Saturday, January 09, 1999
Dearborn Co. gets some housing help
Units planned for seniors
BY RACHEL MELCER
The Cincinnati Enquirer
LOGAN, Ind. — Thanks to a federal grant and tax credits awarded to a Dearborn County agency this week, more than 50 senior citizens may be settling into new, low-rent apartments in June.
Many are on waiting lists for affordable housing, which is in short supply across the county.
Some are lifelong residents of the area, living in homes that they can no longer afford or maintain, agency officials said. Others are trying to move here, following grown children who relocated to Dearborn County for jobs at the riverboat casinos or across the river in Northern Kentucky.
That population influx is contributing to the problem, said Ken Nelson, housing director for the nonprofit, Dillsboro-based Area 12 Council on Aging and Community Services Inc.
“We have people who come to the agency for the services that (we) provide. And many times, we find people who need to have their housing situations changed,” he said.
“In areas that are undergoing changes and growth, that kind of drives the rent structure up. ... And that hits, particularly, on the elderly segment of the population.”
Working in a public-private partnership with longtime Logan residents Robert and Helen Dunevent, the council plans to break ground next month for a $3 million, 54-unit, single story apartment complex. The 16 two-bedroom units will rent for $450 per month; 38 one-bed room units will rent for $350 each.
Mr. and Mrs. Dunevent “have, for about 10 years, been interested in developing housing for the elderly ... and doing something for the community,” Mr. Nelson said. “They were never able to get a project through all the red tape.”
The couple could not be reached Friday.
By working with the council, which is a designated community housing development organization, they were able to obtain state and federal assistance.
The partnership received two grants totaling $333,000.
And it was awarded $2.1 million in tax credits, issued by the Internal Revenue Service, which will be sold to private corporations willing to invest in the senior housing project, according to Doug Davidoff, spokesman for the Indiana Housing Finance Authority.
The tax credits are in high demand on the open market, he said. Indiana designated 10 percent of its share this year to senior housing projects, with the rest going to promote affordable housing in rural areas and for special needs groups and the homeless.
Three out of four applications for senior housing developments are turned down because there aren't enough federal tax credits to go around, Mr. Davidoff said.
The Logan project succeeded largely because of the need in Dearborn County.
The Area 12 Council provides some house repairs, delivers meals and offers other limited services to seniors who can neither handle their home maintenance nor afford to move to a high-rent apartment.
“We're providing in-home services as best we could,” Mr. Nelson said. But “those programs are all pushed to the limits as far as the available funding and the services that are available.”
Council workers are keeping track of seniors who might want to move into the new apartments. And they will be advertised throughout the region.
But Mr. Nelson says he expects them to fill up fast.
“We're hoping to help solve the housing shortage in Dearborn County,” he said. “... But it's probably a drop in the bucket.”
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