Feds Kill Funds for Most Successful Senior Housing Project
Photo Credit: Retirement Housing Foundation
When construction started in mid-October on Heritage Park Senior Village in Taylor, Michigan, it marked the end of 55 years of effort by the federal government to make sure low-income elders can live out their years in decent housing.
The development getting underway 18 miles southwest of downtown Detroit is one of the very last to be constructed under a federal housing program that dates back to 1959.
The Section 202 Supportive Housing for the Elderly Program produced 20,000 housing units per year at its peak in the 1970s. It provided public housing agencies and nonprofit groups with grants that covered the cost to build decent rental housing, as well as subsidies for people who were too poor to pay market-rate rents for comparable housing.
Obama's Rush to Cut Funds
But three years ago, at the height of the new congressional obsession with budget cutting, the Obama Administration stopped requesting money for new construction under the program. Funding continues at a reduced level to renew existing rental subsidies on existing properties, as well as for repairs and improvements to those properties.
But federal support for new Sec. 202 construction has ended, with little prospect it will ever be revived . . . ( much more at link)
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