A former police station on the North Side of Chicago that once symbolized discrimination will be incorporated into a housing development for LGBT seniors in the Boystown neighborhood.
According to the Chicago Sun Times, “For $1, the city will sell the old Town Hall District station, 3600 N. Halsted, to Heartland Housing Inc., sources said. The nonprofit developer will incorporate the old station into new construction of about 90 apartments for senior citizens.”
The sale requires city council approval. Heartland Housing said it must secure tax credits and other funding sources to keep apartments affordable, with the funding process expected to take about a year. Apartments will be priced for lower-income renters.
Showing posts with label Affordable housing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Affordable housing. Show all posts
Friday, May 13, 2011
Thursday, March 31, 2011
National Council on Aging: Ask Congress to Protect Services for Vulnerable Seniors
Negotiations are now taking place on a historic budget-cutting bill that will likely be voted on the first week of April.
The House has already passed a bill that would:
- Cut the Senior Community Service Employment Program (SCSEP) by 64%—eliminating jobs for more than 83,000 poor seniors in need of work and potentially shutting down the program in many communities across the nation.
- Eliminate funding for Senior Corps, “firing” more than 450,000 senior volunteers nationwide and denying vital services to vulnerable older adults, children, and their families in communities across the nation.
- Reduce by two-thirds Section 202 Supportive Housing for the Elderly at a time when 1.3 million seniors have worst-case housing needs and increasing numbers are homeless.
Tell your Senators and Representative to reject cuts in jobs, housing, and volunteer programs for seniors!
Please use the sample letter below, edit it to put it in your own words, or make it even more powerful by adding a personal story about how an older adult you know is struggling to get a job or affordable housing or would be denied help or volunteer opportunities under Senior Corps.
Let your elected officials know that their constituents need help!
Recipients
- Your Senators
- Your Representative
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Nation’s First LGBT Homesharing Program Has Found a Match
By
The Golden Girls—Dorothy, Rose, Blanche and Sophia—had each other to exchange quips about men and life, usually over slices of cheesecake. In real life, many older LGBT adults in Boystown looking for companionship, and maybe a little extra income, are turning to the nation’s first LGBT homesharing program to find it.
The homesharing program at the Center on Halsted is a free service that matches LGBT seniors with younger renters who can help with chores and other household tasks in exchange for reduced rent.
The homesharing program officially launched in December 2010, and as of last month, the program has its first match: a gay male renter and a lesbian homesharing provider.
“There are other homesharing programs across the country, but our program is specifically designed for the LGBT community,” said Britta Larson, 31, homesharing manager at the Center. “As LGBT older adults age, they can become very isolated and, sometimes, they struggle to remain in their own homes. I have had older adults that were living comfortably in a lovely condo, but when their partner passed away, they were not eligible for their partner’s social security or pension, and now they are in a dire financial situation.”
More
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Real-Life Golden Girls - NYTimes.com
Image via CrunchBaseby Paula SpanFor 30 years, Nancy Fairbanks and Nancy McPhaul have been part of a group of eight friends who jointly celebrate birthdays and other milestones — and hence are informally known as the Birthday Group. “We always said to each other, ‘Wouldn’t it be fun to find a living arrangement with private space for each of us and public space, when we’re quote unquote old?’” said Ms. Fairbanks, who is 70.
We were sitting in the skylit kitchen of a low-slung gray ranch house she now owns with Ms. McPhaul, 67; they’ve become Saratoga Springs’s real-life Golden Girls.
No one in that group ever exactly specified how old “old” was. But in 2005, when Ms. Fairbanks retired from the nonprofit organization she led, she decided to move from the rural outskirts into livelier Saratoga Springs itself and began looking for a house. “Who’s ready to share?” she asked the group.
Full Article
Friday, April 9, 2010
HHS, HUD PARTNER TO ALLOW RENTAL ASSISTANCE TO SUPPORT INDEPENDENT LIVING FOR NON-ELDERLY PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES
Thousands of Americans with disabilities will have housing assistance specifically targeted to meet their needs, Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Shaun Donovan announced today.
As part of President Obama’s Year of Community Living initiative, HHS and HUD collaborated to provide housing support for non-elderly persons with disabilities to live productive independent lives in their communities rather than in institutional settings. HUD is offering approximately $40 million to public housing authorities across the country to fund approximately 5,300 Housing Choice Vouchers for non-elderly persons with disabilities, allowing them to live independently. HHS will use its network of state Medicaid agencies and local human service organizations to link eligible individuals and their families to local housing agencies who will administer voucher distribution.
The vouchers will augment work already being done by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) through its Medicaid Money Follows the Person (MFP) grant program. Originally set to expire next year, the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010” extended the MFP program through 2016 with an additional appropriation of over $2 billion. The Act also cut to three months, from the previous six months, the amount of time a person must be in an institution to qualify for help making the transition to community life.
