Trillium Health, the Rochester-based organization that focuses on promoting health equity, has received a $20 million state grant to fund the construction of 20 apartments on a former Inner Loop site.
Trillium’s president and CEO, Andrea DeMeo, said the grant is the largest that the 8-year-old organization has ever received.
“We’re extremely excited,” DeMeo said. “We’re very grateful to the state of New York.”
The apartments will house chronically homeless people who are 55 or older or living with HIV. DeMeo said those people are often on the “negative-outcome end” of health disparities.
The 20 apartments funded by the state grant are slated to be part of a 66-apartment project managed by Home Leasing, a local development companyinvested in properties along the filled-in section of the former Inner Loop. The building site is on Union Street between Broad Street and East Avenue, on a plot known as Parcel 3.
DeMeo said the construction fits into a larger context of supportive communities for people who are not well-served by traditional housing options. “As individuals age, there are fewer good housing opportunities for them locally,” she said.
DeMeo added that staff will be on hand to help residents who don’t have practice with some of the skills that form the backbone of independent living. “That’s balancing checkbooks, shopping for good nutrition, keeping their apartment safe from trips or falls,” she said.
Rent subsidies of up to $25,000 per year are also available through the state’s grant to Trillium. The apartments are slated to open in 2020.
