Word Travels Fast About Plush Housing for Lower-Income Seniors

The new affordable, mid-rise apartment building for seniors near the Columbia Heights Metro station does not look like subsidized housing.

A fireplace, comfortable chairs, and richly colored carpets and window treatments greet residents inside the front entrance. A lounge with large-screen television and an adjacent library with built-in bookshelves are just beyond.

The appearance appealed to Velma Latney, a resident and former nurse. "I was really surprised that it doesn't look like your average senior citizen's building," she said. "It's more plush than that."

Victory Heights, a seven-story, red-and-tan brick building at the corner of 14th and Irving streets NW, owes its comfortable interior to $150,000 earmarked for decor. "The grant for all of the furnishings takes it from being just a shell and makes it indistinct from a market-rate building down the street," said John Spencer, vice president and chief operating officer of Victory House, the Bethesda nonprofit group that owns the property.

The building was financed mainly with federal money designated for senior housing. Victory Housing, which is affiliated with the Catholic Archdiocese of Washington, owns 21 communities in the D.C. area, including seven buildings for very low-income seniors.

As Columbia Heights has become an increasingly desirable location because of access to the Metro and major stores opening in recent years, low rents -- and neighborhood old-timers -- are all but disappearing.

"Building an all-affordable, low-income senior residence nearly on top of a Metro station says a lot about the heart and soul of Columbia Heights," said D.C. Council member Jim Graham (D-Ward 1). "I'm very proud of this effort because it will keep a lot of good people in the neighborhood who otherwise might have to move."

To qualify for housing at Victory Heights, residents can earn no more than 50 percent of the area's median income. That's a ceiling of $33,100 a year for one person, site manager Delphine Duckett said. Many residents make far less, but no matter what their income, "everyone pays 30 percent of their income, and HUD picks up the difference," Duckett said.

Duckett recently held a lunch for new residents to get to know one another. Some are new to the area, but many have lived in the District for years. For example, Ida Session and her aunt Eula Fain lived in an apartment building on T Street NW. They moved to Victory Heights -- each to her own one-bedroom unit -- on Nov. 10.

Session also told her friend Lillie Hines about the property. Hines moved in Dec. 10. Session and Hines grew up together in North Carolina, and though Hines had lived in the District for more than 30 years, she had moved south. When Session asked her to return to Washington, she was ready. "I got homesick for this area," she said.

Hines went to another Victory Housing property to fill out the application for consideration and was impressed. "When I saw the one in Landover, I said, 'Wow, I hope and pray I get in,' " she said.

All 75 units in the building are one-bedroom and have 540 square feet, Duckett said. There are slight variations in the five floor plans, including placement of the bathroom and size of the windows.