“This number of vouchers to this community is a major milestone for HUD,” said Donovan. “I am pleased that two federal agencies have combined efforts to give these individuals the independence they so desperately want and deserve.”
“This commitment by HHS and HUD to directly link housing support to these individuals will be of immeasurable value not only to them, but to the communities in which they will be living,” said Sebelius. “Individuals with disabilities have so much to contribute to the quality of life in our communities when given the freedom and opportunity to do so.”
Of the 5,300 vouchers set aside as part of this program, up to 1,000 will be specifically targeted for non-elderly individuals with disabilities currently living in institutions but who could move into the community with assistance (Category II). The remaining 4,300 (Category I) can be used for this purpose also, but are targeted for use by non-elderly individuals with disabilities and their families in the community to allow them to access affordable housing that adequately meets their needs.
In addition, HUD is encouraging housing authorities to establish a selection preference to make some or all of their Category I allocation available to individuals with disabilities and their families who, without housing assistance, are at risk of institutionalization. Housing authorities have 90 days to submit their applications to HUD. HUD expects to have funding awards ready late fall 2010.
“Many of these individuals are low-income and can not afford market rates for housing. For a number of Americans, these vouchers, along with Medicaid home and community-based services, are essential supports that make the President’s vision for community living possible,” Sebelius noted.
The Year of Community Living is an outgrowth of a 1999 Supreme Court decision in Olmstead v. L.C., in which the court ruled that under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) unnecessarily institutionalizing a person with a disability who, with proper support, can live in the community can amount to discrimination. In its ruling, the Court said that institutionalization severely limits the person’s ability to interact with family and friends, to work and to make a life for him or herself.
As a result of the Olmstead ruling, HHS issued guidance to states on how to make their Medicaid programs more responsive to people living with disabilities who wish to reside in the least restrictive setting. Today’s announcement is yet another step in HHS’s 10-year effort to achieve that goal.
HUD Funds Available Announcement
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As part of President Obama’s Year of Community Living initiative, HHS and HUD collaborated to provide housing support for non-elderly persons with disabilities to live productive independent lives in their communities rather than in institutional settings. HUD is offering approximately $40 million to public housing authorities across the country to fund approximately 5,300 Housing Choice Vouchers for non-elderly persons with disabilities, allowing them to live independently. HHS will use its network of state Medicaid agencies and local human service organizations to link eligible individuals and their families to local housing agencies who will administer voucher distribution.
The vouchers will augment work already being done by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) through its Medicaid Money Follows the Person (MFP) grant program. Originally set to expire next year, the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010” extended the MFP program through 2016 with an additional appropriation of over $2 billion. The Act also cut to three months, from the previous six months, the amount of time a person must be in an institution to qualify for help making the transition to community life.
“This number of vouchers to this community is a major milestone for HUD,” said Donovan. “I am pleased that two federal agencies have combined efforts to give these individuals the independence they so desperately want and deserve.”
“This commitment by HHS and HUD to directly link housing support to these individuals will be of immeasurable value not only to them, but to the communities in which they will be living,” said Sebelius. “Individuals with disabilities have so much to contribute to the quality of life in our communities when given the freedom and opportunity to do so.”
Of the 5,300 vouchers set aside as part of this program, up to 1,000 will be specifically targeted for non-elderly individuals with disabilities currently living in institutions but who could move into the community with assistance (Category II). The remaining 4,300 (Category I) can be used for this purpose also, but are targeted for use by non-elderly individuals with disabilities and their families in the community to allow them to access affordable housing that adequately meets their needs.
In addition, HUD is encouraging housing authorities to establish a selection preference to make some or all of their Category I allocation available to individuals with disabilities and their families who, without housing assistance, are at risk of institutionalization. Housing authorities have 90 days to submit their applications to HUD. HUD expects to have funding awards ready late fall 2010.
“Many of these individuals are low-income and can not afford market rates for housing. For a number of Americans, these vouchers, along with Medicaid home and community-based services, are essential supports that make the President’s vision for community living possible,” Sebelius noted.
The Year of Community Living is an outgrowth of a 1999 Supreme Court decision in Olmstead v. L.C., in which the court ruled that under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) unnecessarily institutionalizing a person with a disability who, with proper support, can live in the community can amount to discrimination. In its ruling, the Court said that institutionalization severely limits the person’s ability to interact with family and friends, to work and to make a life for him or herself.
As a result of the Olmstead ruling, HHS issued guidance to states on how to make their Medicaid programs more responsive to people living with disabilities who wish to reside in the least restrictive setting. Today’s announcement is yet another step in HHS’s 10-year effort to achieve that goal.
HUD Funds Available Announcement
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