Sacramento senior citizens will pay $1,005 a month — or less — for these one-bedroom units
The capital’s newest affordable housing community, Wong Center Senior Apartments, opened last month at the corner of 7th and F streets in the Sacramento Railyards at a cost of $53 million.
Nearly 600 senior citizens applied for the 150 apartments in the new Wong Center development, and a random lottery determined those selected for the 135 one-bedroom units and 15 two-bedroom units.
The rent for a one-bedroom, one-bath apartment will be $723, $924 or $1,005, depending on whether a renter’s household income is 40%, 50% or 60% of the area median income. Renters will pay $965, $1,005 or $1,256 monthly for the two-bedroom units, also dependent on household income. The U.S. government requires such income limits when any affordable housing property offers low-income housing tax credits to people or organizations that funded construction.
A resident service coordinator will help tenants connect with services that they need and will plan social or learning activities around what tenants suggest to Mutual Housing California.
If residents want to celebrate a birthday or anniversary with family and friends, they can use a first-floor community room that can accommodate 225 guests. Available two weekends each month, the room has a kitchen that includes a refrigerator and range, and it sits adjacent to public bathrooms and a water fountain. Residents pay a deposit, but if the room is cleaned to management standards, that money will be returned.
Residents have a number of amenities both indoors and outside: They can grill food in an outdoor picnic area and sit at tables and benches to enjoy their meals. If they’re interested in gardening, they can be assigned some space in a number of raised beds. A bocce ball court lies just steps away. There’s a small area with artificial turf where they can take their dogs to relieve themselves.
If residents require the use of a laptop computer, they will be able to check out a Google Chromebook and use it in the community room. If they own bicycles, they can secure them inside a storage room with entry doors inside and outside the building. The storage room also contains an air pump to fill tires and tools to help make repairs.
Light rail trains clanged and car engines raced out on 7th Street, but those noises didn’t penetrate a ground-floor, one-bedroom apartment inside the new Wong Center.
That golden silence is a byproduct of building for energy efficiency, said Ryan Cassidy, vice president of real estate development for Mutual Housing California, the nonprofit organization that developed the community.
“When you air-seal your apartments and make the assemblies really tight and you have lots of insulation, that does a lot of extra things other than keep the temperature in the apartment consistent,” he said, “It also blocks out sound. It’s better for pest control. It’s better for (preventing) smells (from) moving through apartments.”
Mutual Housing California brought together a number of funders to get this affordable housing project off the ground, including securing tax-exempt state bonds. The city of Sacramento contributed $3.5 million to the project.
Downtown Railyard Ventures, operated by father-son team Larry and Denton Kelley, provided the land for the project at the nominal price of $100. The Wong family donated $12.8 million for the project. This is the same family that developed Section 8 housing in the distinctive downtown tower with the pagoda-style roof on J Street, near Interstate 5.
Originally known as the Wong Center, that tower opened in 1973. The family sold it in 2016. Renamed Imperial Tower Apartments, the housing remains 100% Section 8.
