Tl housing authority receives funding
Representative John McHugh announced this week that the Tupper Lake Housing Authority was one of more than a half dozen communities across the North Country to be awarded public housing grants.
$25,869 is being awarded to Tupper Lake through the Department of Housing and Urban Development's Capital Fund Program as additional dollars from fiscal year 2003.
Mary Jarvis, Executive Director of the Tupper Lake Housing Authority said the $25,000 grant is on top of another $136,000 they received from HUD this year. The additional funding was welcome news, she said. With the state of the economy and things that have to take some precedence, I personally wasn't expecting to get the amount she said. But I'm always happy when we do that means we can continue some of the items that we had to cut back.
Jarvis said the grant will allow further work at the housing authority, also known as the Ivy Terrace Apartments, to make the apartments more accessible to persons with disabilities. The funding also will help pay for the cost of roadwork and sidewalk repair among other projects. Work has already been going on this year to replace refrigerators and ranges in the apartments.
Ultimately it is the low-income public housing residents who will reap the benefits of housing and management improvements the funds will allow said Congressman McHugh.
The Tupper Lake Housing Authority provides 90 units of low-income public housing. The original 70 units were built in 1970 and another 20 in 1980.
Jarvis said that just a few years ago there was a very lengthy waiting list for the apartments. But when interest rates went down and the job market improved in the late 1990's, units began to open up. Now, Jarvis said, they're starting to go back the other way. We have a full house again completely and a waiting list for some of our family units she said.
I don't know what our immediate future will bring as far as the need for housing, but the type of housing I primarily see our area in need of is assisted living for our senior citizens.
Housing Authorities in Malone, Plattsburgh, Canton, Massena and Ogdensburg also received additional grant funding from 2003 according to Congressman McHugh.
SOOOOOOOO with this why hasn't anything been done to improve the ivy terrace apartments. The two and three bedrooms were able to get new flooring in the apartments but the two bedrooms did not. Mary said it was because they didnt have anymore funding left to do them. What a joke!
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