Housing and health care meet at the new Senior Residences at Mercy Park in Chamblee, Ga.
Developed by Mercy Housing Southeast, the 79-unit community provides affordable housing for residents 62 and older earning between 50% and 60% of the area median income. Eight units are designated for veterans, and six are for people with disabilities.
Senior Residences shares its campus and is just a few steps from a 40,000-square-foot medical clinic developed by mission-aligned partner Mercy Care. Mercy Care provides the only health care for the homeless program in Atlanta and in 2016 opened its newest federally qualified health center on the Mercy Park site.
Senior Residences was completed this year, and the co-location of housing and health-care facilities creates a unique opportunity to deliver a high level of direct services to the low-income senior residents as well as the broader Chamblee community. The clinic provides a full range of services including adult and pediatric primary medical care, vision, dental, diagnostic, and behavioral health. There are also services to support aging in place.
“The industry is looking hard at how to address health and affordable housing,” says Ronit Hoffer, project developer at Mercy Housing Southeast, noting that the Mercy Park campus serves as a new model.
Senior Residences, which provides a mix of one- and two-bedroom apartments, replaces a former brownfield with a LEED Gold building that utilizes solar panels to power the common areas and reduce utility costs to operations by more than 60%. It’s also a transit-oriented development, sitting across from a MARTA train station.
Financing for the $15.8 million development includes approximately $12.6 million in low-income housing tax credit equity provided by the National Equity Fund, $2.25 million of state and county HOME funds, and $500,000 from the Federal Home Loan Bank of Atlanta’s Affordable Housing Program.
