Orange County NC Website
41 <br /> 1776 <br /> 1777 Dolores Bailey: That's not a problem for many of the people I serve. I provide affordable housing and in <br /> 1778 Orange County there's a 1,900-unit gap of people who are looking for housing.And seniors in particular, and black <br /> 1779 and brown seniors in particular.And Carol Woods has a 1,600 person wait list.And there's not much diversity on that <br /> 1780 list. <br /> 1781 <br /> 1782 Mareah Steketee: Correct. <br /> 1783 <br /> 1784 Dolores Bailey: So Carol Woods has not figured out how to provide diversity. I am saying this because if <br /> 1785 you're getting ready to build a community like this, you really must look at that. And let me just give a comment on <br /> 1786 something you said. The African-American community is no longer able to keep their families at home. They <br /> 1787 absolutely want and need places like this but often when they are created, like what this sounds like to my ears, is <br /> 1788 exclusive. It does not include everyone and so what I think I heard was that we need to change the zonings because <br /> 1789 you want to put in a facility for aging. You're going to put in a family center but you don't want to be seen. <br /> 1790 <br /> 1791 Mareah Steketee: No,we think that others don't want to see us, ma'am. <br /> 1792 <br /> 1793 Dolores Bailey: That is so not true. The need for housing in Orange County is so desperate for everybody. <br /> 1794 <br /> 1795 Mareah Steketee: It is. Yes, it is. <br /> 1796 <br /> 1797 Dolores Bailey: As Chris said, if he could live in this community, he would, too. It's a wonderful-sounding <br /> 1798 community. So, if you are not going to restrict it to 55, if this is not a retirement center which we need more of in <br /> 1799 Orange County,we do, there's no place for people to age which is why this sounded good to me because it sounded <br /> 1800 like you were creating another Carol Woods but that's not what you're doing. So, I am confused. <br /> 1801 <br /> 1802 Mareah Steketee: Well,the confusion probably comes because the CCRCs that you are familiar with, Carol <br /> 1803 Woods, etc. are enormously expensive. Many of our community members could not afford to live there and so we're <br /> 1804 looking for an alternative that is between,that isn't age restricted. In fact,there's a person who's interested in the <br /> 1805 community who says I have a disabled daughter who needs her own home. Can she live in this community? We say <br /> 1806 absolutely yes. We're not restricting. We need to do a better job at reaching out, right? A lot of our interested <br /> 1807 parties right now don't want to commit because they don't want to do it before zoning. They're more risk averse. We <br /> 1808 have a lot of outreach and marketing to do yet. We're at the beginning of that. Even though we have 34 people who <br /> 1809 say I want to live there and 100 more who are interested and many more in the background,yes,we can do a better <br /> 1810 job of being inclusive. We have not said tonight that we're affordable housing because we have tried very hard to <br /> 1811 meet that bar and with a family-care home,two family-care homes,and the expense of a common house and health <br /> 1812 facilities, it's very difficult to keep the cost down. That has to be spread across all the people in the community and <br /> 1813 once we're established there may be an opportunity to provide some options for people with lower income, but we <br /> 1814 don't want to be exclusive in terms of background. <br /> 1815 <br /> 1816 Dolores Bailey: When you mention the affordable side of it, normally we base that on people's income,and if <br /> 1817 we're talking about seniors I am convinced there's not going to be a whole lot of really high incomes that are out <br /> 1818 there. You talk about exclusivity,you mention the family center and needing caretakers. Will the caretakers be able <br /> 1819 to live here? <br /> 1820 <br /> 1821 Mareah Steketee: We've talked about it. <br /> 1822 <br /> 1823 Scott Radway: Dolores,we've known each other and gone through a lot of affordable housing wars on the <br /> 1824 same side.And I wanted to make one comment about what people are talking about and some of the questions are <br /> 1825 about is anybody could live there that's under 55 and some other things like that. Some of you may have experience <br /> 1826 with age 55 or age 62 age-restricted residential developments, and some with CCRCs, and some with assisted living <br />