LINC Members Visit Seniors

LINC Members Visit Seniors
HOUSING: Tour through Seasons II lets board members and bank lenders see development.

Long Beach Press-Telegram, June 26, 2008
By Samantha Gonzaga, Staff Writer

LAKEWOOD — The breakfast conversations were memorable and personal and the residents who got visits from more than two dozen strangers were polite.

The visits were to Seasons II, an affordable senior apartment community of 85 units at 21309 Bloomfield Ave., which was the first stop of a bus tour by Long Beach-based LINC Housing Corp. LINC is a nonprofit founded in 1984 by the Southern California Association of Governments that provides affordable housing to seniors and families.

Elissa Tedesco/LINC Housing Corp.

“The real point of the tour is to show stakeholders what we do,” said Hunter Johnson, LINC Housing CEO. “So many of us do this from an office some place.”

Seasons II residents mingled with bank lenders, granters and LINC board members, some of whom have not had the chance to visit the properties that LINC has developed.

The tour’s other stops were at City Gardens in Santa Ana, home to 274 families; and Dorado Senior Apartments in Buena Park, a 150-unit affordable senior housing building.

LINC so far has converted and developed nearly 40 properties, amounting to about 4,000 living units, Johnson said.

“It’s very hard to find land, it’s very hard to find reasonable prices, because people talk about ‘this low-cost housing’ but you look at this,” Johnson gestured at the understated but elegant landscaped mini-community of Seasons II “and it doesn’t look like (low-cost housing).”

Seasons II was financed with low-income tax credits and bond money, he adding, “The art of building affordable housing is layering the financing, not the architecture.”

“We think it’s important to know who we serve,” said Nina Dooley, vice president of corporate development and communications.

Before visiting two units, the group was introduced to LINC’s assortment of resident services that include tutoring, senior nutrition, financial literacy and exercise programs.

Some 400 volunteers give their time to LINC residents, last month clocking in 300 hours, said Maria Marquez, director of resident services.

“Everybody loves being here,” said Torrance Councilman and three-year LINC board member Paul Nowatka of the responses he's heard from residents. “It’s really emotional, actually, because you see so many people happy and you feel what you are doing is good.”

Return to Index