Bob Dull

As more seniors migrate to public housing, the Chattanooga Housing Authority is seeking tax credits to help pay for a $9 million renovation to the Boynton Terrace Apartments downtown.

The apartments, built in 1971 in the Golden Gateway area, occupy the largest of four high-rise buildings for seniors managed by the authority.

“Preservation of elderly housing and development of housing is critical,” CHA Executive Director Bob Dull said. “It’s going to be the greatest need for housing in the next decade.”

CHA officials are applying to the Tennessee Housing Development Agency for the tax credits. The tax credit program gives developers incentives to build affordable housing by offering credits to the investors, Mr. Dull said.

The proposed renovation eventually will include all 250 units in the three buildings that make up Boynton Terrace, Mr. Dull said. Plans include making more apartment units handicap accessible, replacing most windows in the units, resurfacing the parking area and making all areas comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act. Contractors also will do major work on the sewer lines, full interior renovation of all units, fire and safety upgrades, and heating and air conditioning improvements in the hall and lobby areas.

The Chattanooga Housing Authority Board of Commissioners is expected to consider the tax-credit application Tuesday. If approved, the Boynton renovation will be the authority’s biggest renovation in at least the past two years, said Naveed Minhas, CHA’s development executive.

“Construction could start as early as January of next year,” he said.

CHANGING POPULATION

Disabled and senior residents age 50 and older are expected to replace single women with children as the dominant population in Chattanooga’s public-housing sites within the next 10 years, Mr. Dull said.

Single mothers have dominated the head-of-household demographic in public housing for at least the past 30 years, he said.

However, the number of residents 50 and older living in public housing has increased at least for the past four years, CHA officials said. That population increased from 1,031 in 2005 to 1,083 in 2008, figures show.

“People are living longer, and we’re about to have our greatest increase of elderly residents as baby boomers are aging,” Mr. Dull said.

It wasn’t until the mid-1950s, nearly two decades after the first public housing was built in Chattanooga, that Congress began giving preference to seniors for public housing, according to a September 2006 report co-published by the Milbank Memorial Fund and the Council of Large Public Housing Authorities.

Housing officials then started developing low-income housing specifically for seniors, and since that time public housing has become the largest federal program offering housing assistance to low-income older people.

Aging baby boomers who cannot afford their own homes often end up in public housing, said Jannette Elder, 53, a Boynton resident of 10 years and vice president of CHA’s citywide resident association.

“They’ve got to go somewhere, and public housing is the stepping stone,” Ms. Elder said.

Statewide, the Tennessee Housing Development Agency projects the number of public housing residents disabled or age 50 and older will increase 20 percent to 40 percent in the next decade, Mr. Dull said.

IMPACT ON RESIDENTS

Chattanooga Housing Authority officials said they expect to know in September if they will receive the money for the Boynton renovations. If they get it, they are required to give residents at least a 90-day notice before moving them.

The authority will pay residents to relocate according to the number of bedrooms in their apartments. Some residents will be offered units in other public housing sites, and some will be offered vouchers for rental housing if any becomes available, CHA officials said.

Ms. Elder said the planned renovations are needed.

“Boynton has been put on the back burner for so long that it’s falling down,” she said.

The housing authority completed a $4 million renovation of Gateway Apartments within the past five years. The city renovated Dogwood Manor, and the Lawler-Wood development company has done work to the Overlook.

CHA also is applying for $5 million to renovate the second tower at Mary Walker Towers, the authority’s elderly high rise in Alton Park.

The housing authority spent about $2 million to renovate the smaller tower in 2001.

Carletta Davis, 61, said during a recent resident meeting that she wants to make sure she returns when the renovations at Boynton Terrace are complete. She also is concerned about where she will live while the building is being upgraded.

“I just don’t want to be somewhere that isn’t safe,” she said.

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