Senior campus fills quickly

WASILLA -- Wasilla Area Seniors Inc., a five-complex senior housing area off Knik-Goose Bay Road, continues to build new units as the demand for low-income senior housing grows in the Valley.

"Some seniors could live other places, but they don't get the same quality of apartments and the senior services we provide," said Tim Anderson, the executive director for WASI.

Anderson said the most recent addition to the campus, a 26-unit complex called The Eagle's Nest, basically filled up on the first day when its doors opened in January. Anderson also said the waiting list is still quite long, hence the new housing complex being built this summer.

"We will start sending letters out in October, writing and asking people 'are you ready to move?'" Anderson said. The newest addition to the campus will not only provide nine two-bedroom apartments on the downstairs level, it will also house 13 seniors in need of assisted living upstairs.

"People may live here 10 years, then suddenly find that they can't do all the [activities of daily living] requirements themselves," Anderson said. "We want people [who need assisted living] to move across the street and keep their friendship circle. We don't want to take people and jerk them out of their environment, we want them in the same place with the care they need."

Anderson said the assisted living addition is the next step in Alaska's senior campus concept, created in the Valley six years ago when the campus' first senior housing complex was being built.

"A campus concept is important, seniors can make a lot of friends living here," he said. "We are the model, we are the example for the rest of the state."

Right now the campus has 140 senior housing apartments; Anderson estimated that approximately 170 seniors are living on the campus. Rent is as low as $400 a month. The assisted living complex is scheduled for completion early next year. Anderson said he hopes the nine non-assisted living apartments will be filled in January 2004. The rest of the new residents should be able to move in later in the spring, once the final licensing for the program is complete. Even with this spring's new addition, the demand for low-income senior housing has the campus planning an additional 26-unit apartment building for the following year.