Low Income Housing New Fed Focus

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has announced a grant for private, nonprofit owners of eligible developments to convert some or all of the dwelling units in the project into an Assisted Living Facility (ALF) or Service-Enriched Housing (SEH) for elderly residents aging in place. An ALF must be licensed and regulated by the State (or if there is no State law providing such licensing and regulation, by the municipality or other subdivision in which the facility is located). Service-Enriched Housing is housing that accommodates the provision of services to elderly residents who need assistance with activities of daily living in order to live independently.

The grant provides funding for the physical costs of converting some or all of the units of an eligible development into an ALF or SEH, including the unit configuration, common and services space and any necessary remodeling, consistent with HUD or the State's statute/regulations.

Eligible projects must be owned by a private, nonprofit entity, and designated primarily for occupancy by elderly persons.

Eligible projects must also qualify as one of the following:

• Section 202 direct loan projects with or without Section 8 rental assistance
• Section 202 capital advance projects receiving rental assistance under their Project Rental Assistance Contract (PRAC)
• Section 515 rural housing projects receiving Section 8 rental assistance
• Other projects receiving Section 8 project-based rental assistance
• Projects subsidized with Section 221(d)(3) below-market interest mortgage
• Projects assisted under Section 236 of the National Housing Act.

Applicants must submit an application for funding due May 15, 2012.

In related news, The LeadingAge Center for Applied Research has received a $698,000 grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to assess the effectiveness of affordable housing settings for meeting the long-term care needs of low-income older adults. The Center will study the role that publicly assisted, service-enriched housing for older adults can play in helping residents "age in place." The grant will also help researchers build a national dataset on the health and functional characteristics of older people living in publicly assisted housing.

The Center has been studying "housing-with-services" models since 2006, LeadingAge said. The MacArthur grant comes through an annual funding competition conducted by the Foundation's $25 million research initiative on "How Housing Matters to Families and Communities." Other 2011 grantees were the University of Michigan, Syracuse University, Ohio State University and New York University.

You can see the pressure ratcheting up as the Affordable Care Act continues to kick in and the need to reduce costs and shift to aging in place increases. While nursing homes have certainly started adapting by moving into another line of business - rehab - CCRCs and Assisted Living providers may need to rethink their models of care and affordability as these new hybrids emerge.

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