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Date: 2/8/2018
WEST SPRINGFIELD – The West Springfield Town Council has approved the use of $750,000 in Community Preservation Act (CPA) funds for a group of Catholic women to put toward building affordable housing units for senior citizens.
On Feb. 5, the Council unanimously voted to allow the Sisters of?Providence the money to build a 36-unit complex, dubbed “Hillside Residence," on 2112 Riverdale St. The apartments will be integrated with Mercy LIFE, a Program of All-inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE) that offers tightly coordinated care and support designed to help seniors continue living safely at home. A 22,000-square-foot health and care management services program will be based on the housing campus.
“There’s a need to bring housing and healthcare together, instead of being parallel to each other,” said President of the Sisters of Providence Sister Kathleen Popko. “We need to bring the services together in order to really support elders in their later years, so that’s what we’re trying to demonstrate here.”
The Sisters of Providence is a dedicated group of Catholic women known for their commitment to volunteer work and passion for providing care and services to people in need.
For the last few years, the Holyoke-based Sisters have been working toward developing affordable housing for elders “at risk” of being placed into nursing homes. On top of providing individual units, the group would also like to incorporate comprehensive health services into the housing setup.
At Hillside, the staff will meet weekly with the health center to stay up-to-date on the residents’ overall bill of health to prevent emergency room visits or hospitalization, explained Popko.
The group of nuns made a formal request for the Community Preservation Grant during a Town Council meeting on Jan 22. Popko delivered a presentation on the $10 million project, emphasizing that the town CPA funds would only be used for the construction of the units.
Building the Hillside units will help the town work toward attaining its 10 percent affordable housing goal, which is a statewide threshold that all commonwealth communities must meet. The town currently has 414 affordable units.
The Sisters previously received $2.5 million in state and federal money for the project in March 2017 – including $500,000 in federal funding from the National Housing Trust Fund and $2 million from the Massachusetts Department of Housing and Community Development. According to town officials, the CPA balance is presently around $2.4 million, which means the town has enough funds to help the Sisters.
The campus for the 27-acre housing project straddles the West Springfield-Holyoke border and is already home to Providence Place at Ingleside, another independent living facility with 130 moderate-income residents age 55 or older.
At 37,500-square-feet, Hillside Residence will include 34 one-bedroom units whose rental subsidies would be administered by the state, while the remaining two units would be “respite apartments” for people who need intensive short-term medical care, said Popko.
“The overall design is to help elders remain independent for as long as possible,” said Popko.
Residents at Hillside must be 62 years or older, and the income eligibility for the units will require a person to earn 50 percent or less of the median area income – translating into a one-person family with an annual income under $28,000 or a two-person family with an income of less than $32,000 a year. The potential residents must also be able to live safely with comprehensive integrated support services, and have the cognitive ability to be able to participate with others in the program, sad Popko.
“This is an innovative program that I think will start to shape the elder health care field,” said Popko. “It certainly addresses the dearths of housing in West Springfield and demonstrates a new model that is affordable and integrates with PACE. I think it’s going to be well-received.”