Affordable housing for seniors expanding
Columbus is getting older. As it ages, some seniors question whether they’ll be able to afford to stay in their neighborhoods after they sell their two-story homes.
Some current projects might help. The Westervillebased Woda Group on Friday opened a 42-unit, $8.6 million affordable senior complex called Wheatland Crossing, on North Wheatland Avenue in the Hilltop. And work continues on a similar project, the 54-unit Fairwood Commons, at 1774 E. Main St., on the Near East Side. Also, work is planned to start in the spring on The Livingston, a 45-unit building at 1573 E. Livingston Ave., the site of the former Livingston Theater.
Meanwhile, the 56-unit Parsons Village on the South Side, developed by the Cleveland-based NRP Group and the nonprofit
Community Development for All People, is fully leased, and a second building is planned at a cost of $11.3 million. And the 104-unit Poindexter Place for those 55 or older has been open for two years at the former Poindexter Village publichousing site on the Near East Side.
“I think there is vast room for expansion of senior housing in the Columbus area,” said Joseph McCabe, Woda’s vice president of development. “When you think about the tenants who want to stay in neighborhoods, there’s no option. They’re not meant for aging in place.”
The number of central Ohioans 65 or older is expected to double in the next 35 years. In this year’s Age-Friendly Columbus survey, 88.6 percent of those surveyed said it was somewhat important to very important that they remain living in their neighborhood.
Kathleen Bailey of the Near East Area Commission said she expects more developments such as these. “People would like to stay in their neighborhoods,” she said. “Downsize and have an option.”
Brian Scarpino of the Livingston Avenue Area Commission said such developments will also help bind the fabric of the community in the face of gentrification. Homes in the historic Old Oaks neighborhood, about a mile east of Nationwide Children’s Hospital, are starting to sell for $300,000, he said.
For people who have lived in those neighborhoods for decades, maintaining those ties is important, said Cindy Farson, executive director of the Central Ohio Area Agency on Aging.
“They don’t want to disrupt their social networks, By the end of next year, the Woda Group plans to have 141 units of low-income senior housing completed near Downtown. One project, Wheatland Crossing, is already open. Fairwood Commons is under construction and The Livingston will start construction in the spring. their retail networks,” Farson said of seniors.
Woda finances its projects with low-income housing tax credits, which places limits on residents’ incomes to 60 percent of the area median income. For Franklin County, that’s $31,260 for a single person and $44,640 for a family of four. Monthly rents at Wheatland Crossing range from $375 to $885.
One of the new residents, Doug Perry, said waiting lists at similar places can be two to three years. He and his roommate, Michael Kinnison, moved from Delaware to the new Hilltop complex to be closer to family. But Perry said it also gives people in the neighborhood the opportunity to stay there.
The Rev. John Edgar, executive director for Community Development for All People, said the first Parsons Village apartments leased quickly, and now there is a waiting list. The rents there are from $368 to $710.
The Ohio Housing Finance Agency approved lowincome housing tax credits for a 60-unit second phase, with 2,800 square feet of retail space.
“There are so many seniors who want to stay in the community where they have built lifelong relationships,” Edgar said.
In June, the South Side Housing Strategy Group, comprised of housing advocates, public officials and others, released a report that said many South Side seniors are renters, and that the neighborhood had few options to allow them to age in place. Most of the homes in the neighborhood are two stories and on small lots.
Terry Elliott, who leads the Livingston Avenue Area Commission, said there are many seniors in her Driving Park neighborhood near the Livingston Theater.
The Wheatland project was built in a field where Dominion Homes in 2003 planned to build 106 homes. Dominion pulled out when the housing market fell and costs to clean up the property became prohibitive.
Angela Snyder, a resident of the Hilltop’s Westgate neighborhood, said she wishes Woda’s next Wheatland Avenue project wasn’t a low-income apartment project for all ages, to be built next to the senior apartments. Other neighborhood residents also oppose that.
Snyder wants market-rate development in her neighborhood: “It has to be a good, smart mix of development.”