A new project in the West Salem neighborhood should provide needed housing for the mentally and physically disabled -- and be a boon to revitalization.
Hunters Hill Apartments will be a 12-unit complex in the West Salem neighborhood, near Latham Elementary School. The $1.5 million project is expected to be finished by late spring of 2010.
Partners for Homeownership and the N.C. Housing Foundation, the co-developers, are working with several local nonprofits on the project, most of which will be financed by a $1.2 million loan from the N.C. Housing Finance Agency. The agency is supported by state money tagged to build more housing for the disabled.
It's sometimes hard for people with disabilities to find housing that meets both their budget and their needs, as the Journal's Mary Giunca recently reported. This project should help people who've been living with friends or family to make it on their own, as well as people who've been homeless.
Many homeless people landed on the street because of disabilities. The project should dovetail nicely with other efforts to end chronic homelessness. It's only right that communities help people get off the streets. And this effort is practical in that it should reduce the high cost of social services for the homeless.
At Hunters Hill, residents will have to meet certain criteria, including having a documented disability and income at or below 30 percent of the area median income. Rents will be subsidized through the federal Department of Health and Human Services.
Many neighborhoods balk at subsidized housing projects.
But some leaders in the West Salem neighborhood are taking a different approach. The city needs more affordable housing, said Josh Sutter, the president of the West Salem Neighborhood Association, and he would like for his neighborhood to become better known as one that welcomes diversity.
"It seems to be a project that will be really positive for the neighborhood," Sutter said.
Sutter said that the project will bring a sense of energy to a neighborhood area that has been fragmented. And the complex should benefit its residents because it's near a bus stop, shops, the hospitals and Forsyth Technical Community College.
New construction like this project is important. But neighborhood activists should press civic and business leaders to revitalize existing buildings in the area as well.
Many residents of the neighborhood have a strong sense of community and have worked hard to renovate bungalows and other houses and buildings.
With careful planning and consideration, this new complex could help the neighborhood and the disabled.
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