A rendering of what rooms will look like at Monarch Manor northwest of Columbia. (Provided/Transitions Homeless Center)
COLUMBIA — A six-figure donation from a Columbia church will help with renovations at Transitions Homeless Center’s new apartments for older adults and veterans with disabilities.
All told, the apartment complex will provide permanent homes for 55 eligible people for a low-cost rental fee. The first of three buildings, slated to open in late summer, will include 11 apartments and an adult daycare. The nonprofit has yet to announce the timeline or cost for the remaining apartments.
“Once we’re done, we’ll have (the units) filled within a week,” Gavin Brown, Transitions’ vice president of advancement, told the SC Daily Gazette on Tuesday. “There’s that big of a need.”
The apartments will all comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act, including ramps instead of stairs and showers with seats and grab bars. The first residents will be people who have federal housing vouchers and can afford the reduced rent but cannot find an apartment that suits their health needs, Brown said.
“We have options for people who are ambulatory,” Brown said. “The goal of this is that we reduce trips and falls.”
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Eastminster Presbyterian Church’s $100,000 donation will help with $5.5 million in renovations to the building. So far, Transitions has raised $2.6 million, on top of the $2.3 million it spent to buy the former office building northwest of downtown Columbia, Brown said.
“We pray the support we are able to provide will have a lasting impact on the lives of veterans and seniors facing homelessness in our community,” the church on Trenholm Road in Columbia said in a statement.
The hope is that other churches will follow suit after seeing Eastminster donate, Transitions CEO Craig Currey said in a release.
“Their significant contribution will help the elderly and disabled while also encouraging other churches to give to this worthwhile effort,” he said.
Most of the people who came to Transitions last year — 56% — had a chronic health issue or disability, according to the nonprofit’s most recent annual report. Of the 1,316 people who stayed at the Midland’s largest shelter last year, 9% were veterans and 17% were 62 or older. Those categories are not mutually exclusive, meaning one person could fall in all three.
Adults 50 and older are the fastest-growing age group without housing nationwide, according to a report commissioned by the federal Office of Behavioral Health, Disability, and Aging Policy.
They make up nearly half of the nation’s homeless, according to the report released last fall, and their numbers are expected to triple by 2030. Many of them are living on fixed incomes that don’t cover all of their expenses, particularly housing costs, the report found.
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At the same time, the country has a shortage of affordable housing units. And many of the affordable apartments offered are not accessible for people with disabilities, such as those who use wheelchairs or walkers, Brown told the SC Daily Gazette.
While Transitions’ Monarch Manor apartments will not have as many resources as the homeless shelter, it will have at least one case worker to help connect people to aid such as grocery benefits, Brown said.
Along with helping get people into permanent housing, the new apartment complex “will free up crucial space” for more people at Transitions’ existing facilities downtown, allowing the center to help more homeless people find permanent solutions, according to a news release.
The apartment complex will also offer an adult daycare, run through Prisma Health’s SeniorCare Programs of All-inclusive Care for the Elderly, also known as PACE.
Transitions already runs an adult daycare, but SeniorCare PACE will offer additional services, including transportation, medical care and recreational therapy, according to the hospital system’s website. People will be able to drop off their adult relatives who need extra care during the day, allowing them to go to work or run errands.
“It’s a good fit for us,” Brown said.
Gov. Henry McMaster’s budget proposal for the coming fiscal year included putting $10 million toward a new Columbia hub for homeless services, at the request of Columbia Mayor Daniel Rickenmann. The idea involved Transitions and Oliver Gospel, the city’s two primary nonprofits serving homeless people, moving out of their downtown buildings. Legislators said no. Neither the House nor Senate put any money into the project in their separate spending plans.
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