GLO funds open Orange senior apartments

Orange is getting a new 80-unit senior apartment community near the intersection of Highway 62 and Interstate 10.

A celebration was held Wednesday, June 16, to christen the SilverLeaf at Orange, a project built with $8.8 million in funding from the Texas General Land Office.

“It’s nice,” said Precinct 2 County Commissioner Theresa Beauchamp, whose broad area includes the new housing.

“We needed that in that area,” she said.

It will be an affordable rental housing complex, which shared a Wednesday debut with the rebuilt 208-unit Pebble Creek Apartments in Port Arthur.

The GLO disaster recovery team awarded $7.5 million to repair the Port Arthur complex.

Seventy-two of the Orange units and 146 of the Port Arthur apartments have been set aside specifically for low-to-moderate-income families in accordance with rules set down by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) funds.

Commissioner Beauchamp said SilverLeaf of Orange will require all residents to be 55 and over and children aren’t allowed to live there.

The GLO has disbursed $588 million in the grant funds to help rehabilitate, reconstruct and construct 80 multifamily rental housing developments damaged or destroyed by Hurricane Harvey in 48 eligible counties outside Houston and Harris County.

In total, 6,002 rental homes are being rebuilt or newly constructed to replenish affordable workforce housing.

In this program, builders applying for the funding are required to designate at least 51% of the units for low-to-moderate-income families with rents capped at the HUD Home Investment Partnership limits. Per HUD guidelines, a family is considered low-to-moderate-income if they earn 80% or less than the Area Median Family Income. Each apartment complex will be restricted for low income housing for 20 years after completion of new construction and 15 years after completion of repairs.