Rule Change Frees Rent-Subsidized Housing For Elders

Good news for low-income elderly folks who gave up trying to secure a rent-subsidized apartment in Spokane and settled for a less-favorable solution to their needs.

The long wait is over.

“Seniors used to have to spend two or three years on a waiting list for a subsidized apartment,” says industry executive Spike Cunningham. “Most people think you still do.”

But, says the coordinator of subsidized tenant services for Goodale & Barbieri Real Estate Management, “The long wait is over.

“There are no waiting lists, and we have quite a number of vacancies.”

In fact, he reports, all of the rent-subsidized buildings with which he works have vacancies. Included are some of the best-known elderly housing projects in town - Cathedral Plaza, the Delaney, the O’Malley, Fahy West and Fahy Gardens.

Goodale & Barbieri manages the properties for Catholic Charities, which sponsored development of the projects. The real estate firm also manages 20-story Park Tower and the Hamilton House for other sponsors. Both of the latter also have “significant vacancies” for subsidized seniors, he reports.

Why now?

Cunningham doesn’t like to dwell on the reasons, which are politically sensitive. But it seems many early sponsors of rent-subsidized apartments for the elderly signed federal contracts to serve only the elderly. Initially, the only exceptions to this rule were Social Security recipients of any age who receive benefits because they are physically disabled or “mobility impaired.”

But later, due to changing social agendas, these same housing developments were pressured to take in younger individuals receiving Social Security disability benefits for reasons other than physical impairment. This new group included younger persons with mental or emotional disorders and addictive behavior.

More recently, federal housing officials relaxed the rules again, permitting managers of subsidized housing projects to go back to serving only those clients specified originally in the contracts. Thus, according to Cunningham, Catholic Charities and Goodale & Barbieri elected to resume serving strictly older low-income persons and the “mobility impaired” as originally planned.

Cunningham, whose job entails interviewing and evaluating prospective tenants for subsidized housing, says the switch back has been a blessing in some respects for the elderly and the physically handicapped.

Many of the truly elderly do not take well to the challenges that sometimes are imposed by much younger next-door neighbors in need of greater supervision and medical monitoring than visiting social workers could provide. Such conditions bred behavioral conflicts. Also, managers could not control damage to the units by tenants who needed more intensive training in living on their own and monitoring their medications.

But there are other subsidized housing projects set up exclusively for chronically mentally impaired, and Kay Reilly of Kiemle & Hagood Co., the other Spokane giant in the subsidized housing management industry, says they work very well. She has two complexes for the chronically mentally impaired. Both are full, and she has a waiting list of 60.

With a total of 11 different buildings designated solely for elderly, Kiemle & Hagood has possibly more subsidized apartments for seniors than even Goodale & Barbieri. “Our seniors apartments are fully occupied,” says Reilly. “We have waiting lists. They are not long waiting lists, however.”

Kiemle & Hagood manages subsidized housing for St. John’s Cathedral and the Episcopal Church Diocese of Spokane. About five years ago the buildings that originally were developed for the elderly were redesignated seniors only, according to Reilly. Having bitten the bullet early, Kiemle & Hagood is not experiencing the dislocation that Goodale & Barbieri has been going through since HUD handed down its directive.

For more information on Goodale & Barbieri’s subsidized vacancies, interested parties may contact Cunningham at 624-0550.

, DataTimes MEMO: Associate Editor Frank Bartel writes on retirement issues each Sunday. He can be reached with ideas for future columns at 459-5467 or fax 459-5482.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Frank Bartel The Spokesman-Review