020, Janice and James bought their house in University Heights and began renting their van on “Go Camp” - a women-owned peer-to-peer rental platform. The van rental business boomed during the pandemic, and soon Janice began working for Go Camp as an employee, eventually becoming the COO.

In the fall of 2024, Janice made the decision to leave her job, around the same time James, now a Senior Chief, was preparing to retire from the Navy after 20 years of service. Janice decided to use this period between jobs to devote her time to volunteering, and her love for the neighborhood led her to the University Heights Community Association. Initially, she worked on the Beautification Team and eventually joined the board and became the Volunteer Coordinator.

As the Volunteer Coordinator, Janice is responsible for recruiting and communicating with all of volunteers (currently over 200), and keeping them engaged and connected within each group, including ZoneWatch, Membership, Events, and the Newspaper. Janice oversees making sure that each of the six newspaper distributors receive the right number of newspapers, who then distribute them to 70 different block walkers for local delivery. She is also involved in helping to plan and execute various community events, such as the St. Patrick’s Day pub crawl, the annual University Heights block party, yard sales, and the concerts and movies in Trolley Barn Park.

Janice loves University Heights and enthusiastically supports all its local businesses. Her goal is to build more community appreciation among the many different volunteers so that everyone who lives here feels the same way about their neighborhood that she does.