disabled housing

[John Reid]

Hello,

I am new to the site (love it!) and have been investing in property with three friends for the past 2-3 years. We live in a city whose population is a bit lower on the socioeconomic scale. Our area is, unfortunately, economically depressed and has been for many years. Few young people stay, and there is a large percentage of seniors and the disabled. Things are not likely to change in the near future. My inquiry is about housing for the physically disabled.

Our area has a large percentage of people who are physically disabled and receive some sort of government assistance. I also work for a VA hospital and every day I see all around the facility many, many people with disabilities--not small ones but very significant physical disabilities. Many who rely on scooters and motorized wheelchairs or canes/walkers to get around. The numbers are actually staggering.

My friends/partners and I have tossed around the idea of building a one story apartment building or renovating one to make it disabled friendly. It seems to me this is a largely underserved if not neglected group in our area who need adequate housing just like everyone else.

We've thought about maybe buying an old motel and renovating it or new construction that is near a bus line and within close distance to a grocery store. VA hospitals are also (as a rule) pretty good at assisting disabled vets with finding good housing.

It seems that there is a market here, at least in our community. Anyone else out there building or rehabbing for the disabled? Has it turned out well financially? I would love to hear any experiences or words of advice. What should we do or not do? I have also heard that some communities have grants to modify housing for the disabled although I haven't looked into that yet. Anybody applied or received any funding?

Thanks in advance!
John Reid

[Chase T.]

If you can do it economically, do it! This population is usually happy to stay in apartments that are accessible and don't move often. The problems that I see have to do with things like door and hallway widths, transitions, and the need for ramps and such. If you have to redo too much in-order to make the necessary widths, it's not going to work. Furthermore, if the sidewalks and the area aren't accessible, than it might also not work. Checkout local accessible housing advocacy groups to checkout what they have the most demand for.

Make sure that the people you want to occupy the units can afford them in general. There are many residents who live off of HCVs and SSI. You may have to cater to this group. Remember to apply your (hopefully stringent) screening process to this group as well. I've also had bad experiences.