Times-Tribune Staff Report
KCEOC Community Action Partnership recently received $1.7 million in Housing and Urban Development grant money to build and operate a 16-unit senior housing project at the site of the old Corbin municipal hospital.
“What we hope to develop is some other mixed income apartment units also mixed with some office space, small retail, and other things,” said KCEOC Director Paul Dole.
KCEOC, a non-profit agency that seeks to address poverty in the area, had previously received $500,000 in state and federal monies to tear down the unused hospital. This new grant will fund an initial 16 senior housing units, which will take up roughly two of the nine acres of property at the site.
KCEOC had originally proposed a 20-unit complex, but will be redesigning architectural plans after only 16 of the one-bedroom units were approved in the grant, Dole said. Dole estimated it would take a year before actual construction began at the site.
“It’s been a long process to say the least, between all the legal battles we had to fight over that property to get it torn down,” Dole said. “Now we’re to the part that we start building back, and that’s even better. It’s a major accomplishment.”
KCEOC purchased the former hospital in 2005; demolition didn’t begin until the end of May 2008.
In the time between, a lawsuit was filed in Whitley County Circuit Court by David O. Smith on behalf of his demolition company seeking to expedite the hospital’s demolition. According to the suit, the hospital was in a deteriorated and unsafe state, and the court had set time-tables for its demolition. Dole called the lawsuit an “unnecessary expense” for the project.
HUD’s Section 202 Capital Advance Program seeks to expand affordable housing with supportive services for the elderly. It provides low-income persons 62 years and older with the opportunity to live independently in an environment that provides the services they need.
In addition to funding the construction of the apartments, HUD’s Section 202 program subsidizes the rents of senior citizens so they can limit their housing costs to only pay 30 percent of their incomes.
“These grants will help thousands of our nation’s very low-income elderly and persons with disabilities find decent housing that they can afford,” said HUD Secretary Steve Preston. “Neither group should ever have to worry about being able to find a safe place to live.”
KCEOC currently operates one 202 development, Sowders Manor, in Barbourville, with another, Mixon Manor, scheduled to open in spring of 2009.
For more information about the 202 projects, or any of KCEOC’s housing or other programs, contact the agency at 606-546-3152, or visit the agency’s Web site at www.povertyisreal.org.
