The City of Chicago, the Center on Halsted and Heartland Housing are about to break ground on the Midwest's first LGBT-friendly affordable senior housing facility.
Center on Halsted CEO Modesto Tico Valle said a ground-breaking ceremony will be held toward the end of the month to start construction on the 79-unit facility, which will be built just north of northwest corner of Halsted and Addison streets and include the historic 23rd District Town Hall police station.
The Chicago City Council approved the land transfer on Mar. 13, in addition to several sources of city funding including up to $5 million in HOME dollars, Low-Income Housing Tax Credits and Illinois Affordable Housing Tax Credits. The deal was finalized and closed in mid-April.
"The city and everyone we've worked with have been very excited that this is another step in the right direction, that a leading city is going to be creating affirming, affordable housing and that speaks loudly," Valle said.
The project has come along as conceived, according Nadia Underhill, associate director of real estate development at Heartland Housing, especially considering the complications that arose from adaptive reuse regarding the historic police station. The project will preserve the station's exterior along with certain interior details, she said.
One of the major changes to the plan came from planning charrettes, or focus groups, with seniors, many of whom are involved with Center on Halsted's SAGE programming. After listening to seniors' needs and desires, Heartland made changes to the unit layouts to make them as flexible as possible and also made more space for larger social gatherings.
"We were having discussions about people's lives and the lives they envisioned for people who might live in the building," Underhill said. "The importance of friend networks and the role that socializing and gathering has played for people became very clear."
One of the way Heartland will meet that need is by creating a shared dining room space for residents to host gatherings of 8-10 people.
"We hope (the dining room space) will give people who are dependent and connected to friends and family networks a space to continue having those interactions in their new housing," Underhill said.
Valle added that many of the seniors he has heard from expressed an interest in a community space to be closer to friends. He said a group of seniors who were regulars at Bucks Saloon in Boystown, for example, approached him right after the LGBT-friendly bar closed last month wanting to know how they could get on a list.
"If anything, we've been able to put the spotlight on aging and people are thinking about that and thinking about how will they age in community, that they don't have to age alone," Valle said.
Construction will last about 16 months, Underhill said, and Heartland will begin accepting housing applications sometime next spring. Both Heartland and Center on Halsted expect a large amount of interest from hopeful residents, and stress that while the facility will be LGBT-friendly, they cannot discriminate in leasing.
"Hopefully, people will self-select themselves out of the project if they are not our allies," Valle said.
During construction, Valle said the Center hopes to offer hardhat tours of the new building as well as provide some fundraising opportunities that will allow for some creative partnering.
Meanwhile, the success of this project to date has already made waves in the Chicago area. Valle said that Center on Halsted was awarded a request for proposal to help create another LGBT-affirming senior housing project in the Western suburb of Berwyn.
For future updates on the project, Center on Halsted plans to keep people informed via social media and its new magazine/newsletter The Ville.
