Efforts to improve the quality of affordable housing in Somerville received a monetary boost last month when a statewide finance and development agency approved a low-cost financing package for a renovation of a local housing project.
MassDevelopment pledged support for three low-cost financing packages totaling approximately $22.8 million, $14 million of which will go to a project at Capen Court in Somerville. The Somerville project, run by the Somerville Housing Authority (SHA), will use the tax-exempt bond it receives to demolish the existing project and rebuild a new 95-unit facility that will cater to seniors and disabled people.
The SHA serves low- and moderate-income families and individuals, and average rent in its complexes is around $200 per month, SHA deputy director Paul Mackey told the Daily.
The Capen Court site, originally built in the 1950s, was intended specifically for veterans, according to Mackey. He said that the complex is now outdated.
"There were no elevators, so as our population aged it was very hard to put seniors in because many of them couldn't make the stairs," he said.
According to Mackey, specific measures will be taken during reconstruction to ensure the efficiency of the unit.
"We realize the cost to renovate a property outweighs the cost of constructing something new -- especially in making it green with centralized heating systems," he said.
MassDevelopment, the agency that approved the financing packages for the Capen Court site renovation, works with businesses and institutions across the state to increase economic growth in Massachusetts by serving as a conduit issuer of tax-exempt bonds. It provides low-cost financing for projects that will have a positive impact on the local economy by creating jobs and capital flow. The bonds are not taxpayer money, but come from purchases from the private sector.
"We do some business development as an agency -- we have quite a bit of outreach to organizations that develop and support affordable housing, and through that we find these projects and the community finds us as well for projects we can help with," Tony Fracasso, senior vice president of housing finance at MassDevelopment, told the Daily.
The Capen Court development's renovation will complement a nearby Visiting Nurses Association (VNA) development project that was completed last year, Mackey said.
"What we are creating is an entire campus that is a continuum of care," he said. "Our residents can go next door, go into their dining room -- you'll think you're at the Ritz."
The City of Somerville invested $1.5 million in the VNA project and, according to Somerville spokesperson Tom Champion, is quite excited about the closeness of the two projects.
"We think this is a wonderful joint effort to have two really first-rate assisted living facilities to go up side by side and is a tremendously important development for the city," Champion told the Daily.
Like the Capen Court development, the VNA housing was built with green features including rooftop solar panels, rainwater recycling technology and Energy Star products.
The use of these energy-efficient tools helps the VNA to reduce not only their carbon footprint, but also their expenses, according to VNA president and CEO Linda Cornell.
The VNA constructed its first affordable assisted living center around 10 years ago in response to a growing demand for affordable assisted living.
"People were finding themselves forced to live in a nursing home -- not only older people, but people in their '40s and '50s," Cornell said. "They could not afford to live in the private assisted living places."
"The bottom line for the community is this is far less expensive for the government than having people languish in a nursing home for two or three more times the cost than living in their apartment," he said.
The two other financing packages approved last month will go to housing projects in Allston and Dorchester.
