The Park Avenue Apartments will open their doors in less than a month, and LSS is busy getting ready. The process of finding tenants is almost over – as of August 5, almost 90% of the 48 apartments have been set aside for approved residents. With over 1000 applications for housing, a lottery was held to choose families to move in. More than 48 applications were drawn in the lottery because not every family would qualify, and some families have pulled their applications from consideration. Staff are busy working with Hayes-Gibson, the property management firm, to gather the necessary paperwork so that families can get approved.

Construction continues to move along at a fast clip. The building is being completed from the top down; the fifth floor gets completed first, then the fourth on down. The mock unit was completed in July so that stakeholders could get a sense of how a completed apartment would look and feel. Crews are working very hard to get the work done by September 1 so that 48 families will be able to call Park Avenue Apartments their home.

“We’re really only scratching the surface of the need for affordable housing,” said Dawn Horgan, Program Director of Housing Services at LSS. “We received more than 20 times the applications for the number of units we have. With that type of interest we know that we are in the right business of developing affordable housing for our community.”