Residents at Muskegon’s Christian Manor are settling into a $1.3 million renovation.
The senior living community was originally built in the 1980’s under U.S. Housing and Urban Development or HUD programs and was showing its age.
Executive Director of Affordable Living Developments Joel Lautenbach is with non-profit Samaritas which operates the site.
He says standard financial reserves cover only basic upkeep, making larger overhauls difficult to fund.
But they are critical.
“If we think about our housing stock, those units that are affordable, if we don't take care of them, they become substandard and it's not a safe, high-quality place for people to live.”
Lautenbach notes a second concern:
“There's also a trend that if you've made a commitment to affordability for a certain amount of time and that time is drawing near, you may, as an owner, decide that you would want to transition affordable properties to market rate and that's something that we want to avoid too.”
To bridge the funding gap at Christian Manor, Samaritas secured a federal grant that allowed for full kitchen and bathroom updates across all 42 studio apartments, and structural upgrades to the building's roof, entryways, and community spaces.
Christian Manor marks Samaritas’ sixth grant-funded renovation, with plans to replicate the strategy at HUD properties statewide.
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