$56 million in Housing Authority repair needs worry senior tenants

Hazel Bauer raised her children as a single mother working for an insurance company.

Now 92, she moved into her ground-floor apartment at Pleasant Valley Plaza in Magnolia just a few months after the building opened in April 1984. She has lived there more than a quarter of her life.

"There is a bonding, a caring that takes place here among the residents," Bauer said. "It's a comfortable place to live."

Pleasant Valley Plaza is one of 23 apartment houses for low-income seniors scattered across the city, built with the proceeds from a 1981 voter-approved bond issue. Seattle Housing Authority, the landlord, says $56 million is needed to make major repairs to the aging buildings over the next 10 years — more money than was in the original ballot measure.

While the buildings remain quite livable, the prospect of coming up with that much money is daunting. The Seattle Senior Housing Program relies solely on rent revenue to cover costs, with no government subsidy to help pay for building maintenance.

Last week, the Housing Authority floated very preliminary options for financing the repairs. Residents and their advocates found a couple of the ideas unpalatable.

One calls for selling two or three buildings and leveraging the proceeds to finance repairs on the others. Another would raise the minimum rent from the current $248 a month, effectively making the program no longer available to those in the lowest income brackets.

"That would eliminate so many people," Bauer said. "It also would fly in the face of the mission that this program is for low-income seniors."

If seniors with very low incomes were turned away, they could be housed in other low-income apartment buildings, such as Housing Authority high-rises that serve a broader mix of low-income people.

Jean Anderson, 76, a retired court reporter and former choir director who has lived next door to Bauer for the past 10 years, said those bigger buildings are far less attractive options for seniors. Seattle Senior Housing Program's buildings average about 43 units, and each has a common area where residents socialize.

Inside Pleasant Valley Plaza's community room, residents play bingo or cards; exercise classes are scheduled in the mornings, and potlucks happen almost every month. A piano and a TV share space with shelves stacked with books, movies and jigsaw puzzles.

At Michaelson Manor, a building on Lower Queen Anne, a resident with master-gardening skills has helped turn an outdoor patio into an oasis. Edyth Koch, 72, who has lived at Michaelson Manor about nine years, said she never really thought about planning for her retirement until it was too late. A registered nurse by trade, she spent most of her adult life as a homemaker raising her children.

She would like the Housing Authority to better break down the $56 million, detailing which repairs are urgent. "If they say that in the next year they need $4 million or $5 million for some major repairs, that's easier to swallow," she said.

Virginia Felton, communications director for the Housing Authority, said the agency laid out the options for discussion purposes, and not to suggest "that any are good ideas or that we intend to do them."

She added: "We have not ignored maintenance on buildings. What we might have failed to do was to anticipate the magnitude of future needs as the buildings have gotten older."

Anderson, who chairs the program's residents advocate group, agreed that the Housing Authority has maintained the buildings well over the years. But seals have broken on double-pane windows, resulting in leaks and wood rot. Elevators are old and need to be modernized. The intercom systems rarely work.

The Housing Authority also brought up the possibilities of raising money through the 2009 city housing levy and asking the Legislature for state funds. The city in the fall will begin entertaining ideas for what to include in the 2009 housing levy, with the mayor submitting his proposal to the City Council in the spring.

"We should examine only those options that guarantee no loss of housing units and those that would maintain the current rent levels that serve low- and very low-income people," said John Fox, of the Seattle Displacement Coalition, who serves on a panel that advises the senior housing program. "These voter-approved buildings are critical assets and represent a huge chunk of the city's low-income housing resource."

The program totals almost 1,000 units, all with one or two bedrooms and designed for independent living.

Anderson said the resident advocates group has suggested in the past that the Housing Authority could save money by eliminating some program staff positions.

Anderson is concerned about how the money will be raised but also has faith in the people who voted to construct the buildings some 27 years ago, finding comfort in the old saying that a society is judged on how it treats its most vulnerable members.

"I always have been impressed with how Seattle treats seniors who don't have a lot of money," Anderson said. "I'd hate to see that disintegrate."

Stuart Eskenazi: 206-464-2293 or seskenazi@seattletimes.com