Senior housing planned

Facing health concerns and medical bills, Jeanne Koerner was forced to move from her home in the East Central neighborhood. Now, she wants nothing more than to move back.

“This is my neighborhood,” said Koerner, speaking from East Central’s senior center. “I love it here.”

Koerner, who still regularly attends the senior center even though she lives near Cheney, hopes a new affordable senior housing project that will open next year will give her that opportunity.

The $3.2 million, 25-unit apartment building will be funded mostly through federal money through the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The idea originated in the late 1990s from neighborhood leaders who wanted to improve a blighted block across from the East Central Community Center.

Since inception, neighborhood leaders have taken the initiative to make the project happen, said Allen Schmelzer, city planner in the Community Development Department.

The city used federal dollars to buy two empty lots, two lots with vacant homes and two more lots with boarded up homes, Schmelzer said. Homes were torn down and the land was sold for $2 to the East Central Community Organization, which will own the apartments.

“It just so happened that with time and persistence we were able to acquire the entire half block, which we really needed to do a project of this size,” Schmelzer said.

Shannon Meagher, who is managing the project, said statistics show that no seniors are renting in East Central. That could mean that once yards or homes become too difficult for seniors to maintain, they are forced elsewhere, she said.

“There’s a huge need,” said Meagher, community building director for Kiemle & Hagood, the company hired to run the building. “There is no affordable housing of that type in East Central, and seniors are leaving.”

Seniors will be right across the street from the senior center.

The project will have 24 one-bedroom apartments and one unit for a manager. Dwellers will be required to be 62 or over and make less than half of the median income in Spokane County. Half the units will be reserved for folks making less than 30 percent of the median income. That’s $12,100 for a single person. Rent will be 30 percent of a tenant’s income.

“It’s a legacy we can leave for our children’s children,” said Betsy Williams, president of the East Central Community Organization Board. “Our seniors are the forefront of this community, and I pray that we continue honor and to support them however we can.”