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MassDevelopment In The News
Upgraded Digs, Peace of Mind for Seniors at Leventhal House
February 25, 2007: The Boston Globe, by Will Kilburn
Thanks to a low-interest-rate bond, the 350 senior citizens who live at Leventhal House in Brighton will soon have homes that are not only more comfortable, but that will continue to be affordable for decades to come.
The $16 million bond was arranged with help from MassDevelopment, a quasi-public agency that helps strengthen businesses, institutions, and nonprofits in the state. In the case of Leventhal House, money will be used to improve individual apartments and upgrade the building as a whole, benefits that would not have been possible without the bond.
"If they had to go out to the taxable market, to a bank, say, they probably never could have afforded to do the renovations - the interest rate would have been too high," said Tony Fracasso, MassDevelopment's senior vice president for housing finance.
In addition to renovated bathrooms and the addition of wall cabinets to kitchens - work that has already begun, at an average cost of $39,000 for each of the 254 units - the bond will pay for the replacement of a costly and much-despised electric heating system mounted on the ceilings of units, which led to hot heads and cold feet for many residents. The bond also ensures that Leventhal House, which is operated by Jewish Community Housing for the Elderly but is open to all low-income seniors, will remain affordable for another 40 years. But preserving that low-income status was never in doubt, according to Ellen Feingold, president of the organization.
"Our mission is housing low-income elderly," said Feingold, who noted that while other, similar developments have sometimes been forced to make some units market-rate, that wasn't going to happen at Leventhal. "This building was built as 100 percent low-income elderly building, and we were not going to change that."
© Copyright 2007 The Boston Globe.
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