CUOMO AWARDS $4.7 MILLION GRANT FOR SENIOR CITIZEN PUBLIC HOUSING TO MIAMI-DADE HOUSING AGENCY IN FLORIDA

U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Andrew Cuomo today awarded the Miami-Dade Housing Agency a $4.7 million grant to build a new senior citizen public housing development called Ward Towers Assisted Living Facility.

Cuomo announced the grant with Congresswoman Carrie Meek and Miami Mayor Alex Penelas. The Secretary said HUD is committed to meeting the housing needs of low-income senior citizens.

"Just as we want to save Social Security, we want to save housing security for older Americans in Miami-Dade and around the country," Cuomo said. "Our parents and grandparents shouldn't be forced into substandard housing or nursing homes where they don't belong."

The new Ward Towers Assisted Living Facility in Miami will be a five-story, 95-unit apartment building joined to an existing elderly housing complex by a one-story service center. The facility will provide a range of services including health care, meals and transportation to the frail elderly to enable them to live in their own apartments. The first-floor apartments will house residents with Alzheimer's.

Childcare will be provided for the children of employees at Ward towers. In addition to trained medical and social workers and other staff, public housing residents will work at the facility.

The new facility will replace the Musa Isle public housing development, which was vacated in 1996. The State of Florida has allocated $1.3 million in Medicaid waivers for the new facility.

The $4.7 million HUD grant is part of the Department's HOPE VI public housing revitalization program, which funds the renovation and replacement of severely distressed public housing.

There are about 1.4 million units of public housing around the nation, where about 2.8 million people live. The median annual income of households in public housing is $6,939. A total of 46 percent of households are made up of families with children, another 30 percent house senior citizens, and 11 percent are home to people with disabilities.

Today about 1.5 million senior citizens pay more than 50 percent of their income for housing or live in substandard housing. Cuomo said housing problems for older Americans could grow worse because the number of Americans age 65 or older will double from about 34.3 million today to about 69.4 million in the year 2030 - when one in five people in this country will be elderly.