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10/05/2016 08:30 AMIt is easy enough to see what is on Joann Hourigan’s mind these days. Just drive by the construction on Route 154 in Deep River next to Kirtland Commons. Kirtland, an affordable housing complex overseen by the Deep River Housing Authority, is adding 18 new units and Joann is the director of the authority.
According to Joann, the housing authority had long been looking for both funding and a location to create more units. After frustrating searches for new sites, the late Dick Smith, Deep River’s longtime first selectman, suggested the present parking lot as a construction spot.
“Dick was an incredible mentor for me. He knew all about funding, knew about programs. His loss was a blow personally, but the program goes on,” Joann says.
The town owns the land, bought 27 years ago, on which Kirtland Commons and its parking lot are situated and has leased it to the housing authority for 99 years. One question about the new construction remained: What to do about parking if a building were placed on the current lot? The design solved the problem: a ground level parking garage and three floors of apartments above it.
The new building will be an addition with access to the older units, rather than a freestanding structure. Construction is scheduled to be finished by June 2017.
“Hopefully the weather will cooperate,” Joann says.
In 2014, Deep River successfully applied for a grant from the Connecticut Housing Finance Authority. In order to be eligible for a grant, the design of the new construction had to be finished and the project had to be ready to start.
“We had applied a couple of times before, but we had never gotten a grant,” Joann says. “Luckily this time we were funded.”
Joann adds that only six affordable housing projects, including Deep River, got money in that round of grant making, though some 60 had applied.
For Deep River, expansion was crucial to the financial health of Kirtland Commons. The housing complex, which at present has 26 apartments, receives no state aid, though individual apartment residents are eligible for rent subsidies. Rents are the sustaining financial support of the complex. A recent study had shown that unless Kirtland Commons expanded, it would be bankrupt in some two years. The study indicated a minimum of 16 new units would be necessary for financial viability; the new construction exceeds that by two, with 18 units planned.
The new, one-bedroom apartments will be snug but comfortable at 750 square feet each. That’s slightly smaller than the existing apartments, but there is a bonus for residents in the new apartments.
“They will lose 100 square feet but they will gain a dishwasher,” Joann says (the older units don’t have dishwashers).
She explains that the need for the affordable housing is pressing. There is a two-year wait list for apartments at Kirtland Commons.
“Someone calls up to say their dad died and their mom is alone and needs to move to Kirtland, and they think it can happen right away. I have to explain we have a long waiting list,” she says. “I’ve gotten at least one call a week about moving in here for the last 20 years.”
Joann, who grew up in Chester and graduated from Valley Regional High School, has been at Kirtland for its entire existence, more than 20 years. The housing complex opened in l993. Before coming to Kirtland, she worked at Susan Bates, the knitting needle company once located in Deep River. She had just returned from maternity leave in l991 when the company was sold and the business relocated to South Carolina. The new owners of the business offered Bates employees retraining and Joann took advantage of it by going to Middlesex Community College for a two-year program in Human Services.
She did a practicum in elderly housing at the Deep River Housing Authority when Kirtland was in the process of construction. James Burns, then the chairman of the Deep River Housing Authority, suggested she apply for the position of director. She has never left.
At the moment, the oldest occupant of Kirtland Commons is 100 and has lived at the complex since it opened. Residents must be 62 years old and income-eligible to apply for apartments, though younger people with physical handicaps are also eligible. Kirtland has a record that any landlord would envy.
“Never in 24 years have people not paid rent,” Joann says.
There are programs within the building, like yoga and crafts, for the residents to take advantage of. Though all the apartments have kitchens, volunteers serve dinner two nights a week—”Great meals,” Joann says.
The residents, Joann says, are more than tenants to her. They are family.
“I love my residents. I love being part of this time in their lives,” she says. “I treat them all like family, how I would like my own mom to be treated.”