By By JONATHAN CLAYBORNE
Staff Writer
A Washington housing agency is offering alternatives for low- to moderate-income senior citizens who neither want nor need to move into assisted-living facilities.
St. John Housing, located at 300 Minuteman Lane, comprises 36 apartments reserved for residents 62 years old or older.
Housing guidelines stipulate that St. John residents can’t be charged more than 30 percent of their monthly income for rent, said Helen O’Neal, property manager.
Water and electric utilities are included in the residents’ rent, O’Neal said.
“I’m sure that a lot of them consider that a plus,” she commented.
St. John Housing is the realized dream of Russell Wilkins, pastor of St. John Church of Christ (Disciples of Christ), said Evelyn Roberson, chairwoman of the housing board.
The complex, built in 1999, opened to its first tenant in January 2000, O’Neal said.
The apartments house 39 people, including three couples, O’Neal said.
Asked what alternatives the residents would have if St. John did not exist, Roberson replied, “Public housing, if and when it was available, or living with relatives until housing becomes available.”
Asked about the availability of privately rented residences, Roberson said that many such units “are not affordable to the people that we serve here.”
St. John is a government-subsidized property operating under the licensing authority of the state, O’Neal said. Such housing developments are regulated by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, she said.
St. John has 25 people on its waiting list, an indication of the demand for the apartments, O’Neal said.
Phrocine Grimes said she has been a resident of St. John for 10 years.
Without her apartment, “I don’t know where I would go,” she said, adding, “I’d rather be here.”
“It’s so convenient and quiet, and peaceful,” Grimes said.
Grimes does her own in-home cooking, and O’Neal and Roberson said that collards are her speciality.
Also in residence are Sylvia and Albert Reed, one of St. John’s three couples. Sylvia Reed said the two have resided at the complex for more than 10 years.
Reed said she and her husband — she a nurse-turned-aid worker, he a truck-driver-turned-handyman — owned a five-bedroom house on Charlotte Street in Washington.
But her husband has had 15 hip operations, and she has suffered a massive heart attack, she said. Since then, they’ve turned the house over to their son, she said.
“All of this happened just spontaneously,” she noted.
Reed indicated that St. John represented a welcome turn of good fortune at a time when she and her husband needed affordable accommodations.
“Love it,” she said.
St. John amenities include a reception room, a banquet area with a flat-screen TV and an upright piano, a small library equipped with donated books and a computer, and a three-chair hair salon with two driers, a massage table, a manicurist station and a chair for pedicures.
Also on hand is a laundry room with driers and washers, and a treadmill and exercise bike in the corner.
A newsletter for residents shows Bible study, luncheon and exercise periods on the schedule.
Out back is a patio, a barbecue grill and a gazebo and picnic tables built by members of St. John church, O’Neal said.
Also out back are small garden plots tended by some of the residents and a little pond.
“We’re going to stock that pond this summer, and we’re going to fish out of it,” Roberson said.